PRELIMS

• History is the study of the past, including beliefs, desires, practices, and institutions of human beings
• History involves studying man and his achievements from the beginning of written records to the present
• HISTORIA is knowledge acquired through inquiry/investigation
• Reasons to study history:

  • An examination of the past can tell us about how we came to be who we are
  • Looking at the past teaches us to see the world through different eyes, appreciating the diversity of human perceptions, beliefs, and culture
• History helps individuals and governments avoid present pitfalls by knowing the rise and fall of rulers, governments, and empires
• History preserves the cultural values of a nation and guides a society in confronting various crises
• “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” - George Orwell, 1984
• Relevance of history:

  • Provides identity
  • Helps understand people and societies
  • Contributes to moral understanding
  • Essential for good citizenship
• Historiography is the writing of history and understanding how interpretations of historians change over time
• Historical source materials can be grouped into four basic categories: documents, numerical records, oral statements, and relics
• Primary sources are materials produced by people or groups directly involved in the event or topic being studied, while secondary sources are analysis or restatements of primary sources
• Repositories of primary sources include libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies
• External criticisms in evaluating historical sources include:

  • Test of Authenticity, Genuineness, Originality
  • Practice of verifying authenticity by examining physical characteristics, consistency with historical characteristics, and materials used for the evidence
  • Gilbert J. Garranghan's questions to establish authenticity: date, localization, authorship, analysis, integrity
• External Criticism must:

  • Ensure the author provides authenticity and credibility of the source
  • Examine the date when the document was written to verify the information
  • Identify handwriting, signature, seal, letterhead, watermarks accurately
• Internal Criticism looks for the truthfulness and factuality of the evidence by examining the author, context, agenda behind its creation, and intended purpose
• Key (1997) enumerates questions to check the content of a source of information, including understanding the author's intent and credibility of statements
• Louis Gottschalk (1950) emphasizes that establishing credibility for each document should be undertaken separately regardless of the credibility of the author
• The use of unverified, falsified, and untruthful historical sources can lead to false conclusions, highlighting the importance of thorough criticisms of historical evidences to avoid historical deception and lies
• Hoax Code of Kalantiaw:

  • Set of rules in an epic, Maragtas, allegedly written by Datu Kalantiaw
  • American historian William Henry Scott debunked the authenticity of the code due to a lack of evidence proving its existence in the pre-colonial period
• Rizal did not write “Sa Aking Mga Kabata”:

  • No original manuscript exists in Rizal's hand
  • Published posthumously, a decade after his execution
• Credibility is defined as the quality of inspiring belief, while authenticity refers to the proven fact that something is legitimate or real
• Provenance refers to the sources of information involved in producing or delivering an artifact
• In analyzing primary sources, criteria include content analysis, contextual analysis, historical importance, and the author's main argument or point of view
• To effectively analyze primary documents, consider the 6 C's:

  • Content: identify the main idea, important points, phrases, words, and sentences
  • Citation: identify the document's creator and creation time
  • Communication: identify author biases and point of view
  • Context: understand the world when the document was created
  • Connections: recognize connections to prior knowledge
  • Conclusions: determine the source's contributions to history
• Historical significance evaluates the importance of events, people, and developments in the past based on relevance, resonance, remarkableness, and resulting in change
• Author's purpose can be to inform, persuade, describe, or explain, while author's point of view is shaped by experiences, motives, beliefs, origin, age, gender, social status, and ideology