Literature Analysis #2

Okay so, I know we aren't really supposed to do lit analyses on short stories or poems or anything, but I came across a great article (that was actually really long) about how history is important to us today, which is what my masterpiece/big question is on. I doubt I will be able to find many books on the same topic. At least, not any interesting ones.

The Importance of History
by David Crabtree

Topics/Events
1. a) The article talked a lot about how history can be distorted based on how individuals bring past experiences with them when they are presented with a historical event. It makes it problematic when you're trying to teach people something because some people will take it differently than other people and two completely different versions of history emerge. The way that history is viewed can change with the progression of society. Learning from history is possible if we decide to listen, and yes, it can teach us how to solve the problems that we now face.
b)
2. I think he wrote about it because he's concerned with the lack of interest in history. He says that in this "time of progress," it would be backwards to look to the past when we're all about "going forward."
3. I read this article as part of the "next step" involving our big questions.
4. A lot of the theories it threw out there, including the one about how your past impacts how you view history, I hadn't heard before and I'm not really sure if I buy a lot of it. I know that history gets distorted a lot, sometimes by people who want it to fit their political agenda, but I've never heard of someone arriving at a different conclusion than someone else when presented with historical fact because they are or aren't religious. Some of it was believable, like how understanding history can help you solve similar problems in the future, but I think a lot of it was just his own opinion.

People
1. The only characters in the article are a short passage involving his kids, and the other authors he mentions. The passage with his kids isn't long enough to say anything about how he represented them based on experience (despite the fact that his kids sometimes get into arguments) but he used the other authors' books as evidence for his theory of history being understood differently. He took parts of the books and compared them with each other and used what the authors said to prove his theory. To do this, he had to draw conclusions on what the authors were like as people because of what they wrote. So, he could very well have fabricated some of what the authors were like and left the reader with a completely different mental picture of them than what they are.
2. There was no physical description of the kids or the other authors, but I would use direct characterization for the one that's religious and indirect characterization for the one that isn't and holds more sinister views of the subject that was being discussed. The religious one would be depicted as a happy optimist and, because I now associate the non-religious one with negativity. that author would be depicted as a pessimist and rather gloomy.
3. They weren't particularly interesting to write about, but they were necessary to mention because it provided the evidence for the theory that Crabtree introduced.

Style
1. Crabtree used a "journalistic" style, because it was an informative piece. "Howard Zinn’s portrayal of Columbus could scarcely be more different from Marshall’s. His presentation is rooted in a very different understanding of the essence and value of history. Zinn is outraged by the traditional
practice of telling the history of a nation as though all members of that nation shared the same interests."
2. Crabtree focuses a lot on the opinions of the other authors and the significant passages from their books.
3.
4.
5. Crabtree cites Christopher Columbus, Mariner by Samuel Eliot Morison, Columbus, the Tool of God by Peter Marshall, and Columbus, the Oppressor by Howard Zinn. It supported his theory but didn't address the issue of whether or not history is important.

Enduring Memory
I will remember this article because I had never thought about someone's life affecting how they react to a history lesson. That was a really interesting idea to me. And it made sense, because if a person is learning about someone that is religious, and the person has had really bad past experiences with religion or religious people, then they will take a different perspective than someone who is religious. "Peter Marshall has a very different perspective. He sees Columbus as a key figure in God’s grand plan to establish a very special country, unique in the history of the world....
From this perspective (Zinn), Columbus is the quintessential oppressor. From the outset of the expedition Columbus was intent on extracting wealth from the native."