Q2. Read carefully the passage given below and write your answers to the questions that follow in clear, correct and concise language :
(a) History has a great variety of definitions and applications. In the broadest sense, it considers every action and every thought that man has had since his first appearance and records every significant advance or recession. It attempts to evaluate all the developments in science, in art, in literature, in philosophy, in architecture, in sociology, in politics, in war, in religion, and in law. It sketches as complete a picture as possible of everything that has influenced man directly or indirectly.
(b) History, more than any other subject, has been enslaved and distorted for selfish purposes. Members of the clergy have used it to glorify and to promote the interests of the church, statesmen have utilized it to sway masses, and writers have distorted facts to substantiate their conclusions. War spirit has been kindled through undue emphasis upon facts, if not falsification of them. The historian is likely to exaggerate the history of his own country — sometimes unintentionally — because of his environment, and sometimes in order to facilitate the sale of his book. In all countries, there are zealots in responsible positions who cannot bear to have their fatherland criticized. Truth is frequently sacrificed at the altar of patriotism. Henry C. Lea, an outstanding American historian, declared that history should be "a serious attempt to ascertain the severest truth as to the past and set it forth without fear or favour." Michelet, a famous French historian, believed that "sacrilege and the mocking of false gods are the historian's first duty, his indispensable instrument for re-establishing the truth."
(c) The slight progress that we have made in the direction indicated by Lea and Michelet is rather discouraging, but there is a trend toward a broader and more inclusive point of view in the writing and teaching of history. World history, correctly interpreted, puts the individual state in the proper perspective and lessens the dangers of excessive nationalism. History has become more than war and politics. To make the story complete, the historian of the new school makes use of the work of the ethnologist, the anthropologist, the geographer, the archaeologist, the geologist, the psychologist, the astronomer, the zoologist, the biologist, the chemist, the sociologist, and the economist. He is concerned with man's cultural advances and his society, as well as with charters, constitutions, and wars.
(d) There are dangers, as well as virtues, in the vast scope of the "new history". Overpopularization and underspecialization tend to cheapen history
