History As Subject

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History manifests itself in different ways. It is part of our everyday lives whether it is easily recognized or it remains wholly unrecognized.

Taking history as subject is recognizing history as a conscious state. It is a difficult and monumental task. Luckily, it is bound by a rule, and as a rule, history must start from the present.

The first step is to ask:

Things at present that have big impact on people and society…

Do research, ask someone or read and watch the news.

The second step is to ask:

Things in history that have or have had big impact on these things…

The task is to trace them back in time and to trace them as far back in time as you can trace them – to their origins.

Subject In History

If we take Penicillin as an example, then we can trace it back in time when it was discovered in September of 1928 in London. Here, we can take this period as our subject in history and begin our inquiry. We have a setting, September of 1928 in London at St. Mary’s Hospital, and a main figure, who is Alexander Fleming, the bacteriologist, who discovered the Penicillin. We can begin with the setting or go back a few years earlier, when Penicillin was still being discovered. Or we can take it ahead of time twelve years or so, during the Second World War, and start from there. Or take it even further when it was after being massed produced by Pfizer. The question is: how is Penicillin a subject in history? And a subject-impact of the present?

As any subject that manifests itself in the society in the present in the consciousness, we can assume true and take as subject in history. It’s just a question of discernment of taking history to its conscious state, which is the real task of recognizing history as subject and as a vital part of life.