Portfolio: Final Exam

“Why [consider history]? Simply because I am interested in the past? No, if one means by that...a history of the past in terms of the present. Yes, if one means... the history of the present.” –Michel Foucault

I believe that if we want to understand more about a country or culture, we will have to study its own history. And the history will show you how it was formed and becoming what it is now in the present. Just like the quote, “Why [consider history]? Simply because I am interested in the past? No, if one means by that...a history of the past in terms of the present. Yes, if one means... the history of the present,” written in “Discipline & Punish” by Michel Foucault, a French historian and philosopher.

To translate this quote, I believe the author was asking that why are we studying history? Is it just because we are interesting at it? No, we are studying history because history is what made the world is like today. What we learn in the past can be helpful for us to get to know more cultures and the reasons why of some events are still or stopped happening in the modern world. There are a lot examples will give us an idea for the meaning of this quote. For the first example, why did the population of African decreased so much and quick during 1450 to 1770? Because white people believed that black represents evil and white represents good and kind, so British used to kidnap or buy Africans as slaves and treated them bad as low class animals. During the slave trades, a lot of Africans died on the way to America, just because the British sailors did not give them food and water, and also without fresh air which made them sick and died. And then as more and more Africans worked as slaves in America, they started to rebel to get their freedom and rights. Now, you can see people are treating each other equally no matter where you are from or what skin color you have, the history shows us what fights and wars people had been through to get the society we have now in America.

For another example, the Boston Tea Party which happened in fall of 1773, when American colonists dumped the tea that imported from England into the Boston Harbor. The reason why the colonists decided to dump the tea into the harbor was because the British were adding too much taxation on the colonists. British lost a lot of money to fight in the wars ad they were trying to get in back by taxing the colonists, which caused colonists rebel and wanted to be independent. As we know that the colonists won and earned their freedom from Great Britain and became what we known as the United States of America. And for the last example I would like to give was happened in Europe, a disease that killed almost half of the European population. The history of this disease was called Black Death. People had no education and knowledge of medication at this time; they drank dirty water and food. For an example, when someone was killed by the Black Death, people would dump the dead body into the water, and then use to water for drink and showers which caused the disease to spread wider in the European nation. And as we developed and learned, we know that we should keep our environment clean to prevent the disease to spread around.

I am strongly agreed with author’s idea, so I would answer yes to the question that author is asking. Everyone including my self should use what we learn the best in the past to make good changes to our community. In the writing class, I have learned that the style I used to use will not work here, and I need to develop that will suit my voice and work in this class. As the class went on, I learned what I missed and need to make change and added more useful skills that will help me. So what I learned here was that when things are not working well on the essay, I can always try something new and pick up what is helpful for me. In my history class, after read through so many primary documents and historical events, I have learned that if everyone would just sit down and have conversations, I believe there were some wars and rebels that were no needed to fight about. And also if everyone had a sense of respect for people who have different colors of skin, there would not be so many tragedies happened in the past during the African slave trades. And would my learning have been different with a different answer to Foucault’s question? I would say NO, because no matter how my answers are different, the only importance that matter is what I believe in. If I truly believe that history is what made the world is today, then history is very important and also a valuable source to help our thinking and making decisions.