There was a time when historians were fascinated with dates.
There were heated debates about the dates on which rulers
were crowned or battles were fought.In the common - sense
notion, history was synonymous with dates. You may have
heard people say,"I find history boring because it is all about
memorizing dates." Is such a conception true ?
History is certainly about changes that occur over time. It
is about finding out how things have changed. As soon as we
compare the past with the present we refer to time, we talk of
"before" and "after" .
Living in the world we do not always ask historical questions
about what we see around us. We take things for granted, as
if what we see has always been in the world we inhabit. But
most of us have our moments of wonder , when we are curious,
and we ask questions that actually are historical. Watching
someone sip a cup of tea at a roadside tea stall you may
wonder- when did people begin to drink tea or coffee? Looking
out of the window of a train you may ask yourself - when were
railways built and how did people travel long distances before
the age of railways ? Reading the newspaper in the morning
you may be curious to know how people got to hear about
things before newspapers began to be printed.
As such historical questions refer us back to notions of time.
But time does not have to be always precisely dated in term of
a particular year or a month. Sometimes it is actually incorrect
to fix precise dates to processes that happen over a period of
time. People in India did not begin drinking tea one fine day;
they developed a taste for it over time. There can be no one
clear date for a process such as this. Similarly, we cannot fix
one single date on which British rule was established, or the
national movement started, or changes took place within the
economy and society.All these things happened over a stretch
of time, an approximate period over which particular changes
became visible.
Why , then, do we continue to associate history with a string
of dates? This association has a reason. There was a time when
history was an account of battles and big events. It was about
rulers and their policies. Historians wrote about the year a king
was crowned, the year he married, the year he had a child, the
year he fought a particular war, the year he died, and the year
the next ruler succeeded to the throne. For events such as these,
specific dates can be determined, and in histories such as these ,
debates about dates continue to be important.
As you have seen in the history textbooks of the past two
years , historians now write about a host of other issues, and
other questions. They look at how people earned their
livelihood , what they produced and ate, how cities developed
and markets came up, how kingdoms were formed and new
ideas spread , and how cultures and society changed.
There were heated debates about the dates on which rulers
were crowned or battles were fought.In the common - sense
notion, history was synonymous with dates. You may have
heard people say,"I find history boring because it is all about
memorizing dates." Is such a conception true ?
History is certainly about changes that occur over time. It
is about finding out how things have changed. As soon as we
compare the past with the present we refer to time, we talk of
"before" and "after" .
Living in the world we do not always ask historical questions
about what we see around us. We take things for granted, as
if what we see has always been in the world we inhabit. But
most of us have our moments of wonder , when we are curious,
and we ask questions that actually are historical. Watching
someone sip a cup of tea at a roadside tea stall you may
wonder- when did people begin to drink tea or coffee? Looking
out of the window of a train you may ask yourself - when were
railways built and how did people travel long distances before
the age of railways ? Reading the newspaper in the morning
you may be curious to know how people got to hear about
things before newspapers began to be printed.
As such historical questions refer us back to notions of time.
But time does not have to be always precisely dated in term of
a particular year or a month. Sometimes it is actually incorrect
to fix precise dates to processes that happen over a period of
time. People in India did not begin drinking tea one fine day;
they developed a taste for it over time. There can be no one
clear date for a process such as this. Similarly, we cannot fix
one single date on which British rule was established, or the
national movement started, or changes took place within the
economy and society.All these things happened over a stretch
of time, an approximate period over which particular changes
became visible.
Why , then, do we continue to associate history with a string
of dates? This association has a reason. There was a time when
history was an account of battles and big events. It was about
rulers and their policies. Historians wrote about the year a king
was crowned, the year he married, the year he had a child, the
year he fought a particular war, the year he died, and the year
the next ruler succeeded to the throne. For events such as these,
specific dates can be determined, and in histories such as these ,
debates about dates continue to be important.
As you have seen in the history textbooks of the past two
years , historians now write about a host of other issues, and
other questions. They look at how people earned their
livelihood , what they produced and ate, how cities developed
and markets came up, how kingdoms were formed and new
ideas spread , and how cultures and society changed.
Comments
Post a Comment