Chapter 4: Identification of Historical Importance of the Text

“Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid
them.” – Victor Hugo

Historical Significance
- Process used to evaluate what was significant about selected events, people, and
developments in the past.
Significance
- have been called the forgotten concept in history

“Teachers often tell students what is important instead of asking them to consider what is
significant. The key to understanding significance is to understand the distinction between
teaching significant history and asking students to make judgements about significance.”
When considering historical significance, we ask: What and who should be remembered,
researched and taught?

A. Criteria on Assessing Historical Significance of Sources

1. Relevance
2. Resonance
3. Remarkable
4. Remembered
5. Revealing
6. Resulting in Change
7. Durability
8. Quantity
9. Profundity

B. Issues on Assessing the Historical Significance

1. Our views about historical significance are often shaped by contemporary
contexts and can be dependent upon our own values, interests and knowledge.
2. History is written by the victor. Historical significance is how we define past
events that the current writer of history deems important / relevant.
 3. Historical significance is relative and varies from location to location, generation
to generation or sometimes to ideological orientation or political affiliation of the
one doing the evaluation or assessment.

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