the historical thesis

Developing a History Thesis Statement

When writing about history, it is not enough to simply retell what happened during a historical event. Writers must also analyze the event to develop a reasonable and compelling interpretation of history based on the assignment instructions. This informed interpretation of historical facts is the thesis statement.

How to Develop a Thesis in History

The first step to creating a thesis for a history paper is to research the historical context surrounding an event. Some of the most important aspects to research include:

• The historical figures or people involved in the historical event or who lived during that time period.
• What happened, as described by historical figures, including multiple, differing viewpoints?
• Consider why people described the event one way while others may have described it another.
• The time period in which the event or events take place.
• A time frame can take place over days, weeks, months, or years.
• The places where the event or events occurred
• Geography matters. Consider how the culture of a location impacts how historical figures react to events.

Once you understand the historical context of an event, you can start creating your own interpretation by examining the relationship between the Who, What, When, and Where. Often, the relationship is characterized by cause and effect. A main goal when constructing a History thesis statement is to determine how a person’s or group’s behavior was influenced by the Who, What, When, and Where, which led to a certain outcome.

Example of Historical Thesis

Historical context.

• Who: John F. Kennedy – 35th President of the United States, a Democratic politician, and a Catholic
• What: Speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association
• When: September 12, 1960
• Where: United States – Houston, Texas
• Interpretation: During his 1960 Presidential Campaign, John F. Kennedy gave a speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association to address concerns over his Catholic faith. Kennedy’s speech helped him win the Presidential election by demonstrating his commitment to the separation of church and state for Protestant voters, while mobilizing Catholic voters who empathized with his struggle against religious prejudice.

Works Consulted

Marius, Richard, and Melvin E. Page. 2014. A Short Guide to Writing About History . 9th ed. London: Pearson.

Reid, Ronald F., and James F. Klumpp, eds. 2005. American Rhetorical Discourse . 3rd ed. Long Grove, IL:

Page last updated July 31, 2023.

Handbook for Historians

• Choosing a Paper Topic

What is a Thesis Statement?

How to develop a thesis statement.

• What Sources Can I use?
• Gathering sources
• Find Primary Sources
• Paraphrasing and Quoting Sources
• How to create an Annotated Bibliography
• Formatting Endnotes/Footnotes
• Formatting Bibliographies
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Sample Papers
• Research Paper Checklist

The thesis statement summarizes the central argument of your paper. It is placed at the top of the outline page, and appears again in the opening paragraph. A clearly stated thesis performs three functions:

• it provides a focus for your research, helping to prevent time wasting digressions
• it furnishes an organizational theme for the paper, which then becomes easier to write
• it gives the reader precise knowledge of what the paper will argue, thereby making it easier to read

You cannot formulate a thesis statement until you know a great deal about your subject.  It is often wise to begin your research in pursuit of the answer to a question about your topic  - but this question is not a thesis statement. A helpful web site that can advise you on how to formulate a thesis is:  http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/thesis-statements/

Guidelines for formulating the thesis statement are as follows:

• The thesis must focus on a single contention. You cannot list multiple reasons for the “truth” of your contention because the paper must follow a unified line of reasoning; a multifaceted thesis statement prevents this.
• The thesis must be precisely phrased and coherent . Generalizations and a failure to define terms results in vagueness and lack of direction in argumentation.
• The thesis must be a declarative statement. The object of your research was to answer a question; when you found the answer, you embodied it in your thesis statement. Hence a thesis can never be a question.

Here are some examples of thesis statements that strive to incorporate these recommendations...

POOR : Miguel Hidalgo’s uprising in 1810 led to a long war for independence in Mexico.    WHY: The above-stated thesis is a statement of fact that provides no clue about what you plan to do with that fact in your paper. Since there is no argument here, this is not a thesis. Improved : Miguel Hidalgo’s 1810 uprising mobilized poor and native Mexicans whose violence frightened elites and prolonged the war for independence. WHY: The above-stated thesis very specifically explains why the uprising resulted in a long war for independence. What’s more, it is debatable, since there may be other explanations for the war’s length. 

POOR : The creation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza created great tension between the Israelis and  Palestinians for numerous reasons. WHY : The above-stated thesis is poor because it is too general and it deals with the obvious – that there is tension between Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East. It needs to explain what the “numerous reasons” are; focus on one of them; and drop the reference to the obvious. Remember: a thesis statement makes a specific argument and here only a vague reference to multiple reasons for tension is provided. Improved : The creation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza was both an expression of Zionist expansionism and a means to isolate Palestinian population centers. WHY : The above-stated thesis is much better because it explains what the “numerous reasons” are and focuses on one of them. Now an argument has been created because a concrete explanation has been stated. Also,  this statement removes the obvious fact that tension exists between the two ethnic groups.

POOR : Louis XIV was a strong king who broke the power of the French nobility. WHY : The above-stated thesis contains a vague judgment about Louis XIV; that he was “strong.” In addition, it fails to specify exactly how he broke the nobles’ power. Improved : The Intendant System was the most effective method used by Louis XIV to break the power of the French nobility. WHY : The above-stated thesis eliminates the vague word “strong” and specifies the mechanism Louis XIV used to break the nobles’ power. Moreover, since this  was not the only policy Louis XIV used in his efforts to control the nobles, you have shown that your paper will defend a debatable position.

POOR : Gandhi was a man of peace who led the Indian resistance movement to British rule. WHY : The above-stated thesis does not clarify what about Gandhi made him a man of peace, nor does it specify anything he did to undermine British rule. Improved : Gandhi employed passive non-resistance during his Great Salt March and that enabled him to organize the Indian masses to resist British rule. WHY : The above-stated thesis specifies what has caused Gandhi to be remembered as a man of peace (his promotion of passive non-resistance to oppression) and it names one of the protests he organized against British rule. In addition, since it suggests that the technique of passive non-resistance is what made the Indian  populace rally behind him, it is debatable; there were other reasons why the poor in particular were ready to protest the British monopoly on salt.

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Creating a Historical Thesis Statement

Using the  History of Nursing Timeline and supplemental web resources, students will collate significant ideas and facts and write a cohesive thesis statement to introduce the assigned historical topic. Their statement will present historical and contemporary evidence connected to the evolution of the nursing profession in the United States (18 th – 21 st century).

One to two class sessions; can be assigned as homework.

Working independently or collaboratively, students will study the web based resources provided to identify important events, people, and ideas that influenced, progressed, or changed the nursing profession in the United States from the Colonial era to present day.

Students will reflect , analyze , and synthesize significant information taken from source materials and select one “foundation” word from the list provided to use as the premise for their thesis statement. Students may select a word not on the list provided; however they should defend that decision.

Students will present and support their thesis statement in a cohesive and factual statement using information and knowledge gained from their research . Students will be able to cite which sources they selected.

• Unpacking the Box: Ideas to Consider guidelines (pg 2)
• Foundation Words (pg 4)
• Graphic Organizer worksheet (pg 3)
• Required and suggested resources (pg 5-6)

Getting Started:

Discuss with your students that while it may seem strange in our modern world; for thousands of years people were born at home, died at home and, if they became ill, were treated at home. Trained doctors were rare in early America. Most people lived in small communities where basic medical knowledge and care was handed down by generation. Women played an essential role; they were the primary caregivers and “keepers” of medical knowledge and they were the midwives that helped bring new life into the community. Their skills and knowledge were largely passed down or from learning from other women. Nursing schools did not appear in the United States until after the Civil War. If time allows, give each student or group a copy of the historical overview provided with the lesson plan materials.

In this lesson, students will explore the history of the nursing profession in the United States as a basis for creating a thesis statement introducing a historical topic.

Before giving students the lesson materials, discuss that a thesis statement is a concise summary or main point of research paper or essay. Generally, it is one to two sentences, but for this assignment; the student’s thesis can be up to 300 words. Their challenge in creating a thesis statement for this assignment is to choose one word from the list of “foundational words” provided that they feel best describes their key points. They may select a word not on the list provided; however, they must defend that decision.

Before beginning their research, ask students to review the Unpacking the Box : Ideas to Consider guidelines. As a class, discuss how these questions can help guide research. Make a list of any additional ideas or questions the students suggest.

• Unpacking the Box: Ideas to Consider
• The list of Foundation Words
• Graphic organizer worksheet
• List of required and additional sources
• Explain the research parameters: (see Lesson Resources for links).

If working collaboratively, students may assign specific research tasks to group members. Before doing so, they should outline a matrix for research and reporting to provide consistency in gathering, collating and sharing research

Students will review the History of Nursing Timeline using a minimum of four timeline entries; presenting a cohesive and compelling connection to their thesis. 

Students will include a minimum of one referenced source from Nursing as a Career in the 21st Century  to support their thesis statement.  

Students will read and use a minimum of two reference sources from The Evolution of Nursing  and biographies on the web site and article.

Students will read Nursing Careers & Specialties for RNs  and include a minimum of two facts to defend their thesis statement. Suggested guidelines are included on the resources sheet.

Last students will include a minimum of two facts gathered from one or more of the additional resources listed. They are not limited to the sites referenced. If their research or interest leads them to specific questions or topics; they are free to use resources they select to reference their interests.

Students will present their thesis statement to the class. If working collaboratively, assign one group member as the spokesperson. Their thesis does not need to cite every source used; however, students should be prepared to discuss how the resources they used helped to shape their ideas and perceptions. What evidence and facts were particularly influential? How does the thesis statement reflect the foundation word they selected?

Consider the question: Why do they think women have dominated the nursing profession?

After completing the project, as a class the students will discuss the purpose of a thesis statement and decide if selecting and working with a “foundation word” was useful. 

Ask students will discuss “next steps” outlining what questions, research or information they would pursue if they were writing a thesis paper on the subject.

If they did not do so in their research, suggest that students look at job announcements for nurses today and compare those specifications to 18 th and 19 th century nurses’ roles.

Additional Resources:

Hampton, Ellen. "How World War I Revolutionized Medicine."  The Atlantic . February 24, 2017. 

"Changing Times...Male/Female Workforce Statistics in the Nursing/Doctor Professions."  Online Nursing Degrees . 2017.

Hunt, Deborah Dolan. "Key Facts in Nursing History Every Nurse Should Know."  DailyNurse . May 28, 2017.

"The Future of Nursing 2017 and Beyond."  Nurse Buff . May 6, 2016.

"Women Nurses Throughout War History."  Online Nursing Degrees.  2017.

"Short History of Military Nursing: Nursing Programs in U.S. Military Branches." University of Wisconsin. 2017.

"Experiencing War: Women at War." Library of Congress. February 6, 2012.

"Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project." The University of North Carolina Greensboro. 

"Army Nurse Corps History." U.S. Army Medical Department Office of Medical History. April 13, 2016.

VCU Libraries Social Welfare History Project.

Hess, Robert G. Jr. "Making the Case for More Men in Nursing."  Nurse.com . March 17, 2017.

Extend the Lesson :

Invite a nurse to the class to discuss the range of specialties the nursing field offers today. What training and education is required to be a nurse?

Common Core

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.7.1

Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.7.2

Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.7

Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.9

Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

His.2.6-8. Classify series of historical events and developments as examples of change and/or continuity.

D2.His.2.9-12. Analyze change and continuity in historical eras.

D2.His.16.3-5. Use evidence to develop a claim about the past.

D2.His.14.6-8. Explain multiple causes and effects of events and developments in the past.

D2.His.15.6-8. Evaluate the relative influence of various causes of events and developments in the past

D2.His.16.6-8. Organize applicable evidence into a coherent argument about the past.

D2.His.16.9-12. Integrate evidence from multiple relevant historical sources and interpretations into a reasoned argument about the past.

D3.3.3-5. Identify evidence that draws information from multiple sources in response to compelling questions.

D3.4.3-5. Use evidence to develop claims in response to compelling questions.

D3.3.6-8. Identify evidence that draws information from multiple sources to support claims, noting evidentiary limitations.

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Types of Writing Assignments

• Narrative History
• Response Papers
• Creative Approaches
• Annotated Bibliographies
• Book Reviews

Historiographic Essays

• Research Papers

Basic Considerations When Writing on History

• Cause and Effect
• Establishing a Broader Context
• Common Fallacies

Types of Sources

• Secondary Sources
• Primary Sources
• Fiction/Art/Poetry
• The Internet

Critical Reading

• Historiography
• Bias/Prejudice
• Evaluating Contradictory Data and Claims

Preparation and Writing

• Time Management
• Note-Taking Tips
• Developing a Thesis
• Organization
• Formulating a Conclusion

Basic Quoting Skills

• Quotation/Annotation
• Bibliographies
• Advanced Quoting Skills
• The Ethics of Quoting

Style and Editing

• Drafts and Revisions
• Common Stylistic Errors

What is historiography?

Parts of a historiographic essay, a sample historiographic essay, works cited.

In a nutshell, historiography is the history of history. Rather than subjecting actual events - say, the Rape of Nanking - to historical analysis, the subject of historiography is the history of the history of the event: the way it has been written, the sometimes conflicting objectives pursued by those writing on it over time, and the way in which such factors shape our understanding of the actual event at stake, and of the nature of history itself.

A historiographic essay thus asks you to explore several sometimes contradictory sources on one event. An annotated bibliography might come in handy as you attempt to locate such sources; you should also consult the footnotes and bibliographies of any text you read on a certain event, as they will lead you to other texts on the same event; if your research is web-based, follow links - always bearing in mind the pitfalls of the Internet - and if you are researching in the library, check out the books on nearby shelves: you'll be surprised by how often this yields sources you may otherwise never have found.

For an example of an essay on multiple perspectives on the same event (for our purposes, the Rape of Nanking, an event also examined in the context of Book Reviews ), click here .

The purpose of an historiographic essay is threefold: 1.) to allow you to view an historical event or issue from multiple perspectives by engaging multiple sources; 2.) to display your mastery over those sources and over the event or issue itself; and 3.) to develop your critical reading skills as you seek to answer why your sources disagree, and what their disagreement tells you about the event or issue and the very nature of history itself.

Specific skills honed by such an exercise include your ability to discern bias or prejudice and to evaluate contradictory data and claims . As you will have to quote from your sources in order to make your point, you will also have to display basic quoting skills . The very nature of an essay on multiple sources also requires a Works Cited page, of course, on which, see Bibliography .

You will begin a historiographic essay with a thesis that presents the issue or event at stake, then introduces your sources and articulates, in brief, their authors' perspectives and their main points of (dis)agreement. In the main body of your paper you will elaborate upon and develop this latter point, pulling out specific points of (dis)agreement, juxtaposing quotes (and/or paraphrasing arguments) and subjecting them to analysis as you go along. As you do so, ask (and answer) why you think the authors of your various sources disagree. Is their disagreement a product of personal or professional rivalry, ideological incompatibility, national affiliation? These questions go to the heart of historiography. In your conclusion , finally, you will briefly summarize your findings and, more importantly, assess the credibility of your various sources, and specify which one(s) you find to be most compelling, and why. In final conclusion you might articulate in brief the insights you have gained into the event or issue at stake, the sources you have used, and the nature of history itself.

Let us assume that the subject of your historiographic essay is the Rape of Nanking, an event discussed in some detail in the Book Reviews section. There, we examine the event as it is described and analyzed by Iris Chang in her bestselling book The Rape of Nanking . To this we now add several other sources, all of which are listed in the Works Cited section at the end of this page , and cited in the text immediately following, which exemplifies, in brief, some of the basic strategies of a historiographic essay.

• THESIS: The so-called Rape of Nanking of 1937, a six-week massacre of Chinese civilians in the city of Nanking perpetrated by the invading Japanese army, was presented to a largely uninitiated American mass audience by Iris Chang in her best-selling book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (1997). Chang's vivid book spawned international interest and a number of responses from fellow historians worldwide. Western historians generally agreed with Chang's insistence that the event - long a mere footnote in the popular historiography of World War II - deserved larger notice, but some criticized her for displaying personal bias as well as historical inaccuracies and methodological weaknesses of various sorts. The response from a number of Japanese scholars was overwhelmingly negative. They denied her account of a post-war Japanese "cover up," yet at the same time also, to varying degrees, denied that the event had even occurred.
• EXAMPLE (1): Tanaka Masaaki, for example, author of the website "What Really Happened at Nanking: The Refutation of a Common Myth," refers to Chang's work as one of "lies, hyperbole, propaganda." Chang's "mountains of dead bodies," according to Matsaaki, were mountains "that no one saw." Her "Reports of mass murders of prisoners of War [were] fabricated," he claims, offering as evidence that there was "no mention of the 'Nanking Massacre'" - a term he pointedly places in quotation marks - "in Chinese Communist Party Records"; and that "No protests against the 'Nanking Massacre' [was] submitted to the League of Nations [or] ... by the United States, Great Britian, or France." The event, he concludes - if there even was one - was "a massacre with no witnesses" (Masaaki).

ANALYSIS: Much of Masaaki's criticism smacks of precisely the kind of revisionism Chang critiques in her book, and is easily exposed as such. The fact that Chinese communist party records make no mention of the event, for example, is hardly surprising, as the Chinese communists were at this time in disarray, operating largely underground in the Nanking area. Not until 1949 did the communists begin their rule over China and begin keeping official records: why then should we expect there to exist records dating back to 1937? Nor should the silence of the League of Nations, the United States, Great Britain and France come as any surprise. In the same year that France and Britain stood by as Nazi Germany re-militarized the Rhineland in violation of the Treaty of Versailles; and that the United States and the League of Nation stood by as Franco and Mussolini continued in their campaigns against the rightful governments of Spain and Ethiopia, why would we expect the United States or the League of Nations to have registered any protest over events halfway around the world?

• EXAMPLE (2): Other arguments by Masaaki are more compelling. For example, he notes of one of the many disturbing photographs in Chang's book - a famous one, apparently showing a Chinese prisoner of war about to be beheaded by a Japanese officer brandishing a sword - that its "fakery is easy to detect if you look at the shadow cast by the man at the center [the officer] and that cast by [a lower-ranking] soldier to his right. [The shadows] are facing in different directions" (Masaaki). The photograph does indeed seem to be a composite, and while stopping short of supporting Masaaki's claim that "not a single one of [Chang's photographs] bears witness to a 'Nanking Massacre'," even American historian Robert Entenmann concedes that several of the photos in Chang's book are indeed "fakes, forgeries and composites," including one (also singled out by Masaaki) "of a row of severed heads," which, according to Entenmann, in fact depicts "bandits executed by Chinese police in 1930 rather than victims of the Nanking Massacre" (Masaaki, Entenmann).

COUNTER-ARGUMENT: Faked though some of Chang's twelve pages of photos might be - perhaps even all of them, as Masaaki suggests - the fact that there exist literally hundreds of photographs of the Nanking Massacre, many of them "souvenir photos" taken by Japanese soldiers themselves, strains the credibility of his larger point and even more so the point made by his stridently anti-Chang colleagues Takemoto Tadao and Ohara Yasuo. In their The Alleged 'Nanking Massacre': Japan's Rebuttal to China's Forged Claims , these writers state that "none of these photos are dated, and the names of places and photographers are not stated. In other words, there exist [no] photos that are rigidly authentic, and definitely, these photos can not be used as evidence of [the] 'Nanking Massacre'" (Tadao and Yasuo 101). In fact, several hundred photographs have been published in one volume - The Rape of Nanking: An Undeniable History in Photographs , by Shi Young and James Yin, many of them showing female rape victims with legs spread and genitalia exposed - graphic photographs it is hard to conceive of as staged. Such pictures, while not settling the matter beyond dispute, offer powerful testimony that speaks for itself.

• EXAMPLE (3): Notwithstanding the many graphic photographs that exist, it is precisely the accusation of widespread rape - most likely because of its abhorrent nature - that Chang's Japanese critics wish to deny. "The number of 'cases of rape' [the Chinese] claim is from 20,000 to 80,000 cases," Tadao and Yasuo note. "Suppose we took this number, there should have been from 500 to 2,000 cases of rapes...daily [during the six week period of the Massacre]. This number is absolutely not trustworthy," they conclude, citing instead the number of only 361 official complaints of rape actually registered during this period (130). Of course, they are parsing numbers here. The fact is, whether there were three hundred rapes, thirty thousand, more, or less, rape perpetrated by an occupying force against a civilian population (and that such was the case is amply documented in Chang and virtually all extant sources on Nanking, including the Japanese sources, although they, of course, acknowledge only 361) is a crime of war. But that it is an individual crime of war, rather than a collective, government-sponsored crime against humanity (such as the Holocaust) is precisely the point for the Japanese historians: "[Holocaust] killings were indeed ... 'crimes against humanity', [but] those crimes are fundamentally different from the 'war crimes' which the Japanese troops are said to have committed. ... Those acts of crimes [were] the responsibility of each individual soldier" (136, 130). Following this line of reasoning, the Japanese government is absolved of any blame for the rapes that did occur in Nanking, the exact number of which remains unknown. (On this issue, see Evaluating Contradictory Data and Claims ).
• EXAMPLE (4): More trenchant criticism of Chang than that offered by Japanese historians comes from the American academy. Robert Entenmann, for example, a China expert and senior faculty member in the History department at St. Olaf College, faults Chang on the very premise of her book. He denies that there is a conspiracy of silence surrounding Nanking in Japan; maintains (in contradiction to Chang's claims) that Japanese textbooks do address the event (it is rather quaintly referred to as an "incident" in Japanese historiography, if at all, rather than a massacre, far less a rape); states that those textbooks that do mention it offer fatality rates listed between 150,000 to 300,000 (the Western consensus is around 250,000; Chang claims 300,000); and that 80% of respondents to a 1994 opinion poll in Japan found "that their government had not adequately compensated victimized peoples in countries Japan had colonized or invaded" (Entenmann). On this last count, it is worth noting that the specific wording of the question does not appear to address Nanking explicitly, and that the opinion poll's finding thus bears little relevance to the question at hand. We might also be skeptical of Entenmann's generous appraisal of Japanese textbooks: on its role in World War II, Japan's high school textbooks in particular are subject to constant revision, much of it aimed at mitigating the government's role in wartime atrocities, as a 2007 New York Times article reminds us (Onishi 12).
• EXAMPLE (5): Entenmann's more fundamental criticism of Chang's work and perspective, however, goes deeper. As the granddaughter of former Nanking residents who barely escaped the city, she is guilty, he writes, of having fallen victim to "her own ethnic prejudice. ... Her explanations are, to a large extent, based on unexamined [anti-Japanese] ethnic stereotypes." Furthermore, she engages in "implausible speculations," according to Entenmann, for example, her claim that Emperor Hirohito himself exulted in the news of the Rape of Nanking (see Chang 179). In fact, Entenmann points out, Hirohito's response is unknown, and Chang may be guilty here of "confus[ing] Japanese leaders' delight in the fall of the Chinese capital with exulting in the massacre that occurred afterward" (Entenmann).

ANALYSIS: Such sleights of hand (which Entenmann himself indulges in, as his opinion poll example above shows) are perhaps conscious on Chang's part, or perhaps a function of her not being a professional historian and therefore applying a less-than-rigorous methodology in her efforts to tell a good story. She is after all, a popular (rather than an academic) historian, whom another bestselling historian, Stephen Ambrose, whose scholarship has also been faulted on several counts, once called "the best young historian we've got because she understands that to communicate history, you've got to tell the story in an interesting way" (Ambrose qtd. in Sullivan B6).

• CONCLUSION: It is this zeal to tell a good story and back it up with sensational evidence (even if - like some of her photographs - it is faked), as well as her occasionally emotional prose, sometimes bordering on hyperbole, that remains Chang's greatest liability. In an effort to place the Rape of Nanking into historical context, for example, she states that "[u]sing numbers killed alone" it "surpasses much of the worst barbarism of the ages." Its casualties exceeded those of the Carthaginians at the hands of the Romans, the victims of the Spanish Inquisition, and those of the Mongolian leader Timur Lenk, she writes in a series of specious comparisons that culminate with the observation that "the deaths at Nanking far exceeded the deaths from the American raids on Tokyo ... and even the combined death toll of the two atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki" (Chang 6). In The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography , an anthology generally sympathetic to Chang's project (if not to her methodology), George Washington University history and international affairs professor Daqing Yang, himself a native of Nanking, notes that "such a comparison [as Chang's] is methodologically sterile" and "morally misguided" (Yang 161). Indeed, it is precisely the sort of parsing of numbers for which Chang herself would most likely challenge the above-mentioned Japanese historians in their effort to deny the extent to which rape occurred at Nanking. Despite these failings, Chang's book ultimately emerges as a more persuasive argument of what did in fact happen at Nanking than those offered by her Japanese detractors. The enduring controversy surrounding the event, however, and the specific criticism against Chang from even those who support her premise, point both to the endlessly debatable nature of history, and to the need for a more rigorous, analytical approach in its telling. As Joshua Fogel notes in his introduction to The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography , "The Massacre and related events must be lifted beyond the popular level ... to be studied with greater nuance and with a wider range of sources" (Fogel 1). In such a project, the contradictory data and claims of Chang and her critics need not necessarily be mutually exclusive but, instead, might help establish a broader context within which the event can be understood more fully, from all sides.
• Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (New York: BasicBooks, 1997).
• Entenmann, Robert. "Review of Iris Chang: The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II." October 29, 1998. H-Net List for Asian History and Culture , 1998. Accessed July 1, 2007. http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/55/481.html .
• Yang, Daqin. "The Challenges of the Nanjing Massacre: Refections on Historical Inquiry." The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography. Ed. Joshua Fogel. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000, 133 - 180.
• Masaaki, Tanaka. "What Really Happened in Nanking: The Refutation of a Common Myth." N.d. Accessed July 1, 2007. http://www.ne.jp/asahi/unko/tamezou/nankin/whatreally/index.html .
• Onishi, Norimitsu. "Japan's Textbooks Reflect Revised History." The New York Times , April 1, 2007, A12.
• Sullivan, Patricia. "'Rape of Nanking' Author Irish Chang Dies." November 12, 2004, B6. Washington Post , November 12, 2004, B6. Accessed July 1, 2007. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44139-2004Nov11.html .
• Takemoto, Tadao and Ohara Yasuo. The Alleged 'Nanking Massacre': Japan's Rebuttal to China's Forged Claims. Tokyo: Meisei-sha, Inc., 2000.
• Young, Shi and James Ying. The Rape of Nanking: An Undeniable History in Photographs, expanded 2nd edition. Chicago, Innovative Publishing Group, Inc., 1997.

The interested reader will find another brief exercise in historiographical inquiry - this one on the disputed relationship between the Catholic Church and fascism during the 1930s - in the Research Paper section of this site, under "Conducting Research for 'The Austrian Catholic Church and the Anschluss': Catholicism and fascism."

History Department

Thesis handbook for history majors.

Prepared for the History department by Margot Minardi and Radhika Natarajan August 2018; updated May 2023

Congratulations on reaching the beginning of your senior year! The thesis marks the culmination of your academic career at Reed. It’s an opportunity to build on what you’ve learned over the past three years in order to research and write about a historical question that is intellectually meaningful for you. This guide is designed as an overview to the thesis process, with some advice on how to make your thesis experience as successful and enjoyable as possible. We suggest reading through this guide at the beginning of thesis year and then returning to specific sections as you progress throughout the year.

Table of Contents

Finding a Topic

• Conducting Research
• Managing Information
• Generating an Argument
• The Writing Process

Units: Thesis is a year-long course that counts for two units.

Length:  The thesis typically consists of three substantive chapters, an introduction, conclusion, and supplementary materials (acknowledgements, bibliography, etc). A rough guideline for total length is 60–80 pages.

Format: The Library and Registrar ask that you format your thesis in a very specific way with regard to the order of contents, pagination, margins, etc. For this purpose, Information Technology creates and maintains a senior thesis template . Your thesis will not be accepted if it is not in the right format, and former thesis students agree: the earlier you use the template, the easier formatting becomes!

Advising assignments: The department asks you to submit a thesis preference form at the end of junior year indicating two potential topics and assigns advisors based on shared interests and faculty availability.

The Committee: Your committee (also known as the orals board) will consist of an advisor and first reader assigned by the department, a second reader assigned from History and Social Sciences faculty, and an outside reader of your choice. The fourth member of the committee must come from outside HSS; all faculty in other divisions and certain College staff members are eligible to serve in this role. Usually, the fourth member is asked after the orals calendar is published as faculty availability during orals week often determines participation.

Calendar: Thesis is a year-long process, and you will be working with multiple calendars: college-wide, division-wide, department-wide, and individual deadlines determined between you and your advisor. Each year, the department administrator will produce a calendar that has all of the important HSS deadlines in one place. The History Department has one additional deadline, requiring you to submit a draft of one chapter of your thesis to your advisor and first reader around the end of your first thesis semester; the exact deadline will be announced at the beginning of the semester.

HSS Draft Deadline: A complete first draft is due in the eighth week of instruction of your second thesis semester. You will submit it via the HSS Thesis Moodle, and it will be read by your advisor and first reader. You will receive comments and be expected to revise for your final draft.

Thesis Extravaganza! In the spring semester, after the draft deadline for Fall/Spring Seniors and before the final draft is due, the history department gathers to celebrate all seniors and the work they have accomplished. Seniors give a brief presentation on their thesis--the research, the argument, and the significance–and the audience asks questions..

Final Draft Deadline: You are responsible for turning in your completed thesis by the last day of classes in your second thesis semester. Follow the instructions provided by the Registrar’s Office.

Oral Exams: The oral exam brings together you and your four committee members for a 90-minute conversation about your thesis. It is your chance to talk about the significance of your research and for your committee members to ask questions. A good way to prepare for the exam is to write an “elevator pitch” summarizing your argument and its significance. You might also reflect on how you came to the topic, what is significant about your research, and surprising conclusions. Remember that your committee members are not necessarily experts in your topic or perhaps even your discipline. Consider what they might want to know. At the end of the conversation, you will be asked to leave the room, while the committee discusses your thesis. You will be invited back to hear whether or not you passed. In the time between your oral exam and final submission, you will be given a chance to fix minor grammatical and formatting errors. 

Submitting the Final Draft: After you have made the final corrections to your thesis, you must have your thesis checked and approved by your advisor before turning it into the library. Consult the library’s thesis page for more detailed information about final submission. . 

Grades/Assessment: Your advisor will assign the final grade for your thesis in consultation with the members of the thesis committee.

Your thesis may well be the most challenging and the most rewarding aspect of your academic experience at Reed. What makes the thesis exciting--but also daunting--is that you have greater independence in preparing your thesis than you do in any other academic class. Ideally, your thesis will reflect your particular historical interests and your voice and vision as a writer and thinker. Since the thesis is an individual project, the process will vary based on the inclinations of every individual student. That said, it is not a process that you should go through alone. Given the length and complexity of the thesis, you might have to adjust some of the work habits you’ve developed during your time at Reed in order to make them suitable for the unique demands of a thesis. You should talk to your advisor early and often not only about the content of your thesis but also the process of producing it. This section draws on the experiences of previous students and their advisors in order to address some common questions about the thesis process.

Your first major decision in the thesis process will be developing a viable topic for your research. While you might have some ideas about what you’re interested in at the start of your senior year, you will likely spend the first few weeks of the first term clarifying and refining your topic. 

What if I’m not sure what I want to write about?

The wide latitude you have for coming up with a thesis topic can be overwhelming. You want to find a topic that will sustain your interest for an entire school year. Reflect back on your previous coursework: what moments in history have most piqued your interest? If you’ve read a historical book or article that you found especially engrossing, reflect on what it was that drew you to it. How might you emulate what that historian did in your own work? Some students find it helpful to generate thesis topics rom their extra-curricular interests. If you are an avid cyclist, for instance, you might look into the history of bicycling in a country you’ve studied in one of your classes. Think not only about the subject areas that interest you, but also the sources and methods that you like to use. Do you enjoy working with visual evidence? A thesis drawing on photography, maps, magazine advertisements, or book illustrations might be appealing to you. Do you like the “detective work” aspect of historical research, or do you prefer to immerse yourself in a limited number of more readily accessible sources? Ask your advisor how to frame your topic such that it would lead you to whatever kind of reading and research is more likely to capture your interest. 

How narrow or wide should my topic be?

There’s no simple way to answer this question, but many students are surprised to find how narrow a thesis topic turns out to be. You might come in with an interest, say, in “women in World War II,” but your advisor is likely to push you to refine and narrow that topic so that it is precise and focused enough that you can feasibly answer it with one school year’s worth of research. Be aware that while we often talk about thesis “topics,” what you really want as a researcher is a question or set of questions that can guide your research and lead you to make a historical argument. For instance, a viable research question for someone interested in women in World War II might be something like “How did women’s participation in the French Resistance shape their understanding of gender roles in the postwar period?” Not only does this narrow the scope of the research considerably, but one can conceivably imagine different scholars coming up with different answers to this question--thus this question would seem to invite a historical argument , rather than simply a recitation of facts.

Should I choose a topic that matches my advisor’s area of expertise?

While the interests and expertise of the History Department’s faculty are wide-ranging, there are many historical subfields for which we don’t have specialists on staff. History majors have written theses in those subfields, often with success. You should be aware that if you choose to write on a topic far from your advisor’s area of expertise, the nature of the advice you receive from your advisor will likely be different than if you choose something closer to their area of specialty. In the former case, your advisor should be able to guide you in conceiving the project in general terms and in planning and revising your writing, but they will be less likely to offer you specific bibliographic or historiographical advice. This could be a reasonable option if you are willing to work independently to get to know the field you want to explore, but if you are looking for more expert guidance, you might try to find a way to get your own interests to mesh with your advisor’s expertise. Remember that your advisor need not be the only faculty member whom you consult for advice. You might find professors with relevant expertise in other departments. An informal conversation with someone in a different field can often send you in new and interesting directions.

How, if at all, should my topic relate to the coursework I’ve done?

There is no rule here, but ideally your thesis research will build on what you have studied previously at Reed. For some students, the thesis might be very closely related--for instance, a further development of research begun in the junior seminar or in a paper for a course. For others, the topic might tie to previous coursework but move it into a different context: for instance, if you enjoyed researching salmon fisheries in the twentieth-century Pacific Northwest, you might then apply some of your experience in maritime and environmental history to a thesis on cod-fishing in the seventeenth-century Atlantic. Be aware that if you choose a topic that bears no relation to work you have done previously, you will have to spend considerable time getting up to speed in the relevant history and historiography.

Conducting research

An important part of the research for your history thesis is engagement with the existing scholarship, or historiography. Every work of scholarship builds on prior work. Reading secondary sources helps to provide the historical context for your thesis; as you encounter how other historians have approached your topic, secondary sources will also help you develop the specificity and significance of your own argument. The best place to begin your secondary source research is with the Reed Library-Summit catalog and the major historical databases ( America: History and Life for U.S. and Canadian history and Historical Abstracts for all other areas of the world). If you are not sure how to use these resources, ask your advisor or consult with a librarian. Be creative with your searches, and come up with several keywords that relate to your topic, including terms from the period that might not be used today. For instance, if you want to write about food culture in British India, try searching for “memsahibs,” “cookery” or “curry,” in addition to  “food culture.” Once you get started with a few secondary sources, you can use the footnotes and bibliographies in those materials to guide you to other sources that might be useful. If you keep seeing the same books and articles cited in whatever you’re reading, it’s a good indication that those sources are key to the field you’re studying and therefore worth a look.

Most students, especially those who know the languages pertinent to their areas of study, will also make use of primary sources in their research. When seeking primary sources, or material contemporary to the period you are studying, consider both what is available to you and what questions you can answer with the material you find. English language cookbooks might help you find out what kinds of foods the British ate in India, but they might not tell you about how British tastes affected the agricultural production of Indian peasants. Maintaining a dialogue between your sources and your research question will help you make decisions about the sources you need and those you can overlook. Approaches to research are likely to vary from field to field and from topic to topic, as the kinds of materials that are appropriate in one area might not be in others. Be sure to ask your advisor how best to find relevant material in your subfield. 

Managing information and citing appropriately

Responsible historical scholarship requires detailed, accurate citation of all of your sources. At one level, proper citation matters so that you will avoid plagiarism, which includes both using another author’s words as your own and lifting information, ideas, or frameworks from someone else’s work without proper attribution. By citing responsibly, you offer due acknowledgment to the people whose work you relied upon in order to do your own scholarship. Citing your sources is also important to the readers of your thesis, who will want to know where you got your information. Indeed, a good question to ask yourself as you’re preparing citations is, “will my readers be able to replicate my research based on the citation information I’ve provided?” If your answer is no, then you need to provide more precise information.

Historians follow the “notes and bibliography” style in the Chicago Manual of Style (see Resources section below for more information). Your history thesis should include footnotes (i.e. notes that appear at the bottom of the page, not at the end of the chapter or entire work), as well as a complete bibliography at the end of the entire thesis. It is conventional in historical scholarship to restart footnote numbers at the beginning of each chapter and to separate primary and secondary sources in the bibliography. If you are not certain how to format footnotes or a bibliography in your word processor, talk to CUS. If you are not certain about proper citation practices for historians, talk to your advisor. 

While many people think of the bibliography as something that you write at the end of the project, it is easiest to cite properly if you have organized your research well from the beginning. One of the biggest challenges in researching your thesis is keeping track of your findings and sources. The informal note-taking practices that many students use for writing term papers will not often work for a project that stretches over eight months and might involve dozens of sources. You might find a source in October that you don’t actually write about until March. You cannot rely on your memory here; you need to develop a note-taking system that will enable you to access information long after you first find it. Some students like to use software specially designed for managing research of this nature, such as Zotero (see Resources section). Other students do well maintaining their notes in Word or Google docs. Generally, keeping your notes in digital form is preferable to taking handwritten notes because the text-search functions in word processors and databases allow you to find material more easily. 

Wherever you store your notes, be sure you clearly distinguish between material you have paraphrased and material you have quoted. Also be sure to record full bibliographic information for all sources you use and to clearly note where you obtained each piece of information (including references to the page number for any information or quotation). This practice is important because it will enable you to find the material easily if you need to go back and consult the original source later, and it will allow you to cite the material properly when it comes to writing up your research. 

As you write, be sure you carefully document your source material. Don’t assume that you will be able to return to your text later and fill in the citations. Tracking down a quotation or data point might prove more difficult than you expected. It only slows you down a little to cite as you write, and it will save you a lot of time and trouble in the long run. If you cannot document where you found a quotation or a piece of information, you cannot use it in your thesis.

Generating an argument

Just like nearly every paper you’ve written in your college career (including your junior seminar paper), your thesis should have an argument. Indeed, the classic oral exam question for history senior thesis writers is “what is the thesis of your thesis?” It’s OK if you can’t answer this question at the beginning of the year, but as your research develops, you and your advisor will have many conversations about what, exactly, the thesis of your thesis is.

Both originality and significance are desirable in a thesis, but that doesn’t mean that a good thesis must break entirely new ground. Often, originality in a senior thesis comes from your own unique insight as a reader of source material that others have read many times before. It can also come from creative juxtapositions of different sources. No other historian has followed precisely your path through college, so no other historian will put together the material in quite the same way as you. In thinking about how to explain the significance of your thesis, it’s helpful to think about audience. A given thesis might have different layers of significance for different audiences. For a work of historical scholarship, the most important audience is generally other historians interested in similar questions . As you craft your argument, think about what will be novel and interesting to this category of readers. Finally, bear in mind that the most significant arguments often come from a relatively focused idea. As one former thesis writer put it, “Many seniors start trying to write a book, but the thesis is really one small argument, very well supported.”

Remember that your thesis will be divided into chapters, each of which will make its own sub-argument. The argument of each of the chapters should each contribute to the argument of the thesis as a whole. There’s no rule for how many chapters your thesis has, though many students find that dividing their work into three chapters makes the project manageable. As you’re developing your argument, then, you might think about how you would divide the argument into three distinct chunks. Or, you might consider how each chapter answers a sub-question of the main question of the thesis. Some historians like to divide their material chronologically, in which case you might think about how your argument breaks down into distinct periods or moments. Others divide their material thematically, such that each chapter looks at a different dimension of a question or problem. In a thesis on food culture in British India, for instance, one chapter might answer the question, how were British recipes adapted for Indian ingredients? . Another might answer the question, how did British recipes incorporate Indian cooking techniques? And a third chapter might answer the question how did living in India change British social rituals around food consumption? Still another approach would be looking at distinct case studies (for instance, comparing two or more locations or social groups). 

The writing process

Students often ask when they should start actually writing the thesis. The short answer is that it is rarely too early to start writing, and it’s easy to put off writing for too long. Don’t assume that you can finish all the research before you start writing; there is always going to be another book to read. It’s worth remembering here that for many historians, research and writing are companion activities. Writing will very likely cause you to clarify or reframe your questions, which will then send you back to do more research. Furthermore, don’t wait to write until you know exactly what you want to say. It’s fine, even advisable, to jumpstart your writing process with some informal writing, such as a description of the most interesting source you’ve found. Some writers find it helpful to keep a “thesis journal,” where they jot down ideas as they come to mind, without worrying about whether they are perfectly articulated. This kind of low-stakes writing can help you find your way to greater clarity and insight.

Revision is absolutely crucial to the process of writing a text as long and complex as a thesis. Talk with your advisor to set up realistic personal writing goals and deadlines that both keep you on track to make the required deadlines and leave room for revision along the way. You are required by the HSS Division to submit a full draft of your thesis about eight weeks into the second term. Your advisor and your first reader will give you comments on that draft, and you will then spend the remaining weeks of the year revising your draft to respond to those comments and to make other changes that you yourself have identified as important. Revision means “seeing again,” and this final stage is an opportunity to take a step back and look at your work from a reader’s perspective. Final revisions might include conducting targeted research, reorganizing the document, refining your prose style, and reformulating your argument into its clearest and most effective form. 

Your thesis has a staying power that no other piece of work you do in college will have. All Reed theses are stored in the library (in the formidable “Thesis Tower”), and, with your permission, the library can make your thesis available online as well. Make sure your finished document is polished and professional. The library will check that you are following the template properly, and your advisor will help identify errors of fact or interpretation. But ultimate responsibility for ensuring that your thesis is a polished piece of work rests with you. You should not expect your advisor to proofread for you. Make sure that your thesis is free of typographical errors, misspellings, irregular punctuation, and other mechanical errors. If you are not adept at proofreading, get help from a friend who is. 

Finally, whatever program you use to write your thesis, be sure to back up your work on a regular basis. Every year students lose drafts and data when their computer equipment fails before they have backed up. Such losses are lamentable--and entirely avoidable. Assume your computer is going to crash tomorrow, and figure out what you are going to do today to ensure that the failure of your hard drive won’t mean the loss of your work.

There are many services on campus and online to support you as you write your thesis. Remember that in addition to your advisor, you can reach out to other faculty for advice.

Office of Academic Support : Academic Support provides specialized workshops for thesis writers, organizes thesis writing groups, and offers one-on-one thesis writing guidance. 

Computer User Services/Information Technology: IT creates the template for thesis and provides advice on formatting and computer-related problems.  If you do not have an automatic backup system on your computer, consult Computer User Services (CUS) for help in order to get one set up; do this before you lose data.

Community: While thesis is an independent research project, it does not have to be a lonely pursuit. Finding the right balance of support and solitude that works for you can make your thesis year more enjoyable and productive. In the past, seniors have formed small support groups to share work, talk about experiences with research, relationships with advisors, and other aspects of the thesis process, and the department runs optional events to bring thesis-writing seniors together as well. 

Library: Each year, one librarian serves as the History Department’s liaison to the library. This librarian can help you find sources for your thesis and advise you on the research process. This could even include the purchase of sources or database subscriptions to aid your research. More information about historical research at Reed, along with the department’s current liaison librarian, is available via the library’s online historical research guide . In addition to research, librarians can help you set up and maintain your bibliography and provide advice on Zotero and other digital tools. For more information on the support offered by the library for thesis, visit their thesis guide .

Bibliography Management: Zotero is a note-taking and bibliography tool that was developed by historians. It is free and relatively easy to use. The library often has Sotero workshops, and can also set up one-on-one appointments.

Research Grants: The history department cannot offer grants for seniors to conduct research, however there are resources on campus to which history majors can apply. History students have been very successful in applications for Initiative Grants . 

Further Guides: If you are looking for further advice about research, writing, and the proper use of sources, here are some materials recommended by History faculty:

• Wayne Booth, et al., The Craft of Research  
• The Harvard Guide to Using Sources
• Quick Citation Guide
• Full Chicago Manual of Style , available through Reed Library
• “ 20 Tips for Thesis Writers ”: great advice for overcoming a writer’s most feared adversaries, including writer’s block, anxiety, lack of motivation, and procrastination. 
• In the past, some history seniors have appreciated Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird as they dealt with procrastination and self-doubt.
• Strunk & White is the classic guide to succinct writing.  

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Martin Luther and the 95 Theses

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 6, 2019 | Original: October 29, 2009

Born in Eisleben, Germany, in 1483, Martin Luther went on to become one of Western history’s most significant figures. Luther spent his early years in relative anonymity as a monk and scholar. But in 1517 Luther penned a document attacking the Catholic Church’s corrupt practice of selling “indulgences” to absolve sin. His “95 Theses,” which propounded two central beliefs—that the Bible is the central religious authority and that humans may reach salvation only by their faith and not by their deeds—was to spark the Protestant Reformation. Although these ideas had been advanced before, Martin Luther codified them at a moment in history ripe for religious reformation. The Catholic Church was ever after divided, and the Protestantism that soon emerged was shaped by Luther’s ideas. His writings changed the course of religious and cultural history in the West.

Martin Luther (1483–1546) was born in Eisleben, Saxony (now Germany), part of the Holy Roman Empire, to parents Hans and Margaretta. Luther’s father was a prosperous businessman, and when Luther was young, his father moved the family of 10 to Mansfeld. At age five, Luther began his education at a local school where he learned reading, writing and Latin. At 13, Luther began to attend a school run by the Brethren of the Common Life in Magdeburg. The Brethren’s teachings focused on personal piety, and while there Luther developed an early interest in monastic life.

Did you know? Legend says Martin Luther was inspired to launch the Protestant Reformation while seated comfortably on the chamber pot. That cannot be confirmed, but in 2004 archeologists discovered Luther's lavatory, which was remarkably modern for its day, featuring a heated-floor system and a primitive drain.

Martin Luther Enters the Monastery

But Hans Luther had other plans for young Martin—he wanted him to become a lawyer—so he withdrew him from the school in Magdeburg and sent him to new school in Eisenach. Then, in 1501, Luther enrolled at the University of Erfurt, the premiere university in Germany at the time. There, he studied the typical curriculum of the day: arithmetic, astronomy, geometry and philosophy and he attained a Master’s degree from the school in 1505. In July of that year, Luther got caught in a violent thunderstorm, in which a bolt of lightning nearly struck him down. He considered the incident a sign from God and vowed to become a monk if he survived the storm. The storm subsided, Luther emerged unscathed and, true to his promise, Luther turned his back on his study of the law days later on July 17, 1505. Instead, he entered an Augustinian monastery.

Luther began to live the spartan and rigorous life of a monk but did not abandon his studies. Between 1507 and 1510, Luther studied at the University of Erfurt and at a university in Wittenberg. In 1510–1511, he took a break from his education to serve as a representative in Rome for the German Augustinian monasteries. In 1512, Luther received his doctorate and became a professor of biblical studies. Over the next five years Luther’s continuing theological studies would lead him to insights that would have implications for Christian thought for centuries to come.

Martin Luther Questions the Catholic Church

In early 16th-century Europe, some theologians and scholars were beginning to question the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. It was also around this time that translations of original texts—namely, the Bible and the writings of the early church philosopher Augustine—became more widely available.

Augustine (340–430) had emphasized the primacy of the Bible rather than Church officials as the ultimate religious authority. He also believed that humans could not reach salvation by their own acts, but that only God could bestow salvation by his divine grace. In the Middle Ages the Catholic Church taught that salvation was possible through “good works,” or works of righteousness, that pleased God. Luther came to share Augustine’s two central beliefs, which would later form the basis of Protestantism.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church’s practice of granting “indulgences” to provide absolution to sinners became increasingly corrupt. Indulgence-selling had been banned in Germany, but the practice continued unabated. In 1517, a friar named Johann Tetzel began to sell indulgences in Germany to raise funds to renovate St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

The 95 Theses

Committed to the idea that salvation could be reached through faith and by divine grace only, Luther vigorously objected to the corrupt practice of selling indulgences. Acting on this belief, he wrote the “Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences,” also known as “The 95 Theses,” a list of questions and propositions for debate. Popular legend has it that on October 31, 1517 Luther defiantly nailed a copy of his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle church. The reality was probably not so dramatic; Luther more likely hung the document on the door of the church matter-of-factly to announce the ensuing academic discussion around it that he was organizing.

The 95 Theses, which would later become the foundation of the Protestant Reformation, were written in a remarkably humble and academic tone, questioning rather than accusing. The overall thrust of the document was nonetheless quite provocative. The first two of the theses contained Luther’s central idea, that God intended believers to seek repentance and that faith alone, and not deeds, would lead to salvation. The other 93 theses, a number of them directly criticizing the practice of indulgences, supported these first two.

In addition to his criticisms of indulgences, Luther also reflected popular sentiment about the “St. Peter’s scandal” in the 95 Theses:

Why does not the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?

The 95 Theses were quickly distributed throughout Germany and then made their way to Rome. In 1518, Luther was summoned to Augsburg, a city in southern Germany, to defend his opinions before an imperial diet (assembly). A debate lasting three days between Luther and Cardinal Thomas Cajetan produced no agreement. Cajetan defended the church’s use of indulgences, but Luther refused to recant and returned to Wittenberg.

Luther the Heretic

On November 9, 1518 the pope condemned Luther’s writings as conflicting with the teachings of the Church. One year later a series of commissions were convened to examine Luther’s teachings. The first papal commission found them to be heretical, but the second merely stated that Luther’s writings were “scandalous and offensive to pious ears.” Finally, in July 1520 Pope Leo X issued a papal bull (public decree) that concluded that Luther’s propositions were heretical and gave Luther 120 days to recant in Rome. Luther refused to recant, and on January 3, 1521 Pope Leo excommunicated Martin Luther from the Catholic Church.

On April 17, 1521 Luther appeared before the Diet of Worms in Germany. Refusing again to recant, Luther concluded his testimony with the defiant statement: “Here I stand. God help me. I can do no other.” On May 25, the Holy Roman emperor Charles V signed an edict against Luther, ordering his writings to be burned. Luther hid in the town of Eisenach for the next year, where he began work on one of his major life projects, the translation of the New Testament into German, which took him 10 months to complete.

Martin Luther's Later Years

Luther returned to Wittenberg in 1521, where the reform movement initiated by his writings had grown beyond his influence. It was no longer a purely theological cause; it had become political. Other leaders stepped up to lead the reform, and concurrently, the rebellion known as the Peasants’ War was making its way across Germany.

Luther had previously written against the Church’s adherence to clerical celibacy, and in 1525 he married Katherine of Bora, a former nun. They had five children. At the end of his life, Luther turned strident in his views, and pronounced the pope the Antichrist, advocated for the expulsion of Jews from the empire and condoned polygamy based on the practice of the patriarchs in the Old Testament.

Luther died on February 18, 1546.

Significance of Martin Luther’s Work

Martin Luther is one of the most influential figures in Western history. His writings were responsible for fractionalizing the Catholic Church and sparking the Protestant Reformation. His central teachings, that the Bible is the central source of religious authority and that salvation is reached through faith and not deeds, shaped the core of Protestantism. Although Luther was critical of the Catholic Church, he distanced himself from the radical successors who took up his mantle. Luther is remembered as a controversial figure, not only because his writings led to significant religious reform and division, but also because in later life he took on radical positions on other questions, including his pronouncements against Jews, which some have said may have portended German anti-Semitism; others dismiss them as just one man’s vitriol that did not gain a following. Some of Luther’s most significant contributions to theological history, however, such as his insistence that as the sole source of religious authority the Bible be translated and made available to everyone, were truly revolutionary in his day.

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HIST495 Introduction to Historical Interpretation (History Honors)

• Getting Started
• Consulting Reference Materials for Overview/Background Information
• Finding Primary Sources
• Finding Secondary Sources (Books and Articles)
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Guidelines and Examples

3 simple steps to get your literature review done (nus libraries).

• Creating an Annotated Bibliography
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• Special Collections and Archives Outside of the US
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• Writing & Citing
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• Introduction to Literature Reviews (UNC)
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