# Seminar in Historical Methods

- Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Department: History
- Teacher: Prof. Anne McCants
- Term: Spring 2004
- Level: Undergraduate
- Language: English
- Subjects: History
- Source: [MIT OpenCourseWare](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/21h-931-seminar-in-historical-methods-spring-2004/)
- Licence: [CC BY-NC-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) (Non-commercial use only.)
- Syllabus: [at the source](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/21h-931-seminar-in-historical-methods-spring-2004/pages/syllabus/)
- Readings: [at the source](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/21h-931-seminar-in-historical-methods-spring-2004/pages/readings/)
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (sources give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the source's own words)

This course is designed to acquaint students with a variety of approaches to the past used by historians writing in the twentieth century. The books we read have all made significant contributions to their respective sub-fields and have been selected to give as wide a coverage in both field and methodology as possible in one semester’s worth of reading. We examine how historians conceive of their object of study, how they use primary sources as a basis for their accounts, how they structure the narrative and analytic discussion of their topic, and what are the advantages and drawbacks of their various approaches.

## Lectures

1. [Session 1](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/learn/mit/21h-931-seminar-in-historical-methods-spring-2004/c06fd8bdba7b), 1 h 43 min (Video)
2. [Session 2](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/learn/mit/21h-931-seminar-in-historical-methods-spring-2004/bbd4f8aea982), 1 h 46 min (Video)