History — Scope and Methods

The TOK course studies five areas of knowledge (AOKs): history, the human sciences, the natural sciences, mathematics, and the arts. Each is examined through the same framework of scope, perspectives, methods and tools, and ethics. This unit covers the two AOKs concerned with human beings and their past. We begin with history: its scope and how historians build knowledge.

The scope of history

History is the study of the human past, but its scope is narrower than "everything that happened." History deals with the past that has left evidence and that historians choose to investigate; events leaving no trace, and the countless ordinary moments no one recorded, fall outside its practical reach. History is also selective by purpose: it seeks not merely to list events but to explain change, caus