Historia de Guatemala I: Definition and Awareness

• Historia de Guatemala I is presented by Lic. Bianney Estuardo Vásquez at Universidad Regional de Guatemala

Definition of History

• History is the social science that studies humanity's past.
• It is a discipline that relies on documents, records, and reliable testimonies to provide evidence, support narratives, and interpretations written by historians.
• The first historians were Herodotus and Thucydides in Greece
• The collection of data gave way to the search for rational explanations of the facts being investigated over time in Greece

History as Awareness

• History involves the continuous development of human and natural sciences
• It involves disseminating knowledge and information to increasingly wider segments of the population
• History is the sum of mental operations by which people interpret their experiences
• Humans interpret temporal evolution of their world and themselves
• Humans can intentionally orient their practical lives

History as Personalization

• Individuals gradually gain the right to be recognized and considered as human beings within history, rather than passive members of a superior structure
• Prophets and philosophers have long taught that all people have the right to be considered as such and that we are all children of the same God
• Juridical, political, and ideological theories recognize personal history in many territories

Historiography

• Historiography aims to record humanity's history in writing
• Historiography is a discipline that evolves over time, changing its methodologies and tools
• History is the object of historiography

Structure of History: Cultures and Civilizations

• "Culture" applies to peoples who have not yet achieved the urban revolution
• "Civilization" designates the material and spiritual achievements of peoples who have surpassed it
• Peoples who have remained in the stage of culture interpret reality through myths and have a cyclical conception of time
• Peoples who access civilization without renouncing myths develop science as an instrument to explain reality and a vectorial idea of time

Urban Revolution

• With the urban revolution and the emergence of significant production surpluses, a technological revolution developed between the 5th and 3rd millennia.
• Certain human groups find it more profitable to appropriate what others produce instead of producing it themselves with their own effort
• Urban Revolution led to the invention of the wheel, plow, artificial irrigation, sailing, metallurgy, brick-making, solar calendar, and writing

Structure of Civilizations

• Human societies are living systems organized to ensure the survival and growth of the community.
• Human societies have the capacity to obtain, process, and integrate materials from the natural environment and other societies

The International Context

• Each society is simultaneously a subsystem within the system formed by the societies of its civilization
• Each system is located within historical coordinates of the moment
• Reference is made to the type of relationships it will maintain with the other societies in its environment

Approaching Societal Study

• Society can be studied in two ways
• Synchronically: its situation at a specific moment in its history
• Diachronically: its evolution over time

Synchronic Study

• Activities can be grouped into three basic sectorial structures for easier study
• Socioeconomic structure
• Legal-political structure
• Ideological structure

Socioeconomic Structure

• The set of human and material resources and social relations aimed at producing and distributing goods and services
• Natural environment: the geographical space where a society develops
• Population: the carrier of the labor force
• Population's biological potential and scientific-technical capacity are important to note
• Means of production (also called capital): all the material and scientific-technical equipment available to society
• Relations of production: the relationships established among human groups that appropriate production surpluses and direct producers, showing how appropriation is carried out
• Character of Production: It can be oriented towards agriculture, livestock, industry, services, etc.
• Means of production and relations of production constitute the core of any economic structure and determine the nature and development of a society in the long term