History of Guatemala I

• Guatemala I's history is discussed
• The social science that studies humanity's past: history
• History relies on dependable sources to offer evidence and back up written narratives and historical interpretations
• Herodotus and Thucydides were among the first historians in Greece
• Over time, the compilation of data by historical writers gave way to the search for logical explanations for the events they researched

History as Consciousness

• The continuous development of the human and natural sciences alongside the dissemination of knowledge and information to increasingly large segments of the population is history as consciousness
• The sum of mental processes by which people interpret the temporal evolution of their world and themselves is history

History as Personalization

• Individuals gradually acquire the right to be recognized and seen as human beings rather than as passive members of a superior structure, in history
• All people have the right to be considered as such, we are all children of the same God

Historiography

• Historiography aims to document humanity's history
• With time, it has evolved as a discipline, adapting its methodologies and tools
• The science of history is historiography; the object of historiography is where history emerges

Structure of History: Cultures and Civilizations

• Cultures are for people who have not yet achieved urban revolution
• Civilizations designate achievements, both in material and spiritual, of those people who have already passed it
• The peoples who have remained or remain in the cultural stadium 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 the real and an vectorial idea of time

Urban Revolution

• With the Urban Revolution and the emergence of significant production surpluses, which resulted from technological revolution between the fifth and the third millennia, some human groups find it more profitable to appropriate what others produce than to produce it themselves
• Inventions from this movement include the wheel, the plow, artificial irrigation, sailing, metallurgy, brick, solar calendar, and writing

Structure of Civilizations

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

International Context

• Every society is a subsystem within the system formed by the societies of its civilization
• And this civilization is, in turn, another subsystem in the system of all civilizations
• It is necessary to situate the society within the historical coordinates of the moment and to reference the type of relationships it will maintain with other societies in its environment
• Our society's study will be approached in two different ways

Societies Study

• Synchronic: It's situation at a certain time
• Diachronic: Its evolution over time

Synchronic Study

• For a more comfortable study, all activities can be grouped into three basic sectorial structures:
• Socio-economic structure includes the economic structure and the social structure
• Legal-political structure includes the political system and the power system
• Ideological structure is the final structure

Socio-Economic Structure

• The Socio-economic structure constitutes human resources, materials, and social connections used to produce and deliver goods and services
• Natural environment: represents the geographic area where society grows
• Population: It is the bearer of the labor force, whose biological potential and scientific-technical capacity are essential to highlight
• Means of production: also called capital, consists of all the material and scientific-technical equipment that society has
• Relations of production: are the relationships that are established between the human groups that appropriate the production surpluses and the direct producers and show how the appropriation is made
• Character of production: can be oriented toward very diverse activities: agriculture, livestock, industry, services, etc.
• Means of production and production relations: constitute the nucleus of the structure and determine the nature and long-term development of society