HISTORICAL MINDEDNESS What are maxims and the necessary tools to study history? PREFACE TO HISTORY - Carl Gustavson

What is History? As we move through the present world, yesterday constantly surrounds us.

HISTORICAL MAXIMS "A natural curiosity as to what underlies the surface appearance of any historical event" (Gustavson 6)

HISTORICAL MAXIMS "In studying any present problem, idea, event or institution, the mind of the historian inevitably gravitates in the direction of the past, seeking origins, relationships and comparisons" (Gustavson 6)

HISTORICAL MAXIMS "The student of society must try to discern the shapes and contours of the forces which are dynamic in society" (Gustavson 6).

HISTORICAL MAXIMS "Society is perpetually undergoing a process of change" (Gustavson 7).

HISTORICAL MAXIMS "He must approach his subject in a spirit of humility, prepared to recognize tenacious reality rather than what he wishes to find" (Gustavson 7). Edward Said (1935-2003)

HISTORICAL MAXIMS "Finally, the historian knows that each situation and event is unique" (Gustavson 7). Contrary to popular quotes – history does not repeat itself but human nature does.

FOUR MAXIMS CONTINUITY CHANGE CAUSATION SOCIAL FORCES

HISTORICAL MINDEDNESS Look beyond the event to search for patterns, forces, causes, and continuity We must dig below the surface to discover profiles and actions that shaped the event Events are but one point on a continuum Society is dynamic – in perpetual change Shaped by forces that have been building for some time

HISTORICAL TOOLBOX Geography is the first lesson of history 20th century as a Eurocentric world?

POLITICAL SPECTRUM

ART Pablo Picasso- Guernica

ART Ai Wei Wei (b. 1957) Political activist

LITERATURE 1984 George Orwell Thoughtcrime does not entail death; thoughtcrime is death. ‘Who controls the past’ (ran the Party slogan), ‘controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.’ People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word.

MUSIC

Social Forces are human energies which originate as individual motivations that grow and expand to the point where they are collective manifestations of power Economic Free market economy Power of the oil economy

POLITICAL New Deal 1980 Olympics Embargo

RELIGIOUS Missionaries Mohammed / Islam

Communism in the 20th Century IDEOLOGICAL Communism in the 20th Century

MILITARY/PHYSICAL Caudillo in Latin America Gulf War

TECHNOLOGICAL Printing Press Computers Handgun Caravel

IDEOLOGICAL “A revolution is caused by the misery of the people. A strong and tyrannical government persists in its misrule until the people can endure it no longer. Then, moved by spontaneous zeal and righteous indignation, the multitudes rise. They assault the citadels of power and expel the ruling class in a bloody civil war. As a consequence of the revolution, liberty is restored. -Carl Gustavson- True or False?