3,4 main Problems in history writing

1st: what is history: is it reality? Or what is written in books

Subjectivity and Bias
Subjectivity is the understanding that every person interprets differently
Best historian always tries to close the gap between reality and what he is interpreting

Agency Structure

Links Rain weather

Rulers Birth rates

Big man Famine

Food

2nd (balance between) Agency vs Structure

In the story of a tyrant and his cruel acts on people who were already suffering from the birth rate
during the famine and paucity of food and a great man taking a stand and then his son and then his
grandson, so, in this story we have to make sure the balance between agency and structure:

3rd: Is history a science or can it be one?

Logical
positivism

‫ف ف ف‬
A philosophical myth ‫ الس ہ كا ت ن ہ‬which says we have to make everything science and find logic in
everything
The scientific method is good but history cannot predict a future

4th: The mentalities approach: to understand people's history, you have to understand the way those people
think.
Why is it important to get into the same mentalities as the 1 st generation of Islam?
When we talk about politics in Islam, the first leaders picked by Muslims were at this time, and people
explain in different ways, so, if we use the mentalities approach, we will realize that if the last leader died
then the most influenced people were gathered and discuss and pick a ruler, so to understand how the
Arab thinks you will know how the Arabs accept that.
So, the mentalities approach will put you in the minds of those whom you are thinking about.

17/10/2023

Propaganda is very powerful when you connect it with history

‘History is written by the victors.’
American history
When it’s started?
In1492 when Columbus discovered, it was a land without people for the people who had no land,
The land of the free and home of the brave, The American dream. It’s all a myth.
The real reason for World War 1&2 was: that Europeans were fighting among themselves for the
empire.
National History:
Ethno-linguistic. 19th century idea
It's an idea that says every nation that has its own ethnicity and language has a right to have its
own land.