Chinese, Mandarin

Spanish

English

Hindi

Arabic

Portuguese

Bengali

Russian

Japanese

Punjabi

German

Javanese

Malay

Telugu

Vietnamese

Korean

French

Marathi

Tamil

Urdu

Turkish

Italian

Chinese, Yue / Cantonese

Thai

Gujarati

Chinese, Jin

Chinese, Min Nan

Persian, Dari

Persian, Western

Polish

Pashto

Kannada

Chinese, Xiang

Malayalam

Sundanese

Hausa

Odia

Burmese

Chinese, Hakka

Ukrainian

Bihari, Bhojpuri

Tagalog

Yoruba

Bihari, Maithili

Uzbek

Sindhi

Amharic

Fula

Romanian

Oromo

Igbo

Azerbaijani

Chinese, Gan

Dutch

Kurdish, Central

Kurdish, Northern

Kurdish, Southern

Malagasy

Lahnda, Saraiki

Nepali

Sinhalese

Chittagonian

Zhuang

Khmer

Turkmen

Assamese

Madurese

Somali

Marwari

Bihari, Magahi

Haryanvi

Hungarian

Chhattisgarhi

Greek, Modern

Chewa

Dakhini

Akan, Twi

Akan, Fante

Kazakh

Chinese, Min Bei

Sylheti

Zulu

Czech

Kinyarwanda

Marwari, Dhundhari

Haitian Creole

Chinese, Min Dong

Ilocano

Quechua

Kirundi

Swedish

Hmong

Shona

Uyghur

Hiligaynon

Mossi

Xhosa

Belarusian

Balochi

World History 2

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Textual, or written, primary sources are considered the best possible resource for historians. They tend to offer both far more context and far more information than other types of sources, and sometimes clues about the writer’s intent. But even they must be approached with method and scrutiny. We must evaluate the author, audience, intent, and context in order to accurately interpret a primary source document. Some questions you might ask about the author include the following: Who wrote the piece and what is their background? What was important to the author? Why might the author have written what they did? In some cases, the answers will be fairly obvious. In others, a deeper inspection might reveal hidden motives.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	You must also take into account the planned audience for a document: For whom was it written? Was it meant to be public or private? Is it a letter to a friend or an essay submitted for publication? For a modern example, is it a text to a friend or to a mother? Texts will one day be a source for historians to use, but knowing who sent them, and to whom, will be essential to interpreting them correctly. (For fun, search online using the term “misinterpreted texts.”)
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	In addition to considering the audience, you should think about the intent: Why was the document written? Was it intended to be a factual account of an event? Was it meant to persuade? Is it a complete falsification? Often people write things that present them in the best light rather than reveal weaknesses.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Finally, you should reflect on the circumstances of the document’s creation. Some questions you may want to ask include the following: What is the general time period of the document, and what was that time like? What was happening when the individual wrote the document? Was there any sort of intimidation or distress? Is it a time of war or peace? Is there religious conflict? Is there an economic crisis? A health crisis? A natural disaster? Could the writer have been fending off an attack or lobbying for one? Are we missing other perspectives or voices we would like to hear?
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The answers to these questions will shape your interpretation of the primary source and bring you closer to its true meaning. Most text-based sources have meanings beyond the obvious, and it is the historian’s job to uncover these. Be sure to keep these questions in mind throughout this course and whenever you undertake historical research or are considering the accuracy of information you encounter (<a href="#fig-00005">Figure 1.8</a>).
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00005" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/a4c029cb795bd1ffe3854811ca4be626222b8c7e" alt="This is a chart composed of four sections. The section at the top is labeled “Author” and includes the questions “What is the author’s background?” and “What motivated the author to produce the source?” The second section is labeled “Audience” and includes the questions “For whom was it written?” and “Was it meant to be public or private?” The third section is labeled “Intent” and includes the questions “Why was the document written?” and “Was it intended to be a factual account of an event?” and “Was it meant to persuade?” The fourth section is labeled “Context” and includes the questions “What was happening when the individual wrote the document?” and “Was there any sort of intimidation or distress?”" mediaType="image/jpg" width="1095" height="655" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="1095">
	<strong>Figure 1.8</strong> These key questions to ask about primary sources help us evaluate the author, audience, intent, and context. (attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY 4.0 license)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	To gain experience using these questions, consider the two accounts in <a href="#note-00002">Child Labor in Great Britain</a>, both recorded in the <OpenstaxEm>Hansard</OpenstaxEm>, the official report of debates in Parliament and dealing with the same subject from different perspectives. According to the first account, which is recorded as a direct speech delivered to Britain’s House of Commons (one of the two chambers of Parliament) on March 16, 1832, by reformer Michael Sadler, children who worked in textile factories suffered terribly. The second account, which is a reporting of the speech delivered to the House of Commons by one of Sadler’s opponents, John Thomas Hope, argues that child labor is not necessarily a bad thing. What should historians do with such competing texts? How do they decide what each one adds to the true story of <OpenstaxTerm>child labor</OpenstaxTerm> in the Industrial Revolution? If you were to read only one of these accounts, what important information or point of view would you miss? As you read, keep these questions in mind.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxNote>
	<OpenstaxNoteTitle> Dueling Voices </OpenstaxNoteTitle> <OpenstaxH3> Child Labor in Great Britain </OpenstaxH3>
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		In the 1830s and 1840s, Great Britain was rapidly industrializing, and workers including children were laboring in factories and mines. Many British people pressed Parliament to limit child workers’ time to no more than ten hours per day. In the first excerpt below, reformer Michael Sadler urged the House of Commons to regulate children’s labor. In the second, one of Sadler’s opponents, John Thomas Hope, argues that child labor in textile factories should not be regulated.
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxBlockquote>
		<OpenstaxParagraph>
			The parents who surrender their children to this infantile slavery may be separated into two classes. The first of these, and, I trust, by far the most numerous, consists of those who are obliged, by extreme indigence, so to act, but who do so with great reluctance and with bitter regret: themselves, perhaps, out of employment, or working at very low wages, and their families, therefore, in a state of great destitution, what can they do? The Overseer, as is in evidence, refuses relief if they have children capable of working in factories whom they refuse to send there. They choose, therefore, what they deem, perhaps, the lesser evil, and reluctantly resign their offspring to the captivity and the pollution of the mill: they rouse them in the winter morning, which, as the poor father says before the Lords&#x27; Committee, they &quot;feel very sorry&quot; to do—they receive them fatigued and exhausted, many a weary hour after the day has closed—they see them droop and sicken, and, in many cases, become cripples and die, before they reach their prime: and they do all this, because they must otherwise suffer unrelieved, and starve.
		</OpenstaxParagraph> 
		<OpenstaxParagraph>
			—Michael <OpenstaxTerm>Sadler</OpenstaxTerm>, speech to the House of Commons, March 16, 1832, as recorded in the Hansard
		</OpenstaxParagraph> 
	</OpenstaxBlockquote>
	<OpenstaxBlockquote>
		 
		<OpenstaxParagraph>
			[Mr. John T. Hope] doubted, in the first place, whether a case of necessity for parliamentary interference was fairly made out. . . . It was obvious, that if they limited the hours of labour, they would, to nearly the same extent, reduce the profits of the capital on which the labour was employed. Under these circumstances, the manufacturers must either raise the price of the manufactured article, or diminish the wages of their workmen. If they increased the price of the article, the foreigner would enter into competition with them. . . . [Hope] was informed that the foreign cotton manufacturers, and particularly the Americans, trod closely upon the heels of our manufacturers. If the latter were obliged to raise the price of their articles, the foreign markets would in a great measure be closed against them, and the increased price would also decrease the demand in the home market. To avoid these ruinous consequences the manufacturers would, in all cases where it was possible to dispense with their labour, cease to employ children at all, and employ a greater number of adults than before. [Michael Sadler] seemed to consider this an advantageous course; but [Hope] could not concur with that opinion, because the labour of children was a great resource to their parents and a great benefit to themselves. . . . It was, therefore, on these grounds, because, he doubted in the first place, whether Parliament could protect children as effectually as their parents; secondly, that he did not think a case for parliamentary interference had been made out; and thirdly, because he believed, the Bill would be productive of great inconvenience, not only to persons who had embarked large capital in the cotton manufacture, but even to workmen and children themselves, that he should feel it his duty to oppose the measure.
		</OpenstaxParagraph> 
		<OpenstaxParagraph>
			—John Thomas <OpenstaxTerm>Hope</OpenstaxTerm>, speech to the House of Commons, March 16, 1832, as recorded in the Hansard
		</OpenstaxParagraph> 
	</OpenstaxBlockquote>
	<OpenstaxUl>
		<OpenstaxLi>
			According to Michael Sadler, why is it wrong to employ children in textile factories? How does he use language to convey to the other members of Parliament the difficult conditions of factory labor?
		</OpenstaxLi>
		<OpenstaxLi>
			What arguments does John Thomas Hope use to oppose limiting the number of hours children can work? How does he try to persuade other members of Parliament to support his position?
		</OpenstaxLi>
		<OpenstaxLi>
			Why may the reporter have chosen to present Hope’s speech in the third person instead of in the first person, as he did for Sadler’s? Does this make Hope’s speech a less reliable source for a historian to rely upon for evidence?
		</OpenstaxLi>
		<OpenstaxLi>
			Records of parliamentary debate were available to the public to read. In what way might this have influenced what these politicians said and how they framed their arguments?
		</OpenstaxLi>
	</OpenstaxUl>
</OpenstaxNote>

1.2.2 Documentary Sources: Competing Narratives

1 Understanding the Past

1.1 Developing a Global Perspective

1.1.1 World History as Preparation for Life After College

1.1.2 World History and Global Citizenship

1.1.3 Features of This Textbook

1.2 Primary Sources

1.2.1 Learning to Evaluate Documents and Images

1.2.3 Textual Sources: The Importance of Language

1.2.4 Hidden in History

1.3 Causation and Interpretation in History

1.3.1 Levels of Causation

1.3.2 Interpretation in History

2 Exchange in East Asia and the Indian Ocean

2.1 India and International Connections

2.1.1 The Mughal Empire

2.1.2 The Sultanate of Gujarat

2.1.3 The Rise of the Maratha Empire

2.1.4 European Colonialism

2.2 The Malacca Sultanate

2.2.1 The Rise of the Malacca Sultanate

2.2.2 European Malacca

2.3 Exchange in East Asia

2.3.1 Japan

2.3.2 China’s Dynastic Exchanges

2.3.3 Korea and Its Neighbors

3 Early Modern Africa and the Wider World

3.1 The Roots of African Trade

3.1.1 Saharan Trade Routes

3.1.2 The Spread of Islam

3.1.3 The Mali Empire

3.2 The Songhai Empire

3.2.1 The Rise of Imperial Songhai

3.2.2 The Reign of Askia the Great

3.2.3 The Decline of Songhai

3.3 The Swahili Coast

3.3.1 The Rise of the Swahili City-States

3.3.2 Slavery on the Swahili Coast

3.3.3 The Contest for the Swahili Coast

3.4 The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade

3.4.1 The Role of Kanem-Bornu

3.4.2 The Arrival of Europeans

3.4.3 The Later Trans-Saharan Slave Trade

4 The Islamic World

4.1 A Connected Islamic World

4.1.1 Politics and Religion in the Ummah

4.1.2 Islamic Trade Networks

4.1.3 Technology in the Islamic World

4.2 The Ottoman Empire

4.2.1 Culture and Society

4.2.2 Expansion, Revolutions, and Reform

4.2.3 Science and Technology

4.3 The Safavid Empire

4.3.1 The Rise of the Safavid Empire

4.3.2 Establishing Shi‘ism as the State Religion

4.3.3 Safavid Government and Culture

5 Foundations of the Atlantic World

5.1 The Protestant Reformation

5.1.1 The Origins of the Protestant Reformation

5.1.2 Calvinists, Anabaptists, and Anglicans

5.1.3 The Catholic Reformation and the Wars of Religion

5.2 Crossing the Atlantic

5.2.1 The Rise of Maritime Nations

5.2.2 The Columbian Exchange

5.3 The Mercantilist Economy

5.3.1 The Rise of Mercantilism

5.3.2 Mercantilism and the Expansion of Empire

5.3.3 Mercantilism and Its Critics

5.4 The Atlantic Slave Trade

5.4.1 Slavery and the Triangular Trade

5.4.2 African and North American Slavery

5.4.3 The Economics of Slavery

6 Colonization and Economic Expansion

6.1 European Colonization in the Americas

6.1.1 Spain’s Encomienda System

6.1.2 English Settlements in North America

6.1.3 French and Dutch Settlements

6.2 The Rise of a Global Economy

6.2.1 The Seven Years’ War

6.2.2 British Influence in India

6.2.3 China’s Dominance in Trade

6.2.4 Colonial Resistance and Revolution

6.3 Capitalism and the First Industrial Revolution

6.3.1 From Mercantilism to Capitalism

6.3.2 Mechanization

6.3.3 Marxism

7 Revolutions in Europe and North America

7.1 The Enlightenment

7.1.1 The Authority of Reason

7.1.2 Natural Rights

7.1.3 Social Contract Theory

7.2 The Exchange of Ideas in the Public Sphere

7.2.1 Public Debate and Dissent

7.2.2 The Republic of Letters

7.2.3 Academies, Universities, and Intellectuals

7.3 Revolutions: America, France, and Haiti

7.3.1 The American Revolution

7.3.2 The French Revolution

7.3.3 The Haitian Revolution

7.4 Nationalism, Liberalism, Conservatism, and the Political Order