1. 历史不仅仅是知道事实和日期。它同样包括理解事实如何以及为什么发生。所以不要以牺牲整体图景而拘泥于只谈各种事实和日期。关键是自问：“为什么这事件是重要的，以及它和其他事件有何关联？”这些问题将把你的事实和日期整合成为整体框架。例如，记住叙述中所有的日期并不是那么重要，而不是问，“哪个日子发生了十分重要的事，以及在事情发生顺序上，这些告诉了我们什么。”这并不是说你可以忘记所有的事实和日期，而是建议在一个有意义的背景中记住它们。
   History isn't just about learning facts and dates. It's also about understanding how and why things happened. So don't get bogged down in taking in all the facts and dates, at the expense of the big picture. The key is to ask yourself, "Why would this event be important, and how does it relate to other events?" These questions give you the framework to hang your facts and dates on. For instance, it's not so important to remember all the dates that show up in the narratives, but rather to ask, "Which dates refer to especially significant things, and what do they tell us about the order in which things happened?" This is not to say that you can forget all facts and dates, but it is to suggest remembering them within a meaningful context.
   
   
2. 历史读物通常提供很多细节信息，比你实际上需要记忆的要多。还是那句话，大图景才是重要的。历史记载的作者常常用一些细节使他们的案例更加具有说服力或者更吸引人。但基于上述同样的原则，并非所有的细节都需要摘录并保存下来。
   History readings often give you more details of information than you actually need to remember. Again, here the big picture is important. Authors of historical accounts often include details to make their cases more persuasive or appealing. But on the same principle as above, not all of these details need to be noted down and stored away.
   
   
3. 历史是阐释性的。这就意味着有时候人们会对历史事件有不同的讲述或者赋予历史事件不同的意义。当你阅读历史的时候应记住：你以前所知的叙述并不表现最终事实。这并不意味着历史是简单捏造的或者“本就那样”。相反，这些叙述（通常）是那些聪明而又有思想的人努力的结果，他们想弄清楚我们能从过去所发生的事情中发现什么。
   History is interpretive. This means that people will sometimes tell different stories about events or attribute different significance to them. When you read history you should keep in mind that the accounts you have before you do not represent the final truth. This does not mean that history is simply made up or that "anything goes." Rather, these historical accounts represent the efforts of (usually) intelligent, thoughtful people to make sense of what we can find out about what happened in the past.
   
   
4. 历史课程通常要做大量的阅读。因此你应练习主动而思辨的阅读。时刻问自己：“这部书或文章说的是什么？我想从中学到什么呢？”然后组织你阅读的资料来回答这些问题。通常，这样会在你深入理解之前帮你很快地浏览材料以便弄清楚讲的是什么；也会在你越读完之后帮你回顾以便在理解中确定主旨。
   History courses often have a lot of reading. Therefore you need to practice active, intelligent reading. Keep asking yourself, "What is the point of this book or article? What am I supposed to be getting out of it?" Then organize your reading around answering those questions. Often it helps to scan material quickly to get a sense of what the point is before really getting into it; often it helps to look back over it after reading it to fix the main points in your understanding.
   
   
5. 历史课程要用到各种不同的资料，所以需要各种不同的读物。譬如，关于某人生活的叙述可能会比一个历史学家对某事实及其成因的分析更快更容易地被阅读。收集基础文献会让你提出比课本更多的问题。
   History courses use different kinds of materials that demand different kinds of reading. For instance, a narrative of someone's life will probably be quicker and easier to read than a historian's analysis of an event and its reasons. A collection of primary documents will make you ask different questions than will a textbook account.

呜谢伯克利加州大学Cathryn Carson教授允许使用。
* Courtesy of Professor Cathryn Carson, University of California at Berkeley. Used with permission.


课程阅读参考书目
Bibliography of Course Readings

带星号（*）的阅读作业应在每堂课之前完成。
Reading assignments marked with an asterisk (*), should be completed before each lecture.