History CASE seminar: “History: An Argument Without End?”

-by Ela Vysna, Year 12

Why do historians have different interpretations of the same events and how does this deepen our understanding of contemporary sources?

On Thursday 22nd October, a class of Year 12 History students were led in a seminar by Ms Munday to discuss a myth within our German history course known as the "Stab in the back" myth.

To prepare for this seminar, we were given sources to analyse and answer questions on, in order to make sure our knowledge was secure and that we had good foundations for our discussion. Each source provided a different perspective on this myth – it was a belief held by the vast majority of the German people that their government had betrayed them at the end of WWI by surrendering and calling for an armistice, and later for signing the Treaty of Versailles. We also discussed what exactly makes sources good for analysis, and how interpretations of sources can change how impactful they are to our understanding of a topic. For example, it was interesting to hear my classmates' perspectives on sources that I believed lacked proper detail about the myth, and I actually grew to understand their viewpoints more.

The seminar overall was really interesting, and was really useful to help further my knowledge on source questions within history and how to analyse them in order to create stronger arguments.