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Chapter 20 to the long history of European colonialism and imperialism described in Chapters 3, 7,
14, and 18. Your argument in this case would then begin, “The growing ethnic diversity in Europe is
linked to the history of European imperialism because . . .” Second,
FOUR STEPS TO ARGUMENTATION your argument or thesis needs to be substantiated by evidence,
1. Form an argument/thesis which may include both facts and information from lecture,
2. Examine/analyze evidence textbook, or secondary texts, as well as your analysis of primary
3. Examine/explain relationships sources. Third, you need to compare the various pieces of evidence.
in evidence In working with evidence, particularly primary sources, you have to
4. Develop a more complex explain the relationships between these pieces of evidence — and
argument also corroborate facts and resolve contradictions — while clearly
showing how the evidence supports your thesis.

Finally, the fourth step is to make your argument more complex by using multiple, divergent, and
sometimes contradictory pieces of evidence and by examining the issue in greater detail. Effective
historical writing balances nuance and clarity: you need to recognize the complexity of historical
Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
Worth Publishers.
questions (including interpretations that diverge from your own) while still making a clear, succinct
argument. this sample.
For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.
Uncorrected proofs have been used in
EXERCISE: Look at the section headed by the question “How and why did Europeans
undertake ambitious voyages of expansion?” on pages 85–93 of Chapter 3.
Generate a historical argument that begins, “Europeans undertook voyages of
by Bedford, Freeman &
expansion primarily because . . .” Before you take this course or read this book, you
might not have much credible supporting evidence, so your argument about which
motivations were the most important might be based on a hunch, received wisdom,
or something you read on the Internet. The course should provide you with evidence
to make a more convincing and reasoned case, but it also might make you change
your mind. This happens frequently for historians: they start with a hunch,
investigate it, and discover from the evidence that their hunch was not quite right or
Copyright ©
not right at all. In response they develop a new argument and start the inquiry
process over.
Distributed

REASONING PROCESS 1: COMPARISON

People learn things not in isolation but in relationship. Historians are no different, for they often
analyze historical events and processes by comparing them to related events and processes. Com-
parisons help historians understand how one development in the past was similar to or different
from another development, and in this way they determine what was distinctive. Evaluating
change and continuity is one form of comparison — across time — but historians also make com-
parisons across space, social class, religion, and many other categories. For example, scholars have
concluded that the countries of western Europe in the last decades of the nineteenth century
shared key features, as detailed in Chapter 13. First, mass politics emerged as they adopted con-
stitutions of some sort that generally extended voting rights to a larger share of the male popula-
tion. Second, pragmatic leaders expanded the social responsibilities of government, offering
education and some public health benefits, recognizing that
these would make people more loyal to their governments.
Historians make comparisons
across space, social class, religion, Third, the countries all saw growing popular nationalism, en-
and many other categories. couraged by new symbols and rituals, such as national holidays,
commemorative monuments, and flags.

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