History is the study of past events. When I just wrote the sentence "History is the study of past events.", that is considered history because it happened in the past. History is not necessarily the study of the major events that happened such as wars or famous people, but the small events such as what someone had for breakfast this morning or what kind of shampoo they used while in the shower. History is all the small things that have occurred in someones lifetime and not just a famous person's lifetime. A lifetime of an ordinary person like you or me. Most people misinterpret history to be the study of only the major happenings that they forget about the little things that sometimes make the bigger things happen. History is all about the great human experience and what was done during one's existence or even after one's existence. After someone dies, there is still history occurring. Sometimes we forget some history and other history just takes its place which is not good. The Harrapen society is an example. They were very technologically advanced, by creating public sewer facilities, but then historians could not find any other information on the civilization. This happens often in history where something causes something to happen and an effect occurs that results in unknown knowledge. This is not good because we forgot the good events that have shaped our society today. If the Harrapans had not created the public waste facilities then we might have not had toilets till much later.
There are four types of theories about history. The first one is the linear theory that history keeps going in a straight line. An example of this would be the birth or death of a person. There is a definite beginning and end in the person's history. The second is cyclic theory that explains the major forces, such as religion, curiosity, and science that motivate humans’ actions. It goes in a circle. The events recur again and again. Such as, waking up in the morning and eating breakfast, go through your day, go to bed, and then wake up again. Everything goes through the motions and repeats itself. The third theory is the Vortex theory. This theory states that history repeats itself over again. It goes from big to small, and then small too big. The last theory, the Hegal theory, is in my opinion, the best theory. Hegal states that there were two events that create a result. Or, in other words, a thesis + antithesis= synthesis. Everything that happens in the world happens because it was caused to occur. Whether that be someone pushed a ball to knock over a plant which caused the plant to break or Hitler was planning to kill all the Jews. Hitler's actions to take over Germany caused the United States to step in and help put an end to the carnage. With the Cyclic theory, there is even causes and effects to why you worship the God you do or why you are curious about that certain smell. You could worship that certain God because someone influenced you or his hair appeals to you. The effects could vary too. Since you worship this God, your attitude about life can be changed or you got your hair cut a different way. Whatever it is, there is a cause behind it. You could be curious about a certain smell because you are hungry or because it does not smell good, but again your curiosity is caused by something. Your curiosity effects you because now you are either hungry or you really want to get out of the room because of the smell. The vortex theory also has causes and effects. An example of this is the quote, "Life has its ups and downs". This is used in every day talk about different things in general. The life's ups may include getting into college, getting married, or getting an "A" on a math test. The downs of live may include breaking your arm, failing a test, or losing a friend. This is a very big quote that is true for many people. Sometimes, people go through many hardships that are hard to go through by themselves. These hard ships,however, are caused by some sort of event whether that be not studying for the test or getting a fantastic scholarship to the college you decided to go to. Hegal affects the vortex theory in many different ways.
Every single theory on history is legitimate and well thought up. However, one should not choose just one because you can use each one in better ways than you can not use another one. Take for example the Roman Empire again. We could very well use the Vortex theory to see how it has changed over the years from powerful to weak, but the Hegal theory shows why these changes in power happened. Another example is compared with linear and hegal. The linear theory shows events happening in a straight line with a beginning and an end. The Hegal theory can prove to someone the events that had happened to lead up to the end. These events include if the person went to college and what kind of job they had after college and then how the person died, which led to their end.
Jan 28. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Worden_park_miniature_railway.jpg
Two things:
ReplyDelete1) Unfortunately, the knowledge of how to make public facilities disappeared with the Indus River culture. Similarly, as we shall see, the Romans invented concrete, but that disappeared.
2) You need to focus on the structure of your argument, and part of that is citing your sources in MLA format.
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