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====== History ======
----

===== Overview =====

<code>
evidence: physical (coins, buildings, paintings)
          written/oral: PRIMARY SOURCES
    |      
    |      
    |     SECONDARY SOURCES            <-----
    |     (written by other historians)      |
    |         |                              |
    |         |                              |
    |         |                              |
a story of the past -------------------------
</code>

===== Problems of Knowledge =====

  * evidence is liable to __forgery__,

  * "a" story, because history is liable to __bias__: every historian must be writing from some perspective, has to make some __selection__ from all the evidence and sources available --\\ \\ 
    * e.g. even writing about the Roman Empire, a British historian in1900, during the colonial time, will write differently from a modern American historian;\\ \\ 
    * so historians have a responsibility
      * to avoid presenting a one-sided view,
      * to make it clear where they stand.

===== Why We Study History =====

... either as individuals or as a society:

  * "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (George Santayana)

  * For a person, a family or a people to have a sense of identity.

  * For pleasure: we enjoy (writing and) reading stories -- //cf.// not only academic history, but also the many historical novels.

  * "The proper study of mankind is man" (Alexander Pope) -- but how can we know what man is capable of, if we do not know what man has done?