Interpretations and significance, Year 9

A trigger (or spark)

HintIt shares its name with the part of a gun that is squeezed.

The whyHistorians separate the spark from the fuel. Long-term causes build up the conditions; this is what finally sets them off. An essay that explains only the last event has explained when something happened, not why.

A judgement about which cause mattered most

HintThe reader finishes it and still does not know what the writer thinks.

The whyListing causes shows knowledge; weighing them shows understanding. A strong essay says from the start which cause it will argue was most important, and each paragraph then helps to prove it.

It shows how the two causes are linked

HintA sets two facts side by side; B makes one depend on the other.

The whyCauses rarely act alone. Showing that one made another possible, or made it worse, is what turns separate points into an explanation. Phrases such as 'this meant that' and 'which allowed' are the joints of a causation essay.

Political

HintIt is the category for governments, leaders, parties and power.

The whySorting causes by type (economic, social, political, military) gives an essay its shape and lets you compare them. You can then argue, for example, that economic causes created the crisis and decisions about power settled who gained from it.

It was not very important

HintTake it away in your mind and see how much of the story changes.

The whyThis thought experiment lets you defend a ranking with reasons. A cause whose removal changes everything is essential; one whose removal changes little is a detail. Nobody can rerun the past, so the answer is always a judgement, and it has to be supported with evidence.

An interpretation

HintSomeone who turns one spoken language into another has a job title from the same root.

The whyThe past itself is gone; what we have are traces of it. Every history book, documentary or museum display is someone's reading of those traces, which is why two honest accounts of one event can differ.

That Germans deeply resented the treaty

HintSet aside whether the terms were fair and look at the reaction both of them describe.

The whyComparing interpretations starts with pinning down exactly where they part company. Here both accept how people in Germany felt; they differ over whether that feeling was deserved. Finding the common ground first stops you treating two accounts as opposites when they disagree on a single point.

The later historian had more evidence to work from

HintThink what an archive opening its doors adds to a writer's desk.

The whyGovernment papers that were secret in 1925 have since been opened. Interpretations change as sources are released, discovered or read in new ways. That does not make the earlier writer careless; they worked with what existed. It is one reason to check a book's date before relying on its verdict.

They are asking different questions about it

HintLook at what each one set out to find before a single source was opened.

The whyWhat a historian chooses to look at shapes what they find. One sees growth; the other sees suffering; both describe the same period truthfully. A fuller picture comes from holding the two together, not from picking a winner.

Statement 2

HintOne could be checked against a calendar; the other needs an argument.

The whyA fact can be checked; an interpretation has to be argued for. 'Futile' is a judgement about purpose and results, and other historians argue the battle wore the German army down. Spotting the judging words in an account shows you where its interpretation lies.