What is History ?

Definition
Historical Facts
Historical Methodology
Historical Views
 Historical views

• Classification by historical dynamic

– Ideational view of history

• Hegel, Historical philosophy
– Materialistic view of history
• K. Marx
– The Biblical view of history
• Hegel’s Ideational View of History

– Dynamic in Historical Development

• The Spirit: Das Geist( ghost)
• Freedom
• Historical development: The Realization of Freedom

– From the East to the West

• The East: no consciousness of freedom
• Ancient Greece: incomplete consciousness of freedom
– Personal freedom, freedom of residential mobility, freedom of possession, freedom
of speech
• German society: consciousness of freedom
– Consciousness that All men are free
• Historical Materialism

– Karl Marx
– Dynamic in Historical Development
• The Production of material: economy
• Substructure and Superstructure
– Substructure:
» foundations of a society, productivity, mode of production, relation of
production
– Superstructure controlled by substructure
» politics, institution, thought, philosophy, culture etc.

– The Class Struggle

• Slave & Aristocracy, Serfs & Landlords, Proletariat & Bourgeois
– Biblical view of history

• History in the Old testament

– Samuel 1~2, Kings 1~2, Chronicles 1~2

• The Dynamic of historical facts

– Will of God

– Lord of Israel’s history, lord of all nation’s history

• Very different perspective from general history

• Classification by the patterns of historical
development

• View of Historical Cycle

• View of historical stagnation
• View of historical progress
• View of historical cycle

– Traditional view of history

– Historiography of dynasty
• 24 Authorized Histories of China
• The same phases in a Dynastic Cycle
– Foundation, Establishment, Growth, Peak, Decline, Fall
• View of historical repetition
• Historical View of Stagnation

– Western Misunderstanding on Oriental History

– “Orientalism”
• Edward Saide

– Example of stagnation view

• Chinese civilization reached its peak in the ancient of Han empire
– Confucianism, Taoism, bureaucracy, system of emperor’s
governing,
• No qualitative development for 2,000 years until the invasion of
1840

– Teleological view of history

• Justification of Colonial Rule
• View of historical progress

– 3 period time-division
– Hegel’s ideational view of history

– Marx’s historical materialism

– Based on European History

– Not to fit Asian history

– 4 Period Time-Division
– Kyoto historical school

• For the Understanding of Asian Historical

Development
• Meaningful change between Tang dynasty and
Sung dynast.
• Ancient Age, Medieval Age, Recent Age,
Modern Age
• Colonial History View & Nationalistic History View
in Korean History

– Teleological view of history

• Colonial History View: Ruling ideology to justify the

political domination and economic exploitation over the
colony

• Nationalistic History View: Anti-colonial History View

• Distortions of historical Facts

• Japanese Colonial View on the Korean history

• Theory of Heteronomy

• Emphasis on Factionalism

• Stagnation Theory
• Emphasis on toadyism
• Nationalistic view of history

– To encourage national pride, to keep national

identification, to obtain independence from the Japanese
colonial rule
– To refute the false theory of colonial view of history
– To correct the distorted historical facts by Japanese
colonial historiography
– Problem of exaggerating the great Korean history and
the achievements of the past without confirmed
historical evidences