Today we followed up the discussion from the previous day by considering the relative importance of the diary of a Canadian soldier who had landed and survived Juneau Beach and the importance of the diary of his mother.
Through this, we uncovered that there was some merit to studying the history of the ordinary person, often referred to as social history. See the link below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_history
Conversely, the history of "significant" people or events may be described as political history. For more information, see the link below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_history
There is an age old battle between political history advocates and social history advocates in terms of which interpretation is the more correct or accurate one. In essence, this is the constant battle that goes on in the mind of the historian as he goes about his work - What is and what is not worthy of study?
To begin with, you are going to embark on a social history study -- one that looks at the history of you and your family. The details of this will be presented to you on Monday. For now, start thinking about it and talking about it at home so that you will be ready to work on the assignment when we begin.
As well, we talked about the difference between primary and secondary sources. A primary source may be defined as an eyewitness account or direct, first person version of events. A secondary source is an account (like a textbook) that makes use of many different versions of events. They may be both primary and secondary in nature. Your research into your family history is an example of a primary activity.
