Suppose for a moment that you were a zoologist trying to learn as much as you can about a given animal. You could study its anatomy, memorize its physical characteristics, and even observe it in captivity, and still walk away with some profound misunderstandings of this creature. To truly understand the animal, you would need to know more about its environment, its habitat, and the world with which it interacts.

So it is with history. Documents and other primary sources come to us as individual artifacts from the past, but to truly understand them, we also need an understanding of their context. The primary sources that you have read in this course do not exist in a vacuum. A knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the document’s composition is essential for understanding the document correctly. As such, the reader needs to see the document on its own terms and a product of its own time and place, rather than our own.

One website puts its nicely: “Scholars and educators rely on historical context to analyze and interpret works of art, literature, music, dance, and poetry. Architects and builders rely on it when designing new structures and restoring existing buildings. Judges may use it to interpret the law, historians to understand the past. Any time critical analysis is required, you may need to consider historical context as well.”^[1]

Without historical context, we are only seeing a piece of the picture and cannot fully understand the influence of the time and place in which a situation occurred. Understanding the context also helps us to avoid presentism—it helps us to better relate to society at a time when things were different than they are now.

This may seem like an obvious way to understand history, but it was not always so. Perhaps the first historian to intentionally employ an understanding of historical context was the Enlightenment thinker David Hume, in the 1750s. His biographies of prominent scientists emphasized their interactions with one another and with society at large, creating a rich and highly contextualized understanding of how scientific advancement took place in a collaborative environment. In the mid-20th century, historians such as Fernand Braudel went even further in their use of context, exploring long-term economic shifts, climate, technology, and geography to better understand their subjects. You will be happy to know that in this hack, we will not be going quite as far as Braudel!

Context and Milieu

When considering historical context there are two principal forms to take into account. We might call the first circumstantial context, relating directly to the document’s purpose and intention. The second form might be called its milieu (pronounced mil-you), or its broader cultural or social environment.

Circumstantial Context: This looks at the immediate particulars of the document itself. This might include:

• What do we know about the author and his or her beliefs, biography, and character?
• Who was the intended audience? Who did the creator of this primary source intend it for? Even if the answer is “the general public,” spend a moment thinking about what slice of the general public may have been intended.
• What is the document’s genre? For example, if we know that a piece is intended as satire, that will shape how we understand it. Or alternatively, is a letter “open” or written for public consumption? Or is it intended as something confidential between the writer and the recipient?

Milieu: This term simply means the culture and society surrounding the author. This can range from political beliefs, religious beliefs, the customs of social class, common prejudices, and the level of technology available.

• Look at the language that is used. Are there any words that you do not understand? Are there words that seem to have a different meaning than what you understand them to be?
• Many documents are written to help solve or understand a problem. What problems does the writer of the document perceive in U.S. society?
• What are the broad cultural currents taking place in society at the time? Are there broad shifts in the economy (such as the Market Revolution or the Great Depression)? What cultural movements or trends are underway? What are the mainstream political beliefs at this time?

Context vs. Cause

It is important to differentiate between context and cause. One historian offers this warning: “Many students confuse the context with the causes of an event. A cause is something that brings an effect. The effect may be immediate and obvious, or it may be deeper and not so evident. In all cases, however, it generates a consequence that one can clearly relate to the factor that precipitated the action.”^[2] For example, the Iranian hostage crisis was caused because the U.S. allowed the deposed Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to enter the U.S. for cancer treatment, which increased anti-American sentiment and concerns that the U.S. would try to reinstall him as the Iranian leader.

Figure 1. President Reagan Meeting with Jerry Falwell in the Oval Office in 1983.

By contrast, the context is understood as the events, or the climate of opinion, that surround the issue at hand. They help to understand its urgency, its importance, its shape, or even its timing. What was happening at the time of the event or the decision that sheds some light on it? In what type of society did the event occur? An urban one? A rich one? An educated one? An unstable one?”^[3] Relating to the Iranian hostage crisis, you’d want to look beyond the admission of Pahlavi to the U.S. for cancer treatment to understand the full context of why Americans were held hostage in Iran. Consider the broader context and milieu. Anti-American sentiments in Iran were high, but at that time, people were also upset with Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan, because they thought he was planning to normalize relations with the U.S. and extinguish Islamic revolutionary order in Iran. The broader context of the Cold War also came into play, as Marxist and Islamist organizations favored the Soviet Union over the United States in the early months of the Iranian Revolution, which had concluded just earlier that year. The Revolution had replaced the pro-Western Pahlavi with an anti-Western theocracy, led by Ayatollah Khomeini. Though he didn’t orchestrate it, the Khomeini embraced the hostage takeover and used it to deflect criticism of his controversial theocratic constitution. Tensions between the two nations was also exacerbated by religious differences between Christianity and Islam and ideological differences, as well as religious tensions between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam. As you consider historical context, think about the beliefs (religious or cultural), attitudes, knowledge, moods, conditions, and circumstances surrounding the issue.

The Reagan Revolution

One of the most significant themes in this module was the “Reagan Revolution” toward political conservatism. As you may remember, one of the key groups supporting this movement was the Religious Right. Let’s take a look at a primary source written by one of its foremost leaders, Rev. Jerry Falwell to better understand how context works.