Why Study History in English?

【Contributor Series】

【💾History ✖️ EMI】

Contributor: Justin Eser, exchange student from the Department of History, Germany

Carl Sagan once summarized the purpose of studying history as follows: “You have to know the past to understand the present”. To understand the past, historians use a variety of different methods to gain scientifically valid insights about the reality of the past. Their main business is to critically investigate documents that originate from earlier times, be it in the form of written texts, images, or objects. It is from these three types of sources, that we draw our knowledge of the past from. 🏛️

That alone makes quite a demanding task for scholars. ☠️ Still, there seems to be a rising popularity in studying History in the English language. Why should someone put that extra strain on him/herself you might ask? I can convince you to do exactly that within two arguments which will prove that studying history in an L2 language can be at least as rewarding, as it is demanding.

Especially from the Early Modern Age on, historians deal mainly with written sources.📜 Studying original sources of the English language provides the opportunity to bypass one of the most severe problems of historical source criticism – translation errors. Once you are able to decipher older texts in the original source, you do not have to rely on someone’s translation on documents. You will be able to read countless of thrilling and impactful texts, like the Bill of Rights for example, and make sense of them yourself. In that sense, if you want to become a more authentic historian in a certain field of English, American, or Australian history, you should definitely consider studying History in English. 📚 
Another reason to do so is a guaranteed enhancement of your literary skills. Historians don’t calculate or do experiments. They read a lot and write papers about what they read, that’s what they do. Apart from image and object sources, they are mainly concerned with texts. Now this can be used as a channel to foster your literary skills. Be it that you pick up a bunch of new phrases and 11words through reading, or that you write your own reports of sources, which always include summaries and critical reflections. As you can see, History is quite a favourable subject to enhance your English skills, while learning something new about the world simultaneously.

Now you have two good arguments for why studying History in English is a very good academic opportunity. I understand your doubts, but I promise that this challenge will provide a rich academic outcome for you! 🎓