Readings in Philippine History: Definition and Subject Matter

Definition and Subject Matter of History

• History is the study of the past, derived from the Greek word "HISTORIA" meaning "knowledge acquired through inquiry or investigation."
• It is a discipline that has existed for around 2,400 years, as old as mathematics and philosophy.
• Historians traditionally focused on writing about wars, revolutions, and other important breakthroughs.

Branches of History

• Political History
• Social History
• Economic History
• Art History
• Diplomatic History
• Cultural History
• Intellectual History
• Environmental History
• History of Science
• Women’s History

Questions and Issues in History

• Historiography is the history of history.
• History unites a nation by forging a sense of collective identity through collective memory.
• Lessons from the past can be used to make sense of the present and to avoid repeating mistakes.

Positivism

• Requires empirical and observable evidence before claiming a particular knowledge is true.
• Historians are expected to be objective and impartial.

Illustrados and Postcolonialism

• Illustrados wrote history intended for the Spaniards.
• Postcolonialism grapples with creating identities and understanding societies against the shadows of colonial past.

Problems Confronted by History

• History is often written by the victors, biased towards the powerful and dominant players.

The Historian's Job

• A historian's job is not only to seek historical evidence and facts but also to interpret those facts.
• The historian gives meaning to the facts and organizes them into a timeline.

The Annales School of History

• A school of history born in France, marrying history with disciplines like geography, anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics.
• Notable Annales scholars include Lucian Febvre, Marc Bloch, Fernand Braudel, and Jacques Le Goff.

Historical Sources

• Historical sources are a historian's most important tool.
• Sources can be classified into PRIMARY SOURCES and SECONDARY SOURCES.

Primary Sources

• Produced at the same time as the event, period, or subject being studied.
• Examples include:
  • Commonwealth Constitution Convention of 1935 Minutes of the convention
  • Newspaper clippings
  • Philippine Commission Reports of the US Commissioners
  • Records of the convention
  • Draft of the Constitution
  • Photographs of the event
  • Eyewitness accounts
  • Archival documents, artifacts, memorabilia, letters, census, and government records.

Secondary Sources

• Produced by an author who used primary sources to produce the material.
• Examples include:
  • Teodoro Agoncillo's "Revolt of Masses: The Story of Bonifacio and the Katipunan" published originally in 1956.