Padilla, Marie Angeli S.

BSMA 4

HIST 15

TTH 10:30-12:00nn

July 2, 2013

Assignment: Did geography have a role in the making of history?

Yes it did. Even the word Geography has a history. Apparently, the word geography was coined by an ancient Greek scholar named Eratosthenes. The word literally means "writing about the earth." The word can be divided into two parts - Geo and Graphy. Geo means the earth and Graphy meaning to write. In a sense, geography and history are complementary and interdependent. This relationship is associated by common terms as space and time, area and era, places and events, pairs that are basically inseparable. Geography is not just a physical stage for the historical drama. Geography is not just a set of facts about the earth. It is a special way of looking at the world. Its just like history, an age-old and essential strategy for thinking about large and complex matters. In my opinion, theres really not much history without the geographic association that comes along with it. See for example my take on how I remember historic events and individuals through a collection of my memories from watching educational cabled channels to the dreary documentary viewings in my high school days: Napoleon Bonaparte, a petite man with gargantuan ambitions whose defeat was consummated at Belgium a French guy who rose and fell in Waterloo, Belgium. Belgians linked to the word Jewish Adolf Hitler, a thumb width handle-bar moustache bearing man with an impressive degree of charisma who loathed individuals with a Jewish belief a German man whose advocacies gave life to the meaning of the end of the world- The rise and fall of a dictator. Ferdinand Marcos, a brilliant lawyer who rose into power with a promise of plans of a better future, but was tainted by massive corruption, political repression, and human rights violations a Filipino dictator, branded as a devil by his countrymen. Those individuals and their nationalities and the countries in which they belong to, this is how I remember them. This is how I remember history, who was involved, what had happened, WHEN it happened and WHERE it happened.