ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the susequent chapters of this book. In this chapter, each of the aspects of historical thinking is considered in turn. Before history became a required part of the primary curriculum, history books for children did not take into account that, from the very beginning children are able, in a simple but genuinely historical way, to grapple with the problems that lie at the heart of the discipline and that they should so do in increasingly complex ways. Children were usually given a single perspective of the past and not helped to see why different people, at different times, create different interpretations which may be more or less valid. After they had been there for four hundred years, the Romans went away. Their homes in Italy were being attacked by fierce tribes and every soldier was needed.
