Seeing History in 2-D: A Tool Kit for Interpreting Images

While many historians, and their students, possess great enthusiasm for the world of images, many fail to use images to their fullest potential as historic sources. The goal of this guide is to provide historians with theoretical and practical tools to help them analyze visual sources and to pass on that knowledge. With this guide in hand, they will be able to interpret visual sources that are vital to, yet under-utilized in, their work. They will also become savvier about using visual sources to communicate their own research and ideas. "Seeing History in 2-D" includes a step-by-step guide for analyzing visual elements within the picture frame and it offers tips to situate images in a broader context, that is, outside the picture frame. With this article in hand, historians and their students will have an accessible and easy-to-read guide to help them cross disciplines and interpret images, which have always been core to how people have made sense of each other and the world around them.