What you’ll learn to do: use an understanding of historical context to examine the events of the Reagan era

Have you ever had an argument with a friend because something you or they had said was “taken out of context?” Perhaps something you said sarcastically was taken at face value. Perhaps a comment someone made wasn’t received the way it was intended because of cultural differences. In either case, the words themselves weren’t the problem—it was a misunderstanding of the environment that the words came from.

History often imitates life. Historians can also take a document from the past “out of context” and misunderstand its purpose and message across time. To truly understand what a document means, it’s important to understand the economic and social circumstances in which it was composed. Likewise, you will need to know a bit about the document’s purpose and its author. This hack will help you understand primary source documents by an appreciation of their historical context.