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EXERCISE: One major controversy in European history (and in U.S. and world history as
well) regarding causation has to do with why the Great Depression of the 1930s
became so severe and lasted so long. How do the authors explain the causes of the
Great Depression on pages 635–640 in Chapter 16? How do they work large
processes, multiple causes, unintended consequences, and contingency into their
explanation about why this particular economic depression became so bad that it is
still known as the “Great Depression”?

REASONING PROCESS 3: CONTINUITY AND CHANGE

While all fields of knowledge offer arguments based on evidence or make comparisons, historians are
uniquely concerned about the past and its relationship to the present. How is the world different now
this sample.
than it was 50 years ago, 500 years ago, or 5,000 years ago? Why did the world change? Why have
some aspects of the world remained relatively the same over long periods of time?
Worth Publishers.
As is probably becoming evident, historians are interested in both historical changes and persist-
For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.
ing patterns, or continuities. Change is usually easier to see than continuities; for example, when
Uncorrected proofs have been used in
one empire overthrows another, that event often becomes part of the historical record. But some
things stay relatively the same for long periods of time. Continuity (such as a network of trade
that remains in existence for hundreds of years) is typically less dramatic than change and thus
often harder to spot. Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.

What counts as continuity depends on the scale of time you’re working with. For example, if we
only look at the twentieth century, the emergence of the Soviet Union and the end of the Soviet
Historians are interested in both Union both represent important political developments. However,
if we examine Russia’s history since the formation of Kievan Rus in
historical changes and persisting by Bedford, Freeman &
the ninth century, the Soviet and post-Soviet eras look more like
patterns, or continuities. modern variations of a longer pattern of autocratic rule.
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When historians talk about continuity, they’re not implying that a particular pattern applied to every-
one in the world or even in a particular region. Nor are they claiming that a particular pattern included
Distributed
absolutely no change or variation. For example, agricultural production has been continuous for thou-
sands of years, but there are exceptions to this broad statement: on the one hand, some people have
continued to be foragers; on the other hand, methods of farming have changed substantially with
technology. So the continuity of agriculture is a generalization but not a completely unchanging pat-
tern, or a pattern that applies to everyone on the planet.
You can develop the skill of identifying continuities by looking for places in your textbook where
the authors directly indicate that a historical pattern persisted over time and explain why that
pattern persisted. But even when the authors focus on change in history, you can still find conti-
nuity by inference, since few things ever change completely. When the textbook describes a new
development, ask yourself what didn’t change. For example, Chapter 6 describes new ways of
understanding the world that developed in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in
which thinkers emphasized the central importance of human reason as a measure by which all
things should be judged. But it also points out that many of these thinkers used reason to defend
traditional stereotypes about the inferiority of women or non-Europeans that had existed for
centuries.

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