History and Memory:

The Mongol Invasions of Japan

© 2014 Program for Teaching East Asia, University of Colorado

“All history, even ancient history is contemporary history because each generation and group rewrites that history in the light of their own values, perspectives, experiences and concerns….Memory can be a slippery source…The question for the historian is: What is the value of…a historical source? It is a question that different historians will answer differently. Those answers will shape their histories in different molds, creating a clash of historical interpretations….”

—Historian Peter Winn

From “History and Memory,” Bridging World History, Annenberg Foundation, 2013, http://www.learner.org/courses/worldhistory/unit_transcript_2.html.

What do you know about the Mongol invasions of Japan?

Detail from 19th-century version of “Takezaki Suenaga’s Scrolls of the Mongol Invasions of Japan,” Bowdoin College, http://www.bowdoin.edu/mongol-scrolls/.