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Defining History: The Importance of Understanding Philippine History
Defining History: The Importance of Understanding Philippine History
Defining History: The Importance of Understanding Philippine History
THE IMPORTANCE OF
UNDERSTANDING PHILIPPINE HISTORY
✓ helps understand people and societies 5. Material evidence of the prehistoric past like
cave drawings, old syllabaries, and ancient
✓ inspirations writings
✓ provides identity 6. Statistical tables, graphs and charts
✓ essential for good citizenship 7. Oral history or recordings by electronic means
✓ strengthens unity of accounts of eyewitnesses or participants
8. Published and unpublished primary
documents, eyewitness accounts, and other
SOURCES OF WRITING HISTORY
written sources
It is from historical sources that our history is
studied and written. But in analyzing them, several • Secondary Sources
methodologies and theories were used by historians
Secondary Sources are sources of history which
to properly study history and glean from the sources
were produced by an author who used primary
what is, for them, a proper way of writing history to
sources to produce the material.
enhance and disseminate national identity.
According to Louis Reichenthal Gottschalk,
• Primary Sources
secondary sources are “…the testimony of anyone
Primary Sources are materials produced by who is not an eyewitness – that is of one who was
people or groups directly involved in the event or not present at the event of which he tells”.
topic being studied. These people are either
participants or eyewitnesses to the event. Books, articles and journals that had interpreted
primary sources or had used them to discuss
Formally, there are eight examples of primary certain subjects of history are examples of
sources: secondary sources.
1. Photographs that may reflect social conditions
of historical realities and everyday life