Why Study History? - Chapter 4-A

Historians insist that the past is best understood when it’s divided into major:

• time periods

• contexts

• regions

• ideologies

Over the course of your history studies so far, which historical time period would you choose to specialize in?

Many history programmes emphasize the importance of dealing with several defined time periods while making sure that students gain experience in both ​ (a)   categories.

• modern and premodern
• ancient and medieval
• local and global
• political and sociocultural

World historians note that the label 'Middle Ages' is not applicable to the entire world from 500 CE to 1500 CE, and so instead use a label like 'postclassical'.

• True

• False

Reorder the following from left to right by proper label for 'historical age'.

• Post-Classical

• Classical

• Modern

• Early Modern

• Ancient

Organize these options into their most appropriate historical category.

Groups:

(a) Early Modern Period

,

(b) Modern Period

• Imperialism & Post-Imperialism

• Trade Between China & the West

• From Agricultural to Industrial

• Age of Atlantic Revolutions

• Consumerism

• The Industrial Revolution

The term ‘​ (a)   history’ is commonly used to refer to the period since ​ (b)   .

• contemporary
• 1945
• modern
• classical
• 1955
• 1918

Our authors refer to a Twitter survey of recent high school graduates that indicates MOST of them had U.S. history courses that reached the contemporary historical period.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

Mr. Shields has the special challenge of running a survey course in U.S. History from indigenous contact to the present.

Phew!

According to our authors, the risk of committed time periods in historical study is:

• inflexibility for developments that exceed those boundaries.

• confusion between the boundaries between major time periods.

• overspecialization leads to students with poor general knowledge.

Defining time periods – which historians call ‘ (a)   ’ – requires some flexibility.