What is

history?
Why study history?
 What is
history?
Did you like history at
school? Why? Why not?
At school, what was
important for doing well
in history?
Why do people study
 What is history?
Memorizing dates, facts and
leaders?
1890: Emperor Meiji bestowed the Constitution upon the people of
Japan.
What is
history?
 History is finding
information.
Look at this picture.
What can we learn from it?
 What can we learn?
e.g.
• Clothes
• Mix of Japanese & Western
Aesthetics
• Attitudes
• Political structure
• Status of the emperor
• Technology
• Focus on military
• Artistic techniques
 Where can we find
history? •
• Books Pottery • Talking to
• Interview • Poems peopl
• Art • Cemeteries
e
s • Photos
• Speeches
• Maps
Timetables • Newspapers
• Diaries
• Fashion • News • Campsites
• Army • Company / • Posters
records school • Advertisements
documents • TV shows
• Music & records • And many
• Architecture
more
What is
history?
 Look at this picture.
Think of questions about
the information in the
picture.
 Question
• s Meiji?
Who was Emperor
• Why does everything look so western
in Japan?
• Why did he give the people a
constitution?
• Did he write the consitution? Did someone
lse write it?
• What were the important points in
the constitution?
• Did people support the constitution?
What is
history?
 History: Choosing information
What questions does the
picture raise?
•
•
•
•
History: Choosing and interpreting facts
Who am I?
• An only son
• Poor family
• Wanted to be rich
• Gathered together some friends.
• Started to attack people on an
island
• Stole all their money.
• Took them prisoner
• Lived a rich life on the stolen
goods.
Choosing facts is important
for creating history.
 How did the oni feel?
Why don’t we think about the
oni’s
side?
Analyse, interpret. What is
happening?
• A(n).. attack was made on the
soldiers… our lives were in danger…
(so) three or four soldiers fired (at the
crowd)… The crowd ran away, except
three men who died…I asked the
soldiers why they fired without orders,
they said they heard the word “fire”
and thought it came from me. This
might be true because many people in
the crowd called out “fire” “fire” but…
I didn’t give this order. Captain
1. Who is Captain Preston?
2. What does he say?
3. How is Captain Preston’s story
different from the story in the
picture?
4. Why do you think the stories are
different? Think of various
possibilities.
e.g. does either have a reason to lie?
Fact: a picture of a statue of a minute
man from the US war of independence.
Interpretation?
 What’s happening
here?

Who do you feel sympathetic

“Still photographs are the most powerful
weapon in the world. People believe
them, but photographs do lie, even
without manipulation. They are only
half- truths. It didn’t say: What would
you do if you were the general at that
time and place on that hot day, and you
caught the so-called bad guy after he
blew away one, two or three American
soldiers?’” Eddie Adams
• It was in 196 8 d ur i ng th e
C o n t e xt ( 事
Vie 情 tnam) war the Communist
North was fighting the South. The South
was supported by the US, Australia,
and Korea. The Vietcong Communist
fighters had made a promise that there
would be no fighting during the Tet
Festival, the Vietnamese New Year. But
the Vietcong didattack. Many people
were killed in the Vietcong attacks.
Just before the photo was taken, several
 The
photographer:
• The general killed the Viet
Cong; I killed the general
with my camera.
When we analyze we need to
think and ask questions.
 Questions that should be
•asked:
Who is writing it?
• Who is the intended audience.
• Who is paying the person who is writing
it?
• When was it written?
• Where does it come from?
• What is the purpose?
• Is there more to the story? Another
side?
• Do other sources confirm or contradict?
Kobayashi Kiyochika : In the Battle of the Yellow Sea, 1894-1894 a Sailor
onboard Our Japanese Warship Matsushima, on the Verge of Dying, Asked
Whether or Not the Enemy Ship had been Destroyed
 Analysing
:
1) Who has drawn the picture?
2) When was it drawn?
3) What does it show?
4)How do you think the artist feels
about the war? Give reasons
5)Do you think this is how the war
would really have looked?
Explain.
6)Would you expect a Chinese artist to
paint a picture in this way? Explain.
Take care to discard prejudices
The Japanese protester:
‘Oppose the new security
treaty, Down with the Kishi
Cabinet! Dissolve the
Diet!’

The Chinese demonstrator:

‘Oppose the Japan-U.S.
military treaty, Support the
struggle of the Japanese
 Study the past
if you want
to make
the future.
Confucius 孔子 551 BC - 479
BC
To understand
anything, you
need to observe
its beginning and
its development.

Aristotle 384BC-
322BC
 "Those who
cannot
remember the
past are
condemned to
repeat it”

George Santayana (1836-1952)

“The most effective
way to destroy
people is to deny
and destroy their
own
understanding of
their history.”
History is
rumour
crystal •

lized
Thomas Carlyle (1795–
1881),
 History will be
kind to me for I
intend to write it.

“History is
written by the
victors”
Winston Churchill (1874-
“One cannot and
must not try to
erase the past
merely because it
does not fit the
present.”

Golda Meir –
former PM,
History is
the
invention of
historians.

Napolean Bonaparte 1769-

1821
"The role off the
historian is neither
to love the past nor
to free himself from
the past, but to
master and
understand it as the
key to the
understanding of the
present."
 Bu
t
• Sometimes it’s not possible to find the truth,
and sometimes there are different truths
that contradict.

• History should be faced bravely. All

countries have terrible things in their past
(and present).

• History should be used to create