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4 Historical Context and Analysis: GEC 002-BALSCM12S1 - Readings in Philippine History

1.4 Historical Context and Analysis

Welcome to this topic on Historical analysis! After knowing the meaning and relevance of history,
we have actually answered the question "what?" in history. It is now time for us dig into the
question "why?" and at the same time, learn the surrounding circumstances or sort of the "history
of the history". Sounds interesting, right?

So, let us begin by learning first what is historical context.

Historical Context
Historical context is an important part of life and literature, and without it, memories, stories, and
characters have less meaning. Historical context deals with the details that surround an
occurrence. In more technical terms, historical context refers to the social, religious, economic,
and political conditions that existed during a certain time and place. Basically, it's all the details of
the time and place in which a situation occurs, and those details are what enable us to interpret
and analyze works or events of the past, or even the future, rather than merely judge them by
contemporary standards (Fleming, 2019).

Here is a very helpful resource on studying historical resource from Mometrix.com (2019) about
Historical Context. Click the video below:

04:24

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Historical context is the social, political, cultural, economic, and environmental situations that
influence the events or trends we see happen during that time. Therefore, if we are unfamiliar with
the traditions, culture, thinking, or events happening at any time in history, we could misinterpret
or lose the meaning of a piece of writing we are reading.

Therefore, in order to fully understand a source, you must place it within the context of the time
period in which it was produced. This process is called contextualizing. Contextualizing a
historical source involves paying attention to the people who produced it, the time in which they
worked, what was going on during that time, and how what was going on may have influenced the
production of the source. It also involves understanding how the source's language, concepts,
and terms were used within that historical context, since meanings change over time.

In short, contextualizing a source increases a writer's credibility since it demonstrates the writer’s
willingness to understand the source and its time period on its own terms.

Why is Context Important?

The word “context” has a pretty large and abstract definition. From the Merriam-Webster
dictionary, context is “the parts of a discourse that surround a word or passage and can throw
light on its meaning" (2020). It is abstract because this definition implies that “context” can be
anything providing meaning. It can take any shape or form as long as it clarifies what one is
trying to say. Context adds specificity to your reading of historical events and directs the your
attention to a particular train of thought.

Thus avoiding, to a certain extent, unwanted interpretation (Samson, 2019). Maybe that is why,
Gary Vaynerchuck said that: "Content is king, but context is God!" It is like looking at a wider
range of visible horizon, not just looking through a tunnel.

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In summary, context is information that helps the message of a history text make sense. Whether
it’s a novel, a memoir, or a collection of short stories, a piece of writing can be interpreted variably
depending on the contextual factors provided by the author. Some context is obviously stated and
some requires a close reading of the history work—so it’s important for every student of history to
know what context is and how to use it in their readings of Philippine history.

Click the link "Next" to continue.

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