At the beginning of the course, we spent some time discussing just exactly what history was, what it meant to us, and when did we know when history was settled fact. In the interim, I must say that history is for me like a scientific discipline, where there is never just a final realized answer, but that our inquiry and newer methods make the field an area of continuous revelation. When considering the state of science and the means used just 200 years ago for paleontology and excavations, we may be at the very foundation of scientific efforts to reveal our past, especially those awaiting discovery by archeologists.

I suppose it is no surprise that my life and focus is Western centric, and it took me three weeks or so to adapt an orientation that would allow me to consider all that Strayer was saying about the things most unfamiliar to me. I  had  allowed for myself and my own background a relevance for what developed and came before to account for my attitudes and beliefs, then consider the same for other cultures, especially those much older and certainly ancient like the Chinese and Persians. Knowing that they have had a more direct link to their past, even observing and walking among things from those times, is something to remember when contemplating differences.

I will remember such circumstances before  I seek or comment on wanting to change the order of things.