On History and the "Grand Narrative"

Upon reading about all the different types of histories, there were a few parts of the chapter that really stuck out.

First of all, I (like many others) was struck by how many histories there were. It wasn't as if I had no idea that there was a gender history or that there were social histories. I had just never thought of them all separately and in the same chapter of a textbook. When we learn history in high school, it is as though it is all clumped into one big history and the authors choose parts of history that seem the most important. I had never even thought of the idea that there could be histories such as absent history. I thought the idea of absent history was especially interesting because when you think of the word "history" you automatically think of all that you have read in textbooks or have read about elsewhere. I had never stopped to think that maybe there were events that occurred, but just weren't recorded. How much of history is not covered by the textbooks we read in school or retold by the media?

Another idea that I thought was interesting was the idea of the "grand narrative". The book defined it as "A unified history and view of humankind" (130). But how could we all possibly believe in one solid history of humankind? There are so many different views on what occurred in history and what didn't. Take, for instance, the idea of absent histories that I already mentioned. How could we have a "grand narrative" when there are histories that weren't even recorded or were forgotten.

I agree with the idea that in order to understand different cultures and their ways of behavior and communication, the different histories are important to acknowledge. History helps give us reasons why certain cultures think or behave in a certain way. It can put us in someone else's shoes and help us understand a culture's background. It may even make us more sensitive to people of different group's differences.