Introduction
Two skills are central to the practice of history: deciding what matters in the past and organizing those things that matter into chronological order so that we may show change over time. You have all encountered timelines in textbooks, on the news, and on the web. Timelines take many forms but all make two implicit arguments: the items included in this timeline are more important than the ones left out and that the events in this timeline collectively help us understand how history happened.
Traditionally students are asked to view and perhaps memorize timelines. For this couse, we are going to build our own timelines. Doing so will require us to consider both what matters and how to present what matters in a graphically coherent way.
For the next two weeks we’re going to look at the history of the family in two societies: British India (approximately 1650-1914) and Tokagawa Japan (1603-1868). These periods are defined by their governments, yet we will look more at an everyday history issue: family life.
Learning objectives
- Learn how what sources are included and excluded shapes the history presented in a timeline.
- Compare various approaches to building interactive timelines.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of different historical timelines.
- Fully answer questions using standard English in complete sentences.
Activities
A. Your first task is to review the readings for the week on domestic and economic life in India.
B. Next consider the following website that offer different
timelines of Indian history that overlap British India. Please take a half hour or so to explore these timelines, looking at multiple images and videos. Please note any objects or texts that tell you anything about family life.*
Interactive Timeline of India
Timeline of South Asia
Timeline of historical objects at the World Digital Library
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Original Link broken. Wayback Machine Link Substituted)
C. Answer the following questions. The questions are posted as .txt file so that you can simply open it and write complete answers directly below the questions. Post your answers to the Lab Experiment 6 file.
Grading Criteria
You’ll receive points for each question you successfully answer.
