Historical Analysis Of Bloch's History, Men, And Time

In “History, Men, and Time”, Bloch begins by explaining the difficulty of defining history and the overlap that arises with the union of two disciplines. An issue that arises when documenting history is the appearance of the human element and how it affects the perception of history and its recording. The human element thus affects the perception of history, whether it is “…all politics….it is all sociology [or whether it is]…journalism” (Bloch, p37). The last section of the reading is a historical analysis section where the author discusses the implications that come with analyzing the actions of humans through time and the difficulty of coming to an agreement on recounting certain events. On the other hand, Wineburg uses examples to get

I agree to some extent that history can humanize; however, there are so many factors that come into play with the way one interacts with history. Since previous knowledge affects the way information is perceived, then it becomes difficult to learn from the past and be able to change. Also, the “humanizing” part of the statement is ambiguous. Humanizing can represent a range of characteristics such as the ability to change, empathy, etc. Then, Rochberg mentions that “existing beliefs shape the information encountered so that the new conformed to the shape of already known”. Through examples of experiences, Rochberg is able to defend his claim. The only person able to detach themselves from existing beliefs was the historian, but even then he used his previous training to be able to analyze the work. The example of the school principle was the most interesting. The school principle attends a seminar where she learns the differences between a history textbook and the primary sources (Rochberg). Even though, the principle admits to learning a lot when asked to make her own passage it resembles a textbook passage. This interestingly raises the question of whether the language of the textbook is the best way to teach students. The main difference between Bloche and Rochberg is that Rochberg was able to support his claims using examples that proved his point. However, both Bloche and Rochberg discuss the issues that arise with analyzing