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The Study of History.­History is the study of the past, as an interpretation of the

available evidence.

­Is History a" Dead Subject"? N0!

History is evolving constantly as new evidence is found around the world.

There are many Areas of historical study....

1. Political History: records of government, leaders, monarchs and Dictators.This   is the largest source of historical data, especially if looking at the distant past    because information was only the most important members of society could afford to have someone record their history or have trained people to do it.

2.  Social history: records of social growth and change like weddings, births, deaths etc. These were mainly recorded by churches, but now by governments.

3. Cultural History: includes the language, daily practices, religion, etc. of a people.

4. Aboriginal history: study of first peoples.

5. Economic history: study of how the search for money has changed history.

6. Military history: the 2nd largest source of data, all dealing with War, troops life, battles and records of victories.

7. Women's history:

8. Environmental history:

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An Historian’s job is to collect evidence about the past.  They then have to decide if the evidence describes a fact or if it contains too much bias to be dependable.    All evidence will have an amount of bias because it comes from a single source.   We have to look at the source’s reasons for creating the evidence we have.  Are they presenting an argument, trying to push an ulterior agenda, or just presenting their honest observations? (opinion vs. fact) They also must consider the accuracy of the source, whether it came from someone with first hand knowledge or put together by an amateur 

(ie..  Wikipedia)

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The historian then pieces the evidence together to create a full picture of what happened.  The problem then is that they often have to fill in details according to their assumptions of what could have happened because there isn’t enough evidence for a complete picture. 

 For example, Pierre Berton was one of the most prolific Canadian historians ever.  He wrote 50 books in both non‐fictional and historical fiction.  He believed that  historians had to be good investigators and also good storytellers.  (example. Pg 4..  Dionne Quintuplets)

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Canadian History

The Letter HomeThe first World War resulted in many young men and women being away from home for the first time. The letter rather than the telegram was the main method of communication between Europe and Canada and between Canadians at home because of its directness and affordability. Using what you know and can read in Chapter 3 of your book, write a letter home to your family as a person somewhere on the European front.

Imagine you are participating in the war effort overseas as either a male or female perspective

Describe your role in the war effort in as historically accurate manner as you can

The letter should be from 200­400 words in length.

Try to convey the mood of the period

In order to give you some background and information for this letter you can briefly review these sections in your text:

The eve of war

Canada preparing for war

Canadians fighting in Europe

War at sea and in the air

Women and the first world war

The propaganda of war