What is History? Is it the study of people? Places? Events? Dates and Names? Famous battles? It is all and none of these. As the name suggests, it is a High Story. In this case, it is the story of the human endeavor. It is EVEYTHING that we are and have become. And because we are looking into the past, it is like looking at something through a telescope, from far away.

History is often called a Social Science. I feel this is a misnomer. A science deals with the intractable laws of the universe, those that cannot be altered by human whim or desire. Science examines the laws of nature. A SOCIAL science, therefore, deals with the laws of society. But social laws are different depending on which society we look at. So the laws are mutable. Where there is no exception to the Law of Gravity, any social "law" we can find ALWAYS has notable exceptions.

The best we can hope for, then, is to EXAMINE our past in a scientific way, using scientific tools. Radio Carbon Dating, for example, is a complicated scientific method for dating artifacts. In our Scientific study, we can be objective, try and find the "TRUTH" about a particular event.

But even this is impossible. Science can be and has been fooled in historical study. Sometimes the tools don't work. Sometimes we can not establish an objective view. It becomes IMPOSSIBLE to discern the Truth.

An example might be helpful. King Arthur, the king of mystic tradition united England for a while before it crashed into darkness at the hands of his son, Mordred. Robin Hood, the nobleman turned thief, stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Johnnie Appleseed, the legendary figure, walked across America planting apple seeds as he went. Each of these fabulous characters from movies and books has historical fact at its root. Arthur probably did live and rule an area in south western England in the early centuries AD, possibly around 400. Robin Hood most certainly lived. We have records of his trial and execution in London, but he was probably neither a noble nor did he give to the poor. Johnnie "Appleseed" Chapman was a New Englander who headed west in the 1800's. But woven in with the facts are so many half-truths and outright lies, that it becomes impossible to discern what REALLY occurred.

While studying Alaskan history, I was asked to do an assignment dealing with what were called Molly Hooch schools. Molly Hooch was a native girl who had been getting her schooling far from her home. She, and others, brought a lawsuit against the state of Alaska saying it was unconstitutional for her not to have her school in her hometown. My job was to research the case. Well I knew she won; there were "Molly Hooch schools" in the bush communities, so how could it be otherwise. I spoke to my father who worked for the state at the time, and he concurred. Molly Hooch won her case. Finally I was able to track down the ACTUAL case. And what did I find? MOLLY LOST! So how did the Schools come about? The judge said she lost her case, but he ALSO said that what she desired SHOULD be something Alaska does, so he proposed that the law should change, which it did, and now we have "Molly Hooch schools."

Now, in a "science" dependent on the reporting of human beings, how can we achieve the truth? Human reporting is, at best, filtered through our own experiences, biases and attitudes. Not to mention that we make mistakes and sometimes we fabricate things. Anyone who has played the game "operator" where you whisper a message from person to person, knows how fouled up the message can get, even though we are trying very hard to get it right. How much more fouled up might a message be that has been translated into several languages and traveled centuries and thousands of miles before it gets to you?

So, we start our "scientific" study of history knowing that we cannot find THE TRUTH, knowing that what we do find will be flawed, and that maybe tomorrow, someone will discover something that completely changes our view of an event. It happens all the time. So now we see that not only are we viewing events from afar through the telescope of history, but also the lens is all smudged and covered with dust; our view is imperfect at best. The question then is... is it worthwhile to even make the attempt? The answer is yes.

Provided we keep in mind that History is as much art as science, so long as we know that what we are viewing is a slippery truth at best, we can learn valuable lessons from our investigation. We find that we can use previous knowledge as a stepping stone to the future. We can discover human "laws" which exist but are frequently broken.

It has been said that those who do not study history are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. By discovering what our predecessors have done, we can keep from making the same errors they did. This helps us progress faster and is one of the main reasons why progress seems to move exponentially.

So, how do we proceed?

First we have to establish a language of History that we can all agree on; otherwise we will be lost. Just as chemistry has its language, so does history. By using this language, we try to explain what is going on objectively.

Which of these is an objective, or unbiased, statement?

• Our beloved President John F. Kennedy was brutally assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963
• President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963.
• President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.

Obviously, the first phrase is not objective because surely he was not beloved by everyone. The word "brutally" isn't objective either.

In the second phrase we are still lacking objectivity as we are ascribing the event to a perpetrator many believe was either not the shooter at all, or was not the only shooter. Imagine how our view of this event would be changed if one had evidence of government snipers hired by the Vice-President being involved in the shooting!

Surely the last phrase is objective.

But alas, it isn't. Where is the flaw? The date.

Remember that in historical study, we can not just tell what happened, we have to identify WHEN it happened as well. What are we saying when we say 1963? Well, we are using a calendar, one that has inherent biases. In this case, we are using the Western Christian Calendar. But that is not the only calendar in existence. The Romans had a calendar, the Mayans had one, as did most ancient cultures. But calendars are not just old constructs. There are several different CURRENTLY used calendars. Islam has one, Judaism has a different one, and Russia uses a still different calendar.

This is why we must all be speaking the same language otherwise we don't know what we are talking about. So we develop "conventions" which we will abide by.

For most discussions, we will use the Common Era calendar. It is no better or worse than any other one, it is just easy for us to use. We choose it to make our lives easier to discuss things. Normal usage looks like this: 1734 BCE and 1999 CE and even 1544 BP. These stand for "Before the Common Era" and "Common Era" and "Before the Present." The numbers coincide with the Western Christian Calendar which uses BC and AD, which stand for Before Christ and Anno Domini, Latin for "in the year of our lord," a convention which began in 525 CE with Dionysus Exiguus, a Roman monk.

We will refer to any human behavior that appears as a universal as an historical "law" even though we know that the law isn't always followed. Remember that social laws, since they depend on human nature, tend to have exceptions. Some examples of these are: the law of Supply and Demand, and the Law of the Power Vacuum.

For example, the law of supply says that if something is readily available, the price goes down, while if it is scarce, the price goes up. How does one explain "Pet Rocks"? People paid large quantities of money for something they could pick up in the road. Obviously, an exception!

Finally we need to also agree on a method of study. HOW will we examine history? Since we don't have a time machine so we can observe it first hand, we need to use other methods. Typically we use source material. There are three types of sources.

Primary sources are those descriptions written by people involved in the actual events. Julius Caesar's book on the Gallic Wars is a primary source. Primary sources can be dangerous to use because they are obviously biased. Julius is NOT going to give a flattering view of the Gauls, his enemy, as he writes his book. We often say, "history is written by the winners." Because of this, we do not get a balanced view of events.

Secondary sources are items written by people who have heard the story second hand. Interviews with people who were at the event are secondary sources. News reports are secondary sources. Also, secondary sources can be written based on primary sources. For example, if I write a paper about Caesar's book on the Gauls, then my paper is a secondary source.

The danger with these is, while they are not biased from the authors view so much, they are farther removed from the event and here is where errors begin to creep in; the "Operator game" effect as it were.

Still, secondary sources often have the benefit of numerous primary sources to draw from. In my paper on Gaul, I might use Caesar's book, but I also might use a Gallic author as well. Using a source from each side allows a more balanced view, thus eliminating the bias of using Caesar alone. Short secondary sources on a single narrow topic are called "monographs."

Finally we have tertiary sources. These are written works like text books which use various secondary sources, to compile information. Other tertiary sources are Encyclopedias.

The danger of tertiary sources is not only from the "Operator game" effect, but a lack of detail. Encyclopedias, for example, distill the information down to main points but lack relevant small details. Going back to a pervious example, one might find this entry in an encyclopedia, "As a result of Molly Hooch's lawsuit, numerous 'Molly Hooch Schools' were established in Alaska native villages." Notice that this is all true information, but the lack of detail might cause someone unfamiliar with the event to surmise that Molly won her court case.

Finally we have a new type of source, which I find to be the most dangerous for academic knowledge. I'm going to call it the Cybersource. When I refer to CyberSources, I mean the typical unsubstantiated web site. Anyone can set up a web site. Just because it's on the web doesn't mean it is accurate information. One must be critical of the source (of course this is true of ALL types of sources). Web sites that do not give their own sources, are not from a credible author, are not dated, are CyberSources. I could put up a web page tomorrow that says Benjamin Franklin was a believer in aliens. It doesn't mean its true.

In this class, we are going to use the first three types of sources. NEVER use a Cybersource in this class, FOR ANYTHING.

We will use tertiary sources, my lecture and occasionally the text book, to establish broad outlines for the areas we will study. We will use secondary sources, mostly my lecture, to get balance and fill in some of the details. We will also read primary sources, mostly documents and literature from the time period we are studying to get the eyewitness viewpoint.

Our primary sources will come to us in three forms. First, the few books that we have here at West. Second, copies of documents that I have. And third, a CD of documents that I have compiled for your use. Some of these primary documents are difficult to read, so you must really put forth an effort to understand what is being said, and you must provide sufficient time to get the reading done.

Now that we have decided what we will use to examine history, we must now focus on a framework from which to understand it. So, if we are reading an account of the Battle of Agincourt, we must determine what we want to get out of the project. Are we interested in who won, for example? Perhaps not... perhaps we are interested in the weapons. Or maybe even the food that was eaten.

Back to our telescope. We can put different filters on the telescope to help us see certain things more clearly. Maybe we use an infrared filter that only lets us see certain things. Another filter does something different. So what are these filters we will use?

Social institutions will be a filter we use. We will look at historical trends in how people treat each other. This deals with issues like how women are treated, slavery, etc.; the interactions of people with each other.

Technology will be a filter. We will examine ways in which technology affects and is affected by events. The invention of the plow, for example, or the stirrup, or fire!

Politics is another area. How do countries deal with each other? How does a country (the "state") deal with its own people? Who gets to make the decisions and how?

We will look at something I call the "Great Individual" effect. Some things appear to happen because the right person did the right thing. Had it been someone else, whatever the event was might not have happened. We will look at individuals like Pericles, Alexander, Charlemagne, and Elizabeth, and how their personality impacted their time.

Another filter is the "Great Idea" effect. As we travel down the corridors of history we discover that certain ideas were in a critical stage where they just had to come into being; an idea whose time had come. The radio is one such idea. All the component concepts were in place, just waiting for someone to make the needed discovery. If it hadn't been Marconi, it would have been someone else. In fact, the radio was invented simultaneously by several people at the same time. There's even been a lawsuit saying that Nicolo Tesla made it FIRST!

We will look at the development of democratic ideals. As we journey through time, we can see how various cultures experimented with individual personal liberty.

History is not all people and events, it also deals with places. We will examine how geography plays a part in the saga of man.

We will look at the use of resources and their distribution. The broad term for this is "economics."

Lastly, we will examine what man has done with his spare time over the centuries; the development of art, music, theatre, literature and other aspects of human creativity.

These concepts will be the filters we use to look at our past.

Now we have a starting point. From here we begin examining the High Story of mankind. Hopefully you will have fun while we do it. Remember, it is not an exact science by any stretch of thought. Interpreting what happened from the scraps of information we have to guide us makes it a job for puzzle solvers and detectives, not to mention people with imagination. Here we GO!