Is Memory And History Be An Ethical Stance On Events?

This paper deals with ways history can be interpreted and influences different interpretations have on society and individuals. This is explored through

In the article Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are written by David McCullough, is an essay in which he informs how important it is to learn about our history and how it shapes who we are today. Throughout, he connects important events from American History and relates it to our lives and the world around us. The three main ideas; which are “Character and Destiny”, “Our failure, Our Duty”, and “Listening to the Past”. These ideas

Events in the past are preserved through photographs, writings and libraries. Can memories conserve the historical occurrence to the present? The theory of memory transmission states that a “massive trauma experienced by a group in the historical past can be experienced by an individual living centuries later who shares a similar attribute of the historical group” (Balaev 151). In the story “Cattle Car Complex” by Thane Rosenbaum, Adam Posner is a second generation survivor of the Holocaust. He displays symptoms of post-trauma when stuck in an elevator. Mr. Posner’s parents were prisoners of concentration camps and their memories transmit to him “so deeply as to seem to constitute memories” of his own (Hirsch 1). The Holocaust is a “Nazi Judeocide”

History is something that we all have knowledge of. It may be family history, or even your own but we all know of an experience that happened in the past. These experiences make us who we are, and they determine how we think. Not only that but they determine our emotions towards certain topics. Through characters in the book, "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, " written by Jamie Ford, we learn that American identity is based on ones history and if we want America to become a stronger more united place everyone’s history must be accepted.

In Telling the Truth About History, three historians discuss how the expanded skepticism and the position that relativism has reduced our capacity to really know and to expound on the past. The book talks about the written work of history and how individuals are battling with the issues of what is “truth.” It likewise examines the post-modernist development and how future historians

The Holocaust in the eyes of historians all across the country reiterate the importance of the Holocaust. As the first mass genocide so major in a group of people, it’s relevance continues to make a stand. Taking place in 1933 all the way until 1945, the Holocaust changed so much in so little time. Amass, 5-6 million jewish people dying from either being worked to death for taken to gas chambers and killed quietly. Though nothing about the Holocaust was quiet, as it’s name and hitler's wishes were spread across germany in its time of need. An event short enough to be considered just a blip, tacts itself up as one the largest genocides in history. It begs the question among educators and parents alike, whether schools should be teaching the Holocaust. But, the Holocaust is something that cannot be left untaught. The Holocaust should be vocalized to students because they have a right to an education and because it boosts their understanding of society and forms them into better civilians. Also because the side effects of bias in classrooms

To know the past is to know the future. In his essay Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are, David McCullough argues about the importance of studying and teaching history. In his essay, he explains that there are three main points about history: character and its effect upon destiny, our failure of teaching the future generation, and the importance of learning and listening to history. David McCullough strongly advocates that audience should start to listen to and teach about the past in order to learn about the way a person’s character can affect their destiny.

The book Silencing The Past is about how people “silence” the past through selective memories to benefit us in the present. We pick out certain events and either dramatize them or play them down to the point of no importance. This paper is about both our played up dramas and our forgotten realities.

“It is necessary to resist the tendency of recent Holocaust scholarships to universalize or collectivize Holocaust testimony, and instead revive the particular by uncovering the multiple layers within testimony.” (1) Zoe Waxman’s 2006 monograph Writing the Holocaust: Identity, Testimony, Representation sets out to prove that while the Holocaust has been universalized as one event, historians must explore the social and historical context of the many individual narratives of Holocaust witnesses in order to understand the diversity of experiences. Waxman states “three theses emerge during the course of the present study” (1) and sets out to demonstrate that Holocaust testimonies are historical, to prove that the testimony is mediated by its own history, and that testimonies confirm to the heterogeneity of Holocaust experiences.

In contemporary society, our knowledge of the past is articulated through the interplay between history and memory, which work to expose the elusive truths of the past, and exemplify the strength of humanity. Richard White, a historian, posits; “History is the enemy of memory...History forges weapons from what memory has forgotten or suppressed.” This definition postulates that there is an inevitable dichotomy between the accretion of factual evidence and the subjectivity of personal experience by shaping the collective past of humanity. However, as indicated by Mark Baker’s memoir, The Fiftieth Gate and Cathy Wilcox’s Cartoon, both of which explore perceptions of the Holocaust through an array of unique and evocative literary

The essay “Historian as Citizen” by Howard Zinn presents a call to action for historians everywhere. To start, he analyzes the delicate need for balance that comes with studying history, how historians can use patterns of the past to judge contemporary events, but must not overlook the “universe of tricks” outside that realm. Next, he argues we must also transcend the present and act as if we are freer than logic may suggest. Finally, Zinn delves into the negative aspects of society’s long-established blame game and submits his proposed solution. Through this text, Zinn seeks a drastic shift in focus from antiquity to activism— for historians to stop merely scrutinizing old facts but instead use them as tools with which to examine human nature and build a better tomorrow.

Susan Griffin’s “Our Secret” is an essay in which she carefully constructs and describes history, particularly World War II, through the lives of several different people. Taken from her book A Chorus of Stones, her concepts may at first be difficult to grasp; however David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky say that, “Griffin writes about the past - how we can know it, what its relation to the present, why we should care. In the way she writes, she is also making an argument about how we can know and understand the past…”

Many of these documentations were kept for personal reasons and others were made to be spread all throughout the world. As it was laid out in Fantasia that some of the facts that are pertinent to a specific event are more likely to be remembers opposed to others that are rejected and forgotten. Memory is an encounter that most people hold as a mental recorder that allows them to remember something of the past. However, what one person thinks can eventually over time change, thus their opinion on the event changed with it. The author grasped at small archive accounts facing the treatment of women and how the French persecuted the land.

The definition of history, is a question which has sparked international debate for centuries between the writers, readers, and the makers of history. It is a vital topic which should be relevant in our lives because it?s important to acknowledge past events that have occurred in our world that deeply influences the present. This essay will discuss what history is, and why we study it.

What is History? This is the question posed by historian E.H. Carr in his study of historiography. Carr debates the ongoing argument which historians have challenged for years, on the possibility that history could be neutral. In his book he discusses the link between historical facts and the historians themselves. Carr argues that history cannot be objective or unbiased, as for it to become history, knowledge of the past has been processed by the historian through interpretation and evaluation. He argues that it is the necessary interpretations which mean personal biases whether intentional or not, define what we see as history. A main point of the chapter is that historians select the facts they think are significant which ultimately