History is an attempt to synthesize these experiences. The historian makes judgments and establishes causal relationships between facts. She must place them in some significant pattern and order and not simply be a reporter. The historian writes in a narrative fashion and is responsible for documentation within this narrative account. While most social scientists conceive of prediction as a major component of their responsibility, historians have as their major task a synthesis and preservation of truth as their objective, not prediction of a future history.
History is based on a synthesis of the past to create a mosaic of understanding the truth.
After reading this entire unit , come back to this section and based on these four pictures create 10 questions about them. Five questions should be the types of questions that you think a journalist would ask of these scenes and five questions should be the types of questions that you think a historian would ask of these scenes. Finally, you should discuss how you would go about answering at least two questions that your classmates ask. You can reach the Visuals Discussion Question Area by going to the Dialogues Section .