TOK and History

1. TOK and History Knowing via the Past

2. Why study History? • Explains the past • Evidence, significance, explanation and understanding • Gives us a sense of identity • Why things are the way they are now • Defense against propaganda • Trotsky and Lenin photos • Enriches our understanding of human nature • What have humans done in a wide variety of circumstance?

3. Propaganda is used to re write history Prior to the election Post election…. Where is Trotsky???

4. How do we Know History? • Primary Sources • Written by someone who was there at the time • I.E. Caesar’s “The Conquest of Gaul” • Fallible eye-witness • Social Bias • Deliberate manipulation • Secondary Sources • Second hand account of what happened • Written by the victors • You write a report on the French revolution, you are not getting information from a primary source usually

5. Deliberate manipulation Pharaoh Akhenaten Erased relief at the temple of Thebes • Husband of Nefertiti, Father of King Tut • Created the Sun Disc for worship • King Tut erased him from history and called him the “heretic king” because he focused religious life on the sun disc and not the normal pantheon of Gods

6. Hindsight bias Advantages Disadvantages • Recognition that a single event was the beginning of some larger event • Categorizing history into periods • You can’t say “Hey, we’re in the renaissance now” • Bias, believing you could have seen something coming • Topic choice • Confirmation • National bias

7. History Theories • 1. At the battle of waterloo in 1815 Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by British commander, the Duke of Wellington. Which of the following factors do you think a historian might take into account in explaining the defeat? • There was a communications breakdown between Napoleon’s generals • Napoleon’s parents did not die in infancy • At Waterloo, Napoleon was suffering from chronic hemorrhoids which made it difficult to mount a horse • The wet weather led napoleon to postpone his attack on Wellington • Napoleon underestimated Wellington’s abilities as a general • Newton’s laws of motion determined the flight of the artillery shells • The French troops didn’t have any nails to put Wellingtons’ captured artillery pieces out of action • During the battle Marshall Ney had 5 horses shot from underneath him and this caused him to make errors of judgement • Do you think It would be possible to isolate one of the above factors and see it as decisive in explaining Napoleon’s defeat?

8. According to Charles Fernyhough, we our memories, are actual reconstructed memories of an event every time we recall them • So If you take an event, you recall the event and tell person A what happened, and then you recall the event again to tell person B what happened, they are actually receiving the memory of a memory • What does this mean about second hand history? • What does it mean about relationships? Whose memory is correct? History and Memory Memory is like play-doh, it changes every time we relive it. How do we know what we remember is real? What does this mean for history? For your personal history? For court cases?

9. Memory and the Temporal Lobe An injury to the temporal lobe can cause memory changes/loss. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3GcvRe9G_w What would you do starting over each day (in effect, rewrite your history)?