Bridging History: Unit One, the First Marking Period
"Beginnings"
20th August through 4th October
|
| ||||
1. Doing History
What tools do world historians use in the study of history? This theme begins our study of world history by examining its use of geographical and chronological frameworks: how they have shaped the understanding of world history and been used to chart the past.
Watch the video here (or read the transcript)
Watch the video here (or read the transcript)
Sources & Point of View: "It is clear that all our information in regard to past events and conditions must be derived from evidence of some kind. This evidence is called the source. Sometimes there are a number of good and reliable sources for an event, as, for example, for the decapitation of King Charles I of England in 1649, or for the march of Napoleon into Russia. Sometimes there is but a single, unreliable source, as, for instance, in the case of the burial of King Alaric in a river bed. For a great many important matters about which we should like to know there are, unfortunately, no written sources at all, and we can only guess how things were. For example, we do not know what the Germans were doing before Julius Caesar came into contact with them and took the trouble to give a brief account of them. We can learn but little about the bishops of Rome (or popes) before the time of the Emperor Constantine for few references to them have come down to us. Few, however, of those who read and study history ever come into contact with the primary, or firsthand sources; they get their information at second hand. is much more convenient to read what the modern historian Edward Gibbon has say of Constantine than to refer to Eusebius, Eutropius and other ancient writers from whom he gained knowledge. Moreover, Gibbon carefully studied and compared all the primary sources, and it may be urged that he has given a truer, fuller, and more attractive account of the period than can be found in any one of them. His Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is certainly a work of the highest rank; but, nevertheless, it is only report of others' reports. It is therefore not a primary but a secondary source."
[Adapted from James Harvey Robinson, "The Historical point of View", in Readings in European History, Vol I, (Boston: Ginn, 1904), 1-13 ]
[Adapted from James Harvey Robinson, "The Historical point of View", in Readings in European History, Vol I, (Boston: Ginn, 1904), 1-13 ]
|
|
| ||||||
|
|
| ||||||
2. History & Memory
How are history and memory different? Topics in this theme range from the celebration of Columbus Day to the demolition of a Korean museum to the historical re-interpretation of Mayan civilization, exploring the ways historians, nations, families, and individuals capture, exploit, and know the past, and the dynamic nature of historical practice and knowledge.
View the video here, (or read the transcript)
View the video here, (or read the transcript)
|
Engines of Our Ingenuity: Homo Technologicus
|
| ||||
|
|
| ||||||
3. Human Migrations
How did the many paths of human migration people the planet? From their origins on the African continent, humans have spread across the globe. This theme explores how and why early humans moved across Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas, based on recent studies in archaeology and linguistics.
View the video here, (or read the transcript)
View the video here, (or read the transcript)
Engines of Our Ingenuity: Flintnappers
|
|
| ||||||
4. Agricultural and Urban Revolutions
|
What do historians know about the earliest farmers and herders, and the evolution of cities? Newly emerging evidence about the "cradles of civilization" is examined in light of the social, technological, and cultural complexity of recently discovered settlements and cities.
View the video here, (or read the transcript) | ||
|
Engines of Our Ingenuity: Inventing Agriculture
|
Engines of Our Ingenuity: Soul of a City Read or listen to the Introduction and the first three stories (4 listens)
| ||
|
| ||||
5. Early Belief Systems
How did people begin to understand themselves in relation to the natural world and to the unseen realms beyond, and how was religion a community experience? In this theme, animism and shamanism in Shinto are contrasted with philosophical and ethical systems in early Greece and China, and the beginnings of Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, and Judaism.
View the video here, (or read the transcript)
View the video here, (or read the transcript)
|
| ||||
|
Engines of our Ingenuity: A Moving Shrine
|
Engines of our Ingenuity: It's All Still Greek
|
Access some translations and explanations of the Shang oracle bones