In History

   According to Kincaid, history is all about names, dates, and who was around when those events happened.  Throughout "In History" Kincaid questions what the real meaning of history is.  She compares history to an open wound that with each breath she takes in it allows the wound to heal then as she releases each breath it reopens the wound.  I agree with this because with every discovered piece of history or new history you have to "open" up history and put something new in to cover the wound or "healing" the wound.  To be in history you would have to be there when the event took place and make sure that your name remains tied to that specific piece of history.  She talks a lot about the people who looked like her which I assume she means are her family or ancestors.  Once she is not living in the place where her ancestors were then she can explain the history.  Kind of like how she explains other people’s history.  I think according to Kincaid it does matter who is telling the story because it has to do with names, events, dates and what those people's experiences were.  History has to do with what the people of that time recorded.  Whatever was not recorded at that time did not make history.  The people’s experiences are what made the history books.  People cannot simply guess history, there has to be some definable evidence.   The ideas of landscape, history, and naming are all connected.  Every landscape has a history and every landscape has a name.  Every history has a landscape and every part of history has a name.  It is all connected because you need a piece of land to have history about it whether it is a small island or a whole continent. 

Creative Challenge

   When I first started to learn about the world at large I was around ten years old.  I, like many kids, were taught that Christopher Columbus discovered the world in 1492.  I learned that the world was round and that the Indians were very generous to the new comers of the land, Columbus and his men.  They were so generous that they gave them a feast of which they couldn’t refuse.  At that age I created a map.  It might have not been the best looking map or looked exactly like all the continents but it was relatively accurate.  I place all the geographical figures that I believe were correct with United States at the center of my world.  I can only associate these places in the world from stories that I am told from people that have been to those places.