Historians use source material,
which can be almost anything—dusty
old documents and newspapers,
films, songs, stories, jokes,
and so on—to interpret
the past. Different historians
emphasize different aspects of
the past, or emphasize one cause
of a specific event over other
causes. The way we understand
and represent the past shapes
our understanding of the world
we live in today, although we
ourselves are not always conscious
of that process.
There are several examples of
what I call “implicit or
unconscious historical interpretations”
on the campus of that little school
down the road, UNC-Chapel Hill
(which is where I got my degree),
especially when you begin to look
closely at the names of some of
the buildings.
Saunders Hall is a prime example.
There is a plaque at the main
entranceway to the building explaining
that “Saunders Hall was
completed in 1922 and named for
Colonel William Lawrence Saunders
(1835–91), a graduate of
the class of 1854 who later served
as Secretary of State and editor
of the Colonial Records of
North Carolina.” The
Class of 1985 donated the marker.
You would not realize it from
such a nice, sanitized plaque,
but it is also widely believed
that Colonel William Saunders,
who served, of course, in the
Confederate Army during the Civil
War, was leader of the North Carolina
chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. In
1874, during congressional hearings
on Klan activities in the South,
Saunders took the fifth amendment
rather than implicate himself.
Obviously some people are offended
by having a building on UNC’s
campus named after an alleged
Klansman. Are they not holding
this man up as a positive example
by naming a building after him?
This is an interpretation of that
University’s history, and
is, indeed, but one example of
the way in which the past is presented
on the UNC-CH campus. The history
building, Hamilton Hall, is named
for an historian who argued in
the 1920s and 1930s that history
proves the superiority of the
white race. Interpretations of
history are often presented to
us in hidden forms, through implicit
meanings, and we may not even
always be fully conscious of those
meanings. One of the intentions
of this course will be to flesh
out or make clear the ways in
which contemporary history is
implicitly presented to us.
History is supposedly the memorization
of “facts,” but actually
“facts” are often
themselves open to interpretation.
Take the chronology of World War
II as an example. When did World
War II begin? That is a simple
enough question. But the answer
might depend on where you pose
it. Here in the United States,
the likely response would be December
7, 1941, with the bombing of Pearl
Harbor. However, if you ask the
same question in Russia, they
would say June 22, 1941, when
German troops invaded the country.
For most of the rest of Europe
the conflict began in September
1939, when Hitler’s forces
invaded Poland. Things get further
complicated when you consider
the Asian theater of the war.
There one could date the beginning
of World War II as early as 1933,
when Japanese troops occupied
Manchuria, or as late as 1937,
when they crossed into China itself.
When did World War II end? Here
again, it depends on one’s
point of view. The war in Europe
ended May 9, 1945, but the war
against Japan did not officially
end until August. In other words,
even a basic fact like the chronology
of World War II can be more complicated
than it seems, and one’s
understanding of so-called “facts”
depends upon one’s perspective.
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History is not the memorization
of boring facts and dates;
it is the interpretation
of events in the past. |
History can be taught in different
ways, but it always involves
interpretation. History
is not the memorization of boring
facts and dates—it
is the interpretation of events
in the past. Two different
people can use the same source
material based on the same facts
and dates and come up with completely
different interpretations (as
you will see with the first
paper topic), and that is what
the study of history is all
about. In this course I am asking
you to be an historian, to use
the material provided for you
in the course to forge your
own interpretation or understanding
of the history of the world
since 1945. You will see an
example of what I am talking
about in the first paper assignment.
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