History As A Selective Discipline
The importance of knowing our roots is truly necessary and interesting to know about. Elizabeth Boone presents history as a selective discipline because it is the practice of studies on a certain subject. Historians study the past, they research, analyze the evidence to prove the happenings of events, places, people and connections to create a narrative. Thanks for this we are able to connect points from the cultural and civil relationships throughout the years to be able to comprehend the present-day and the future.
Many interpret the definition of history as the learning and research of the past, as something that it is just a chronological series of events that explain the occurrence. But Boone believes that history is more than that. She explains that it is about the explanation and significance of recorded chronicles, it is the study to understand the reason of its nature and its cultural aspects. How the humans have reacted throughout time and the steps to build an empire for their civilization. Leaving us clues and traces for us to research and understand its meaning.
“They created those images to free themselves… to weave solidarity founded on common origins, to delimit the possession of a territory, to affirm identities rooted in remote traditions, to sanction established power, to back contemporary claims with the prestige of the past, to found on a shared past the aspiration of building a nation, or to give sustenance to plans laid toward the uncertainty of the future”. With this, we understand how humans affirm their existence and support their ambitions. Showing us their journey of our ancestors, helping us comprehend the present and the cause for its happening. There are many ways to study evidence about the past. Artifacts and that were created by our ancestors such as books, manuscripts, scribes, and sages are great proof to support how the past was created and organized. There is no limit on what can be studied or researched. Historians have plenty of possible biases while studying an artifact. They can find the relationship of the tribes that are illustrated, the economy, the civilization, and even the vegetation. “Careful examination of existing manuscripts and the few tests have been conducted on the pigments allow us to understand something of how painters worked”.
The examination of this pieces can lend historians to various angles. For example, a quote from Elizabeth Boone on Ancient Mexican Histories explains that the studies and tests from the manuscripts and its materials revealed the artist’s creative process and the natural resources that ancient civilizations had. For like minerals, animals, and plants.
Now we can understand more about their lives and resources that had to survive. History is more than the study of the past. Historians studies guide us with the explanation of past time periods and their culture, balancing the arguments and facts. Because of the reasons explained before historians show us how history is a selective discipline studying everything from people to events to time periods to civilizations and much more.
