You first learned about how historians make arguments; now you’ll practice evaluating those arguments and making your own. Since history requires making inferences about the past, it’s inevitable that scholars will come to different conclusions. It can be very helpful then to study different historical interpretations about a particular event or movement over time, as interpretations often change. The final skill component, synthesis, is also related to argumentation. It is the culminating skill because it requires you to integrate all the other skills in creating your own argument.

Interpretation

Historians interpret both primary and secondary sources, evaluating points of view and considering context to create their own interpretations. Through analyzing different historical interpretations, you will see how historical interpretations change over time. We have already established that formulating a historical argument requires making inferences from evidence. The background of a particular historian (age, gender, nationality, political philosophy, time of writing, etc.) often shapes the way he or she understands or interprets the past. In many cases, knowing something about the context of a historian can help you understand his or her argument better—in the same way that understanding the context of the author of a primary source helps you understand the primary source. Sometimes, this information can help you identify the prejudices or limitations of a particular interpretation.

For example, in the early 1960s a British historian claimed that Africa had no history until Europeans took over the continent. Subsequent scholarship has shown this conclusion to be quite false, and we can assume that this historian’s context as a citizen of an imperial nation writing during decolonization influenced his outlook. About the same time, an American scholar developed an influential model of modernization for “third-world countries.” Later scholars have argued that this model oversimplified the world by assuming all countries would grow economically the same way the United States had.

Be careful when analyzing historical interpretations. You can’t simply assume that because a scholar has x background he will make y argument. There are far too many exceptions for such a rule. Instead, begin by finding out what you can about a scholar’s background and then make a hunch about how that background might shape his or her views. Then, as you read the author’s argument carefully, look for evidence that he or she actually makes the kinds of arguments you anticipated. If you don’t find such evidence, discard your hunch.

Synthesis

Synthesis is a culminating skill that reflects your ability to make persuasive arguments of your own from evidence. It draws on all of the other historical thinking skills—historical argumentation, appropriate use of relevant historical evidence, causation, continuity and change, periodization, comparison, contextualization, and interpretation—along with two other elements. First, you may need to draw on evidence outside the field of history. This will most likely come from the social sciences: archeology, anthropology, economics, sociology, etc. The other element is the ability to apply insights from historical evidence to a new setting. This is a creative form of comparison. Most likely, you will link some moment in the past to a contemporary problem, such as ongoing struggles for economic and political independence in the developing world in the post-colonial era, as described in Chapter 22. In so doing, you will be using the past to shed light on the present. You will have taken a major step in historical thinking, as making connections is a key part of what historians do.