An Item that represents American Culture

I think that an item of mine that represents American culture is a cellphone (pantech-matrix pro-graphite-97×160.gif).  I say this because a cellphone represents, in my mind, convenience.  Our country has become a one of convenience. We have all these wonderful fast food restaurants, which, being fast food, are convenient for people running around everyday, going from dropping their kids off at school, going to work, then going to pick their kids up from school, and then running around doing errands, etc.  Microwavable and ready made meals serve the same function as the fast food restaurants.  Even doing taxes is convenient now (up to a point, I suppose), what with all the companies that will do them for you, for a fee of course.  All these things are based on the American mindset of convenience, and the cellphone fits in perfectly with this.  Being able to reach anyone (obviously you have to know their cell number first), whenever you need to reach them, anywhere in the country, is a major convenience.  It allows parents to (try to) keep track of their kids without having to be with them, holding their hands (which would be a major convenience for them). It allows people to communicate with their friends without having to be standing in the same room as them. Everything about the cellphone is convenient, which fits in with our country’s mindset.

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The Sources Historians use

Historians probably have a wide variety of sources at their disposal when they sit down to write a history book or document of some sort.  I don’t know all of these possible sources, I’m not a historian, but I do know that the principle source they draw upon are written records of times past. They could also draw upon various artifacts and relics (archives.uvamagazine.org/ site/c.esJNK1PIJrH/b…)(varying from tools to the very bones of the people of the civilization being written of) of different civilizations that we have found.  They could also draw upon the art a culture produced whatever might remain, anyway) to figure out different things about that culture.  All these would have use to a historian if they were sitting down to write a history book.  The bulk of the information going into the text would come from the written records of the civilizations in the time period they are writing about.  The various artifacts and pieces of art of a civilization that we might have found would allow a historian to estimate how advanced that civilization was compared to other civilizations, and through various dating methods, determine about how long ago this civilization was around.  The different artifacts would also serve as good items to take pictures of and put in the history book the historian may be making as illustrations.  However, when choosing what sources they are going to use, historians have to look very carefully at them.  They have to remember what period of time they were written in and what the author’s personal biases may have been, etc.  Each of these things will affect how the author would have written, and will therefore affect the way the piece the historian is drawing from was written and any biases it may have.  And since the majority of what the author is using as evidence will be the written records (which are biased one way or another), the piece they are writing will also be biased.

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Armesto’s Introduction

In his introduction to The World, he makes very clear his personal thoughts on the subject of history, what drives it, and why he organized the book the way he did.  Mr. Armesto views and defines history as a massive collection of stories of the lives of many different people from all different places and times. He argues that history is not what those places or lives described actually were like, but what the people living in those areas or living those lives thought of their world.  In contrast, Emily B. argues that history is a collection of facts about our world, colored by personal opinions and perspective.  I personally define history as all the events that have taken place in our world from its very beginning until this very moment.  Mr. Armesto believes that the forces that drive history are how we (humans) interact with nature and how we interact with each other.  He believes that history is shaped by the way separate human cultures develop, grow, and eventually come in contact with other human cultures, whether it be through war, diplomacy, trade, or just sheer coincidence.  This is reflected in the way he organizes the book.  Mr. Armesto tries to look at the history of the world from ‘an immense, astral height’ as he puts it.  He tries to cover all continents in each chapter, unless he must focus on a particular region.  He organizes the text chronologically, and puts more emphasis on certain cultures depending on the time period and how important that culture was during said time period.  For example, Mr. Armesto gives China a great amount of space in the book, specifically because of the fact that China has been so important and very powerful through-out history.  He does this with with Europe and the United States when he covers the last few hundred years because a lot of things happened in Europe and the U.S. during this time period.  This way, he can focus more on the ‘more important’ areas during each time period.

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History as a Discipline

How does one define history?  I personally define it as all the events that have taken place from the birth of the world until this very second.  You may define it differently.  It is however, regardless of how we define it, one of the most important subjects that we must study.  Why?  Because it is through studying history that we realize the mistakes that people have made in the past.  By knowing what mistakes have been made in the past, we can make sure that we do not make the same mistakes in the future.  If we didn’t study history and didn’t learn about these mistakes, they would be perpetuated over and over again (and that’s not good!).  We would never be able to move on, and our world would stagnate.  There are several cases of this in the world today, where people continue to hold grudges over acts that occurred hundreds of years ago.  The people who perpetuate these grudges weren’t even alive to have been offended.  It is by looking at history and learning from the mistakes made by people in the past that we can prevent our world from stagnating (holding grudges is a mistake, at least in my book, especially if you weren’t even alive when the offense took place).

We can also take good things or ideas we learned from history and improve upon them, and in that way help our society grow.  Previous research into various technologies being improved on by scientists in our time is one example of this (breakthroughs in research count as events, right?).  These improvements allow our society to grow and become greater, which allows it to survive longer, which allows it to create more history for our children to study, learn from, and improve upon.  This is why history is worth studying and why it is so important.

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