MYP Individuals and Societies - Source Analysis

Skill Sheet # 1

Source Analysis
Sources of information are vital for many aspects of study within the humanities.
What type of sources do you think the following people might consult?

1) A historian
2) A psychologist
3) A geographer
4) An anthropologist

Lets focus on history for this activity.

Example of Sources A Historian Might Use

Propaganda Poster
Radio Broadcast
Extract from a speech
Books
Film footage
Photographs
Postcards
Letters

And so on.

Key Command Terms When Analysing Sources

1) Origin: Where the source comes from, who made it, when?
2) Purpose: What is the intention of the source?
3) Value: Why the source is useful / valuable to a historian?
4) Limitation Why the source is less useful/ limited to a historian?
5) Compare: What similarities exist between the sources?
6) Contrast: What differences exist between the sources?
What is the Origin and Purpose of the following sources?

1) Source A: Extract from a Russian publication, F Burlatsky, The True Face of

Maoism, 1969
2) Source B: A report prepared by the US government in 1967 on the state of the
Chinese economy.

1) Source C: A Nazi propaganda poster, taken from an exhibition called The Eternal
Jew in Munich 1937

SOURCE A
ORIGIN:
PURPOSE:

SOURCE B
ORIGIN:
PURPOSE:

SOURCE C
ORIGIN:
PURPOSE:

Now Work on Value and Limitation of Sources. Complete the following table.

Source Value Limitation

Biography of Stalin by a
leading British historian
on the period. Published
in 1980, London.
Nazi Propaganda Poster
encouraging women to
have children. Produced
in 1935
Radio Broadcast by
Winston Churchill during
World War 2 explaining
to the British public how
the war is going.
Book about how the CCP
won the Chinese Civil
War. Written by a
Western Academic in
2003 in New York.
Speech by Mao about the
importance of land reform
in 1950.
Nazi Propaganda Film,
The Eternal Jew,
commissioned by Adolf
Hitler and Joseph
Goebbels
Report about the success
of collectivization written
in the Soviet newspaper
Pravda, 1932.
SOURCE A
Extract from an editorial in the Peoples Daily, the Communist Party
newspaper, September 3 1958

Where the Peoples Communes have already come into existence, the
peasants join beating drums and gongs, celebrate the occasion with great
joy, and their enthusiasm for production has reached a new height. The
poor and lower middle peasants, in particular, rejoice in the formation of
the commune and regard it as the realization of a long cherished dream.
The Peoples Commune is characterized by its bigger size and more
socialist nature. They not only carry out all round management of
agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery but also merge
industry (the worker), agriculture (the peasant), exchange (the trader),
culture and education (the student) and military affairs (the military man)
into one. Peoples Communes so far established usually have a
membership of 10,000 people each, in some case 10,000 households.

SOURCE B

Extract from Mao The Unknown Story, a popular biography, Jung

Chang and Jon Halliday, London 2005

In summer 1958 Mao forced the entire rural population into new and
larger units called Peoples Communes. The aim was to make slave
driving more efficient. He himself said that by concentrating the peasants
into fewer units 26,000 plus in the whole of China its easier to
control. The first commune, Chayashan Sputnik was set up in his
model province, Henan. Its charter, which Mao edited, and proclaimed as
a great treasure, laid down that every aspect of its members lives was
to be controlled by the commune. All the 9396 households had to hand
over entirely their private plotstheir houses, animals and trees They
had to live in dormitories, in accordance with the principles of benefiting
production and control and the charter actually stated that their homes
were to be dismantled if the commune needs the bricks, tiles or
timber. Every peasants life must revolve around labour. All members
were to b treated as though in the army, with a three tier regimentation
system: commune, brigade, production team (usually a village). Peasants
were allowed minimal amounts of cash. The communes were camps for
slave-laborers.

Question: Compare and contrast the views expressed in Sources A and B about
the Peoples Communes.