Project #1

Well my obsessions with blogs continue to grows. Not only do I have a blog dedicated to my life and to my mission but I have also seen it fit to begin another blog. Professor Hadfield told us that we needed to start a writing journal and I hate my hand writing so I decided to start a blog instead. I'm hoping that it will be an ok thing.
   Today we were told to skim through a book and within ten minutes pick out the historical question that the book was trying to answer, what sources the author used, and what the thesis of the book was. It really sounds like a daunting task and I was anticipating it to be. However, I realized something that I had yet to realize while doing this little exercise. If you read the introduction you will find out the thesis of the book. For instance I discovered that the boy I was reading had this as a thesis. "this book seeks to show the experience of selected groups of ordinary people in Johannessburg within the wider context of the industrial revolution which engulfed the witwaterstrand at the turn of the century." And within five minutes of researching I was able to understand what the book was about. I really wish that I would have put this into practice a while ago. I wonder if my grades would have been better. Looking at the back of the book helped me understand what the author used in regard to citations. From the cover it was easy enough to deduce what the historical question that it answered was. I also learned that this book was written in 1982 which preceeds the post apartheid era. This serves as a double edged sword. On one hand the writer Charles van Onselen will probably provide the opinion of a white historian during the time of apartheid. Based on the name Van Onselen I'd guess he is dutch and would provide the opinions of the dutch during this time. However, Van Onselen's views may be opinionated by apartheid one way or another. A fair or balanced report most likely will not be achieved as a result.