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ToK - History Write down the two most significant events that have happened at the College since you arrived in the summer of 2008. Who do you think is best qualified to write a history of RCNUWC: • a graduate? • a teacher? • a member of the board? • a local journalist? Why? ToK - History “Historians are dangerous people. They are capable of upsetting everything” Khruschev “He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.” Orwell “If you do not like the past, change it.” Burton ToK - History ToK - History “Those who don’t study the past are condemned to repeat it” Santayana “What experience and history teach is this - that people and governments have never learned anything from history” Hegel ToK - History To what extent do you think that people learn from their mistakes? To what extent do you think that people keep making the same mistakes? ToK - History “History is bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present.”Henry Ford ToK - History Why should you care about the past? What dangers are there in being obsessed with your past? What dangers are there in ignoring your past? ToK - History What is history? • Is it enough to define it as “the study of the past”? Concerned with: • Evidence (the present traces of the past) • Significance (concerned with significant events) • Explanation & Understanding (not only describing the past, but also explaining it) ToK - History Different histories • In parts of West Africa, history is told through song by a griot, a respected wandering musician • Among many Australian Aborigines, the land itself is history. Geographical features reflect the creation stories of the ‘dreamtime’ ToK - History What is history? • Micro histories. Our own. • “The country was lost…….” ToK - History Why study history? • History gives us a sense of identity • History is a defence against propaganda • History enriches our understanding of human nature ToK - History How can the past be known? Primary Sources (people who were there) • Fallible eye-witness • Social bias • Deliberate manipulation Secondary sources (second-hand accounts) ToK - History Writing history • History is the selection of a selection • Advantages of hindsight • Disadvantages of hindsight ToK - History Perspectives in history • Study the historian before you study his facts • Reading an 18th Century account of the 13th Century will possibly tell you as much about the 18th as it will about the 13th Century • Propaganda and persuasion ToK - History Some Problems of Bias • Topic choice bias • Confirmation bias • National bias ToK - History Theories of history • The ‘Great Person’ theory • Economic Determinism