Studying the past deepens our understanding of historical experience and our awareness of the presen
Just as people need to know who they are and how they arrived where they are, groups, classes, states and nations need a sense of their own past as part of their culture. The academic study of history at Dalhousie, therefore, is concerned to discover as much as possible of the reality of the past and to interpret human behaviour in its changes through time. It is a unique subject, scientific in th
e way it uses evidence, but still an art because the reconstruction of the past requires a disciplined imagination and an effective rhetoric for the communication of meaning. The contemporary world is one of intensive specialization, in which the varieties of human knowledge have increased well beyond the capacity of any individual to command them all. These developments have reinforced the role of history as the foundation of a person’s education, because history can never draw frontiers around itself to exclude any branch of human knowledge, although individual historians will want to select that portion of it especially relevant for them. History’s field of study will always be the entirety of the human experience. The subject of history does not have a monolithic body of knowledge. Historical understanding is a matter of interpretation, of offering explanations for events and movements which are subject to constant revision by scholars. Arguments, scepticism and controversy are thus the very stuff of history. The history student does not merely acquire a particular mass of information, but learns to think independently. Especially in the 3000- and 4000-level classes, students gain more than sophistication about substantive areas of history. They also develop transferable skills for oral and written communication, for presentations of findings to groups, for group and independent research, for computer literacy in the human sciences, for research skills in primary and secondary materials, and for the application of foreign languages. A degree in history provides an appropriate background for students planning to enter professional careers in fields such as law, education and journalism, as well as those interested in pursuing graduate study in history or related social science and humanities disciplines.
