Why Study History?

(1998)
By Peter N. Stearns

Studying history is important because it allows us to understand our

past, which in turn allows us to understand our present. If we want to
know how and why our world is the way it is today, we have to look to
history for answers. People often say that “history repeats itself,” but if we
study the successes and failures of the past, we may, ideally, be able to
learn from our mistakes and avoid repeating them in the future. Studying
history can provide us with insight into our cultures of origin as well as
cultures with which we might be less familiar, thereby increasing cross-
cultural awareness and understanding.
​
1. History Helps Us Understand People and Societies
In the first place, history offers a storehouse of information about how people and societies behave.
Understanding the operations of people and societies is difficult, though a number of disciplines make the attempt.
An exclusive reliance on current data would needlessly handicap our efforts. How can we evaluate war if the
nation is at peace—unless we use historical materials? How can we understand genius, the influence of
technological innovation, or the role that beliefs play in shaping family life, if we don't use what we know about
experiences in the past? Some social scientists attempt to formulate laws or theories about human behavior. But
even these recourses depend on historical information, except for in limited, often artificial cases in which
experiments can be devised to determine how people act. Major aspects of a society's operation, like mass
elections, missionary activities, or military alliances, cannot be set up as precise experiments. Consequently,
history must serve, however imperfectly, as our laboratory, and data from the past must serve as our most vital
evidence in the unavoidable quest to figure out why our complex species behaves as it does in societal settings.
This, fundamentally, is why we cannot stay away from history: it offers the only extensive evidential base for the
contemplation and analysis of how societies function, and people need to have some sense of how societies
function simply to run their own lives.

2. History Helps Us Understand Change and How the Society We Live in Came to Be
The second reason history is inescapable as a subject of serious study follows closely on the first. The
past causes the present, and so the future. Any time we try to know why something happened—whether a shift in
political party dominance in the American Congress, a major change in the teenage suicide rate, or a war in the
Balkans or the Middle East—we have to look for factors that took shape earlier. Sometimes fairly recent history
will suffice to explain a major development, but often we need to look further back to identify the causes of
change. Only through studying history can we grasp how things change; only through history can we begin to
comprehend the factors that cause change; and only through history can we understand what elements of an
institution or a society persist despite change.

3. History Contributes to Moral Understanding

History also provides a terrain for moral contemplation. Studying the stories of individuals and situations
in the past allows a student of history to test his or her own moral sense, to hone it against some of the real
complexities individuals have faced in difficult settings. People who have weathered adversity not just in some
work of fiction, but in real, historical circumstances can provide inspiration. "History teaching by example" is one
phrase that describes this use of a study of the past—a study not only of certifiable heroes, the great men and
women of history who successfully worked through moral dilemmas, but also of more ordinary people who
provide lessons in courage, diligence, or constructive protest.

4. History Provides Identity

History also helps provide identity, and this is unquestionably one of the reasons all modern nations
encourage its teaching in some form. Historical data include evidence about how families, groups, institutions and

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 whole countries were formed and about how they have evolved while retaining cohesion. For many Americans,
studying the history of one's own family is the most obvious use of history, for it provides facts about genealogy
and (at a slightly more complex level) a basis for understanding how the family has interacted with larger
historical change. Family identity is established and confirmed. Many institutions, businesses, communities, and
social units, such as ethnic groups in the United States, use history for similar identity purposes. Merely defining
the group in the present pales against the possibility of forming an identity based on a rich past. And of course
nations use identity history as well—and sometimes abuse it. Histories that tell the national story, emphasizing
distinctive features of the national experience, are meant to drive home an understanding of national values and a
commitment to national loyalty.

5. Studying History Is Essential for Good Citizenship

A study of history is essential for good citizenship. This is the most common justification for the place of
history in school curricula. Sometimes advocates of citizenship history hope merely to promote national identity
and loyalty through a history spiced by vivid stories and lessons in individual success and morality. But the
importance of history for citizenship goes beyond this narrow goal and can even challenge it at some points.
History that lays the foundation for genuine citizenship returns, in one sense, to the essential uses of the
study of the past. History provides data about the emergence of national institutions, problems, and values—it's
the only significant storehouse of such data available. It offers evidence also about how nations have interacted
with other societies, providing international and comparative perspectives essential for responsible citizenship.
Further, studying history helps us understand how recent, current, and prospective changes that affect the lives of
citizens are emerging or may emerge and what causes are involved. More important, studying history encourages
habits of mind that are vital for responsible public behavior, whether as a national or community leader, an
informed voter, a petitioner, or a simple observer.

DISTINCTION BETWEEN PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCES

PRIMARY SOURCES
➢ Were either created during the time period being studied or were
created at a later date by a participant in the event being studied.
➢ Primary sources are the historical documents used by historians as
evidence.
​Example:
1. Diaries
2. Personal Journals
3. Government Records
4. Newspaper Article
5. Military Reports
SECONDARY SOURCES
➢ Is a work that interprets or analyzes an historical events or
phenomenon.
➢ Secondary sources is typical history book which may discuss a
person’s event or other historical topic.
​Example:
1. Scholarly
2. Popular Books
3. Articles
4. Textbooks

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 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
➢ The key to determining whether an item may be considered to be a
primary source is to ask how soon after the event was the information
recorded
➢ This can be a problem with an autobiography, memior, reminiscence,
etc.
➢ If the author is working several years with only the memory of what
happen, your history professor will disallow most or all of these as
primary sources

REPOSITORIES OF PRIMARY SOURCES

1. The National Archive of the Philippines

➢ The home of about 60 million documents from the centuries of

Spanish rule in the Philippines, the American and Japanese
occupations, as well as the years of the Republic. It is also the final
repository for the voluminous notarized documents of the country.

Filipino: ​ ​Pambansang Sinupan ng Pilipinas

Abbreviation: ​ ​NAP
Address: ​ ​Velco Centre, Roberto Oca St, Port Area,
Maynila Kalakhang Maynila
Formed: ​ ​May 21, 2007
Annual Budget: ​P85,146,000 (2012)
Agency Executive: ​Victorino Manalo, Director
Key Document: ​Republic Act 9470

2. The National Library of the Philippines

➢ The national library of the Philippines. It is under the jurisdiction of

the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). The
library is notable for being the home of the original copies of the
defining works of José Rizal: Noli Me Tangere, El Filibusterismo and
Mi último adiós.

Filipino: ​ ​Pambansang Aklatan ng Pilipinas o Aklatang

Pambansa ng Pilipinas

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 Abbreviation: ​ ​NLP
Address: ​ ​Rizal Park, Kalaw Avenue, Eermita, Manila
Collections: ​ ​1,678,950
Established: ​ ​August 12, 1887
Budget: ​ ​ 120.6 million (2013)
P
Director: ​ ​ esar Gilbert Q. Adriano
C
Key Document: ​ ct No. 96 of the Philippine Commission
A

3. The National Historical Commission of the Philippines

➢ is a government agency of the Philippines. Its mission is "the

promotion of Philippine history and cultural heritage through
research, dissemination, conservation, sites management and heraldry
works." As such, it "aims to inculcate awareness and appreciation of
the noble deeds and ideals of our heroes and other illustrious
Filipinos, to instill pride in the Filipino people and to rekindle the
Filipino spirit through the lessons of history.

Filipino: ​ ​Pambansang Komisyong Pangkasaysayan ng

Pilipinas
Abbreviation: ​ ​NHCP
Address: ​ ​Cawit, Cavite
Formed: ​ ​1933
Executive Director: ​Ludovico Badoy

4. The National Museum of the Philippines

➢ is a government institution in the Philippines and serves as an

educational, scientific and cultural institution in preserving the
various permanent national collections featuring the ethnographic,
anthropological, archaeological and visual artistry of the Philippines.
Since 1998, the National museum has been the regulatory and
enforcement agency of the National Government.

Filipino: ​ ​Pambansang Museo ng Pilipinas

Address: ​ ​Padre Burgos Ave, Ermita, Manila, Mero Manila
Formed: ​ ​ ctober 29, 1901
O
Annual Budget: ​P521.87 million (2018)

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 Agency Executive: ​Jeremy R. Barns, Director

EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL CRITICISMS

External criticism
• Also called as ‘’lower criticism’’
• Establishes the validity by determining the authenticity of the
document.
• It is a preliminary & preparatory step, providing data to be used in the
second phase known as internal criticism.
• External criticism primarily deals with relating to form & appearances
rather than meaning of contents.
According to Mouly
‘’ the purpose of external criticism is not so much,, negative (the detection
of fraud) as it is the ,, establishment of historical truth’’.

Internal criticism
▪ Also called as ‘’ higher criticism ‘’
▪ Value and worth of its contents, its literal meaning and the reliability
of the statements themselves.
▪ The meaning and trustworthiness of the contents of the documents.
▪ May be carried on positively or negatively criticism.

Positive criticism
▪ When the researchers seeks to discover the literal and the real
meaning of the text.
Negative criticism
▪ When the researcher tries to seek every possible reason for
disbelieving the statement made, questioning critically the
competence, truthfulness or accuracy and honesty of the author.
Both are essential in historical research but the researcher should not go so
far as to be cynical and hypercritical.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF PRIMARY SOURCES

1. LITERARY OR CULTURAL SOURCES

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 • Novels, Plays, Poems (both published and in manuscripts form)
• Television shows, Movies or Videos
• Painting or Photographs

2. ACCOUNTS THAT DESCRIBES EVENTS, PEOPLE OR

IDEAS

• Newspaper, Chronicles or Historical Accounts, Essays, and

Speech, Memoirs, Diaries, and Letters, Philosophical Treatises
or Manifesto.

3. FINDING INFORMATION ABOUT PEOPLE

• Census Records, Obituaries, Newspaper Articles, and
Biographies.

4. FINDING INFORMATION ABOUT A PLACE

• Maps and Atlases, Census Information, Statistics, Photographs,

City Directories, The Local Library or Historical Society.

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