I was quite excited to see this new course offering, taught by Dr. Allen C. Guelzo of Gettysburg College, from The Teaching Company. I like to read the accounts of ancient historians whenever I can but I always try to keep in mind the political and cultural influences that tend to skew the "eye-witness" perspective of these ancient minds. I will share some of my course discoveries with you when I get a chance to watch this new series on DVD. I will have to wait until I finish Experiencing Rome: A Visual Exploration of Antiquity's Greatest Empire though, as I am prepping for my March 12 trip to Rome at the moment. Making History is on sale now for only $69.95 on DVD although you can also order it on audio CD, audio cassette, or MP3 download. I opted for the DVD version because it includes over 800 maps and images.
History is not truth.
While it forms the backbone of our knowledge about the world, history is nevertheless only a version of events. History is shaped by the interpretations and perspectives of the individual historians who record it.
Consider:
- Sallust, writing his dark history of Rome to rail against the political corruption he saw consuming the empire—while artfully concealing his own role in it;
- John Foxe, in his Book of Martyrs, writing about church history to discredit the Catholics and legitimize the reign of Elizabeth I;
- David Hume, penning his massive History of England with the deliberate goal of creating a potboiler that will earn him a fortune.
What, then, is the motive and the vision of the historian? How do historians create their histories? And what role does the historian's viewpoint and method play in what we accept as truth?
These questions underlie a history lesson of the most revealing kind.
In Making History: How Great Historians Interpret the Past, award-winning scholar Allen C. Guelzo of Gettysburg College takes you inside the minds of our greatest historians. Over 24 intriguing lectures, he challenges you to explore the idea of written history as it has shaped humanity's story over 2,000 years. Told through enthralling historical anecdotes, the course travels deep into mankind's fundamental desire to record and understand the world, to shed new light on the events and experiences of yesterday, and to use the past as a window onto the present and the future.
History: The Art of Discovery
"History is more than merely a pile-up of facts or a chronicle of the past," notes Dr. Guelzo. "It is an art—and a very complicated one at that. And like the others arts, it has techniques and perspectives, some of them old and long-since retired, some of them in violent conflict with each other."
The actors in this art of discovery are the great historians themselves, from the ancient Greeks to our own time. You look through the eyes of our civilization's greatest historical minds to ponder why they conceived and wrote history the way they did.
In key sections, you explore the seminal thinking of these men:
- Herodotus, considered by many the first history writer, who replaced the epic imagination of Homer with istorieis, or inquiry
- Livy, the author of a 142-volume didactic history of Rome that spanned three continents and seven centuries
- David Hume, who framed English history with an evolutionary vision of economic, political, and intellectual freedom
- Edward Gibbon, whose monumental Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire forged a complex picture of epic collapse and decay
Beneath the Surface of Written History
With Professor Guelzo's penetrating perspective, you examine the processes that create accepted views of historical events. As you take apart the elements of history writing, you discover how the great stories of the past were chosen and how they were interpreted.
In considering the key choices the historian makes, you uncover the ways in which understanding how history is written is crucial to understanding historical events themselves. You also explore how the version of history you accept reveals much about you as an individual and as a member of a community.
The journey rewards you with an unforgettable insight into our human heritage and the chance to look with discerning eyes at human events in their deeper meanings. Anyone with an interest in history, philosophy, or intellectual history will find these lectures a far-reaching meditation on the evolution of historical thought.
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