In The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past, author John Lewis Gaddis explains the many ways to effectively interpret history, while presenting a critique of past methods. By taking his audience through the relationship between the studies of art, science, and history, Gaddis is able to expand on the importance of an effective historical method. Historical landscapes are then discussed when Gaddis refers to historical consciousness and states that historians must adventure into the future while reflecting on the past. Gaddis then explains the negative and positive aspects of his method of interpreting history. He believes that historians must do their best to look into the past because it is unattainable: historians cannot physically travel back in time to any event or period in history. Gaddis makes it clear that in order to see like a historian, historians must be able analyze multiple events in history through different time periods in order to draw conclusions.

The most interesting part of Gaddis’ text on seeing like an historian in The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past is the way that the author uses a comparison between the social sciences and historical methodology to reflect on what it means to be a historian. By using this comparison, I am able to understand his historical method from a different perspective. Gaddis puts emphasis on seeing like a historian in order to encourage his audience to reflect on their own work as historians. Throughout the text, Gaddis also gives many definitions of what it means to be an effective historian, which I found extremely insightful. These two important parts of the text encouraged me to reflect on the methods I use when researching a new topic or event. With my reflection, I realized that it is extremely important to research not only my topic or event but the time period that they are associated with. I also realized that by separating my personal opinion or bias from my historical research, my research will be much more accurate.