History

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This article is about the academic discipline. For a general history of human beings, see History
of the world. For other uses, see History (disambiguation).

Historia
painting by Nikolaos Gyzis (1892)

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. [1]
George Santayana

History (from Greek , historia, meaning "inquiry, knowledge acquired by

investigation")[2] is the study of the past as it is described in written documents.[3][4] Events
occurring before written record are considered prehistory. It is an umbrella term that relates to
past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and
interpretation of information about these events. Scholars who write about history are
called historians.
History can also refer to the academic discipline which uses a narrative to examine and analyse
a sequence of past events, and objectively determine the patterns of cause and effect that
determine them.[5][6] Historians sometimes debate the nature of history and its usefulness by
discussing the study of the discipline as an end in itself and as a way of providing "perspective"
on the problems of the present.[5][7][8][9]
Stories common to a particular culture, but not supported by external sources (such as the tales
surrounding King Arthur), are usually classified as cultural heritage or legends, because they do
not show the "disinterested investigation" required of the discipline of history.[10][11]Herodotus, a
5th-century BC Greek historian is considered within the Western tradition to be the "father of
history", and, along with his contemporary Thucydides, helped form the foundations for the
modern study of human history. Their works continue to be read today, and the gap between the
culture-focused Herodotus and the military-focused Thucydides remains a point of contention or
approach in modern historical writing. In Asia, a state chronicle, the Spring and Autumn
Annals was known to be compiled from as early as 722 BC although only 2nd-century BC texts
survived.
Ancient influences have helped spawn variant interpretations of the nature of history which have
evolved over the centuries and continue to change today. The modern study of history is wide-
ranging, and includes the study of specific regions and the study of certain topical or thematical
elements of historical investigation. Often history is taught as part of primary and secondary
education, and the academic study of history is a major discipline in university studies.

Contents
[hide]
 1Etymology
2Description
3History and prehistory
4Historiography
5Philosophy of history
6Historical methods
7Marxian theory of history
8Areas of study
o 8.1Periods
8.1.1Prehistoric periodisation
o 8.2Geographical locations
8.2.1Regions
o 8.3Military history
o 8.4History of religion
o 8.5Social history
8.5.1Subfields
o 8.6Cultural history
o 8.7Diplomatic history
o 8.8Economic history
o 8.9Environmental history
o 8.10World history
o 8.11People's history
o 8.12Intellectual history
o 8.13Gender history
o 8.14Public history
9Historians
10The judgement of history
11Pseudohistory
12Teaching history
o 12.1Scholarship vs teaching
o 12.2Nationalism
o 12.3Bias in school teaching
13See also
o 13.1Methods
o 13.2Topics
o 13.3Other themes
14References
15Further reading
16External links

Etymology

History by Frederick Dielman(1896)

The word history comes ultimately from Ancient Greek [12] (histora), meaning "inquiry",
"knowledge from inquiry", or "judge". It was in that sense that Aristotle used the word in his
[13] (Per T Za istorai "Inquiries about Animals"). The ancestor word is
attested early on in Homeric Hymns, Heraclitus, the Athenian ephebes' oath, and
in Boiotic inscriptions (in a legal sense, either "judge" or "witness", or similar).
The Greek word was borrowed into Classical Latin as historia, meaning "investigation, inquiry,
research, account, description, written account of past events, writing of history, historical
narrative, recorded knowledge of past events, story, narrative". History was borrowed from Latin
(possibly via Old Irish or Old Welsh) into Old English as str ('history, narrative, story'), but this
word fell out of use in the late Old English period.[14]
Meanwhile, as Latin became Old French (and Anglo-Norman), historia developed into forms such
as istorie, estoire, and historie, with new developments in the meaning: "account of the events of
a person's life (beginning of the 12th century), chronicle, account of events as relevant to a group
of people or people in general (1155), dramatic or pictorial representation of historical events (c.
1240), body of knowledge relative to human evolution, science (c. 1265), narrative of real or
imaginary events, story (c. 1462)".[14]
It was from Anglo-Norman that history was borrowed into Middle English, and this time the loan
stuck. It appears in the thirteenth-century Ancrene Wisse, but seems to have become a common
word in the late fourteenth century, with an early attestation appearing in John
Gower's Confessio Amantis of the 1390s (VI.1383): "I finde in a bok compiled | To this matiere an
old histoire, | The which comth nou to mi memoire". In Middle English, the meaning
of history was "story" in general. The restriction to the meaning "the branch of knowledge that
deals with past events; the formal record or study of past events, esp. human affairs" arose in the
mid-fifteenth century.[14]
With the Renaissance, older senses of the word were revived, and it was in the Greek sense
that Francis Bacon used the term in the late sixteenth century, when he wrote about "Natural
History". For him, historia was "the knowledge of objects determined by space and time", that
sort of knowledge provided by memory (while science was provided by reason, and poetry was
provided by fantasy).[15]
In an expression of the linguistic synthetic vs. analytic/isolating dichotomy, English like Chinese (
vs. ) now designates separate words for human history and storytelling in general. In
modern German, French, and most Germanic and Romance languages, which are solidly
synthetic and highly inflected, the same word is still used to mean both "history" and "story".
The adjective historical is attested from 1661, and historic from 1669.[16]
Historian in the sense of a "researcher of history" is attested from 1531. In all European
languages, the substantive "history" is still used to mean both "what happened with men", and
"the scholarly study of the happened", the latter sense sometimes distinguished with a capital
letter, "History", or the word historiography.[13]

Description
The title page to The Historians' History of the World

Historians write in the context of their own time, and with due regard to the current dominant
ideas of how to interpret the past, and sometimes write to provide lessons for their own society.
In the words of Benedetto Croce, "All history is contemporary history". History is facilitated by the
formation of a "true discourse of past" through the production of narrative and analysis of past
events relating to the human race.[17] The modern discipline of history is dedicated to the
institutional production of this discourse.
All events that are remembered and preserved in some authentic form constitute the historical
record.[18] The task of historical discourse is to identify the sources which can most usefully
contribute to the production of accurate accounts of past. Therefore, the constitution of the
historian's archive is a result of circumscribing a more general archive by invalidating the usage
of certain texts and documents (by falsifying their claims to represent the "true past").
The study of history has sometimes been classified as part of the humanities and at other times
as part of the social sciences.[19] It can also be seen as a bridge between those two broad areas,
incorporating methodologies from both. Some individual historians strongly support one or the
other classification.[20] In the 20th century, French historian Fernand Braudel revolutionized the
study of history, by using such outside disciplines as economics, anthropology, and geography in
the study of global history.
Traditionally, historians have recorded events of the past, either in writing or by passing on
an oral tradition, and have attempted to answer historical questions through the study of written
documents and oral accounts. From the beginning, historians have also used such sources as
monuments, inscriptions, and pictures. In general, the sources of historical knowledge can be
separated into three categories: what is written, what is said, and what is physically preserved,
and historians often consult all three.[21] But writing is the marker that separates history from what
comes before.
Archaeology is a discipline that is especially helpful in dealing with buried sites and objects,
which, once unearthed, contribute to the study of history. But archaeology rarely stands alone. It
uses narrative sources to complement its discoveries. However, archaeology is constituted by a
range of methodologies and approaches which are independent from history; that is to say,
archaeology does not "fill the gaps" within textual sources. Indeed, "historical archaeology" is a
specific branch of archaeology, often contrasting its conclusions against those of contemporary
textual sources. For example, Mark Leone, the excavator and interpreter of historical Annapolis,
Maryland, USA; has sought to understand the contradiction between textual documents and the
material record, demonstrating the possession of slaves and the inequalities of wealth apparent
via the study of the total historical environment, despite the ideology of "liberty" inherent in written
documents at this time.
There are varieties of ways in which history can be organized, including
chronologically, culturally, territorially, and thematically. These divisions are not mutually
exclusive, and significant overlaps are often present, as in "The International Women's
Movement in an Age of Transition, 18301975." It is possible for historians to concern
themselves with both the very specific and the very general, although the modern trend has been
toward specialization. The area called Big History resists this specialization, and searches for
universal patterns or trends. History has often been studied with some practical
or theoretical aim, but also may be studied out of simple intellectual curiosity.[22]

History and prehistory

Human history
and prehistory

before Homo (Pliocene epoch)

Prehistory
(three-age system)

Stone Age

Lower Paleolithic
Homo
Homo erectus
Middle Paleolithic
Early Homo sapiens

Upper Paleolithic
Behavioral modernity

Neolithic
Cradle of civilization

Bronze Age
China
Europe
India
Near East
Iron Age
Bronze Age collapse

China
Europe
India
Japan
Korea
 Near East
Nigeria

Recorded history

Ancient history
Earliest records

Post-classical history

Modern history
Early
Later
Contemporary

Future

v
t
e

Further information: Protohistory

The history of the world is the memory of the past experience of Homo sapiens sapiens around
the world, as that experience has been preserved, largely in written records. By "prehistory",
historians mean the recovery of knowledge of the past in an area where no written records exist,
or where the writing of a culture is not understood. By studying painting, drawings, carvings, and
other artifacts, some information can be recovered even in the absence of a written record. Since
the 20th century, the study of prehistory is considered essential to avoid history's implicit
exclusion of certain civilizations, such as those of Sub-Saharan Africa and pre-
Columbian America. Historians in the West have been criticized for focusing disproportionately
on the Western world.[23] In 1961, British historian E. H. Carr wrote:
The line of demarcation between prehistoric and historical times is crossed when people cease
to live only in the present, and become consciously interested both in their past and in their
future. History begins with the handing down of tradition; and tradition means the carrying of the
habits and lessons of the past into the future. Records of the past begin to be kept for the benefit
of future generations.[24]

This definition includes within the scope of history the strong interests of peoples, such
as Indigenous Australians and New Zealand Moriin the past, and the oral records maintained
and transmitted to succeeding generations, even before their contact with European civilization.

Historiography
Main article: Historiography
The title page to La Historia d'Italia

Historiography has a number of related meanings. Firstly, it can refer to how history has been
produced: the story of the development of methodology and practices (for example, the move
from short-term biographical narrative towards long-term thematic analysis). Secondly, it can
refer to what has been produced: a specific body of historical writing (for example, "medieval
historiography during the 1960s" means "Works of medieval history written during the 1960s").
Thirdly, it may refer to why history is produced: the Philosophy of history. As a meta-
level analysis of descriptions of the past, this third conception can relate to the first two in that the
analysis usually focuses on the narratives, interpretations, world view, use of evidence, or
method of presentation of other historians. Professional historians also debate the question of
whether history can be taught as a single coherent narrative or a series of competing
narratives.[25][26]

Philosophy of history
History's philosophical questions

What is the proper unit for the study of

the human pastthe individual? The
polis? The civilization? The culture?
Or the nation state?
Are there broad patterns and progress?
Are there cycles? Is human history
random and devoid of any meaning?

Main article: Philosophy of history

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Philosophy of history is a branch of philosophy concerning the eventual significance, if any, of

human history. Furthermore, it speculates as to a possible teleological end to its development
that is, it asks if there is a design, purpose, directive principle, or finality in the processes of
human history. Philosophy of history should not be confused with historiography, which is the
study of history as an academic discipline, and thus concerns its methods and practices, and its
development as a discipline over time. Nor should philosophy of history be confused with
the history of philosophy, which is the study of the development of philosophical ideas through
time.
Historical methods
Further information: Historical method

A depiction of the ancient Library of

Alexandria

Historical method basics

The following questions are used by

historians in modern work.

1. When was the source, written or

unwritten, produced (date)?
2. Where was it produced
(localization)?
3. By whom was it produced
(authorship)?
4. From what pre-existing material
was it produced (analysis)?
5. In what original form was it
produced (integrity)?
6. What is the evidential value of its
contents (credibility)?
The first four are known as historical
criticism; the fifth, textual criticism; and,
together, external criticism. The sixth and
final inquiry about a source is called
internal criticism.

The historical method comprises the techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary
sources and other evidence to research and then to write history.
Herodotus of Halicarnassus (484 BC ca.425 BC)[27] has generally been acclaimed as the "father
of history". However, his contemporary Thucydides (c. 460 BC ca. 400 BC) is credited with
having first approached history with a well-developed historical method in his work the History of
the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides, unlike Herodotus, regarded history as being the product of
the choices and actions of human beings, and looked at cause and effect, rather than as the
result of divine intervention.[27] In his historical method, Thucydides emphasized chronology, a
neutral point of view, and that the human world was the result of the actions of human beings.
Greek historians also viewed history as cyclical, with events regularly recurring.[28]
There were historical traditions and sophisticated use of historical method in ancient and
medieval China. The groundwork for professional historiography in East Asia was established by
the Han dynasty court historian known as Sima Qian (14590 BC), author of the Records of the
Grand Historian (Shiji). For the quality of his written work, Sima Qian is posthumously known as
the Father of Chinese historiography. Chinese historians of subsequent dynastic periods in China
used his Shiji as the official format for historical texts, as well as for biographical literature.[citation
needed]

Saint Augustine was influential in Christian and Western thought at the beginning of the medieval
period. Through the Medieval and Renaissance periods, history was often studied through
a sacred or religious perspective. Around 1800, German philosopher