Historical Thinking

How does each of the following impact historical thinking: continuity and change, causality, and context? Why is writing history considered a craft? What skills are necessary to be a good historian?

Historical thinking is using different reasoning skills to understand, analyze, and ask questions about historical subjects. It allows historians to more accurately comprehend a subject. Continuity, change, causality, and context are all important ideas when historically thinking about a topic.

Continuity and change are complementary concepts; they both work at the same speed within the same timeline. As our textbook states, “Most changes take place in the overall context of continuance of many of the old ways of doing things, and they are often no more than patchwork alterations of the existing system.”[1] Continuity is the constant; change is the irregular. Continuity allows historians to draw comparisons from the past to the present. We can also see what has remained the same over time. Change is a tool used to categorize eras, show turning points, and some would argue that history is the study of change in its entirety.

Causality is by definition the connection between cause and effect. This concept is an integral part of historical thinking. How will one event affect another? If one thing happens, what happens because of it? Although no one can predict the future, being able to draw from the past (Continuity) allows historians to predict, within reason, future events. For example: taxes, food shortage, social class inequality are all causes, what will they affect? What have they affected in the past?

Context is a very important idea for proper historians to execute. Context is how an excerpt of an event, statement, situation, or idea fits into the bigger picture. Many people take things out of context to fit their own means, it is a historians job the take an excerpt if it is given and think critically about it before presuming anything. For example: I recently read a quote from Abraham Lincoln somewhere that made him look like a racist. That quote was most likely taken out of context, and it was my job as a historian to think about the reasons to why it was taken out of context. Who was he talking to? When did he say it? What are the reasons he could have said it?

Historically thinking about a subject is a skill that needs to be practiced. Engineers pick apart mechanical things to see how and why they work. A historian’s job is to pick apart history and figure out how and why it happened.

A craft is something that is learned, something that needs to be practiced and honed; it is a skill. Writing history takes time and effort to succeed; it needs to be practiced and cultivated. There are a lot of skills historians need to succeed in the field, being a good writer is one of the most important. You also need to be a detective, that is, you need to be able to investigate and research history. You need to be able to think critically about subjects and be able to analyze, understand, and interpret different topics. You need to have a thirst for knowledge and also be able to communicate and work with other historians.

Work Cited:

Furay, Conal, and Michael J. Salevouris. The Methods and Skills of History. 3rd ed. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 2010.

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[1] Conal Furay and Michael J. Salevouris, The Methods and Skills of History, 3rd ed. (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 2010), 26.