Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. ^[1]

History (from Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of ἱστορία - historia, meaning "inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation"^[2]) is the study of the human past The past is the portion of time that has already occurred; it is the opposite of the future. Scholars who write about history are called historians A historian is an individual who studies and writes about history, and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all events in time. If the individual is concerned with events preceding written history, the. It is a field of research which uses a narrative A narrative is a story that is created in a constructive format that describes a sequence of fictional or non-fictional events to examine and analyse the sequence of events, and it sometimes attempts to investigate objectively the patterns of cause and effect Causality is the relationship between an event and a second event (the effect), where the second event is a consequence of the first that determine events.^[3][4] Historians debate the nature of history and its usefulness. This includes discussing the study of the discipline as an end in itself and as a way of providing "perspective" on the problems of the present.^[3][5][6][7] The stories common to a particular culture, but not supported by external sources (such as the legends surrounding King Arthur King Arthur is a legendary British leader who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early sixth century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated and disputed by modern historians. The sparse) are usually classified as cultural heritage Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations. Often though, what is considered cultural heritage by one generation may be rejected by the next generation, only to be revived rather than the "disinterested investigation" needed by the discipline of history.^[8][9] Events of the past prior to written record are considered prehistory Prehistory is a term used to describe the period before recorded history. Paul Tournal originally coined the term Pré-historique in describing the finds he had made in the caves of southern France.[citation needed] It came into use in France in the 1830s to describe the time before writing, and the word "prehistoric" was introduced into.

Etymology

The word history comes from the root The roots of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language are basic morphemes carrying a lexical meaning. By addition of suffixes, they form stems, and by addition of endings, these form grammatically inflected words (nouns or verbs) *weid- "know" or "see"^[2] — from which also come Greek ἰδέᾱ (idéā) "appearance" or "kind", Latin ēvidēns and vīsiō, Italian vista, English wit, I wot, wise, and wisdom, Sanskrit Sanskrit , is an historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism,[note 1] and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is a classical language of India, others being Tamil, Kannada and Telugu veda The Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism,^[10] and Slavic The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia videti. (See asterisk An asterisk is a typographical symbol or glyph. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often pronounce it as star (as, for example, in the A* search algorithm or C*-algebra). In English, an asterisk is usually five-pointed when typed and six-pointed when handwritten.)

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning the Archaic , Classical (c. 5th–4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic (c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine (& ἱστορία means "inquiry" or "knowledge from inquiry", from ἵστωρ (hístōr) "judge" (from the Proto-Indo-European agent noun In linguistics, an agent noun is a word that is derived from another word denoting an action, and that identifies an entity that does that action. For example, "driver" is an agent noun formed from the verb "drive". The endings "-er", "-or", and "-ist" are commonly used in English to form agent *wid-tor: "one who knows").^[11] It was in that sense that Aristotle Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most used the word in his Περὶ Τὰ Ζῷα Ἱστορίαι History of Animals is a zoological natural history text by Aristotle^[12] (Perì Tà Zôa Ηistoríai "Inquiries about Animals"). The ancestor word ἵστωρ is attested early on in Homeric Hymns The thirty-three anonymous Homeric Hymns celebrating individual gods are a collection of ancient Greek hymns, "Homeric" in the sense that they employ the same epic meter— dactylic hexameter— as the Iliad and Odyssey, use many similar formulas and are couched in the same dialect. They were uncritically attributed to Homer himself in, Heraclitus Heraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom. From the lonely life he led, and still more from the riddling, the Athenian Athens (pronounced /ˈæθɨnz/; Modern Greek: Αθήνα, Athina, IPA: [aˈθina], Katharevousa/Ancient Greek: Ἀθῆναι, Athēnai , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years ephebes Ephebos (often in the plural epheboi), also anglicised as ephebe (plural: ephebes) or archaically ephebus (plural: ephebi), is a Greek word for an adolescent age group or a social status reserved for that age in Antiquity' oath, and in Boiotic Boeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , formerly Cadmeis, was a region of ancient Greece, north of the eastern part of the Gulf of Corinth. It was bounded on the south by Megaris and the Kithairon mountain range that forms a natural barrier with Attica, on the north by Opuntian Locris and the Euripus Strait at the Gulf of Euboea, and on the inscriptions (in a legal sense, either "judge" or "witness", or similar).

Although the related verb οἷδα oîda "I know" (zero-grade In linguistics, the term ablaut designates a system of vowel gradation in Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and its far-reaching consequences in all of the modern Indo-European languages. (For the general phenomenon, see Apophony.) An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb sing, sang, sung and its related noun song aorist The aorist in traditional use is a grammatical aspect in some Indo-European languages such as Greek, Sanskrit, or Bulgarian (the term is also used for unrelated concepts in some other languages, such as a gnomic or general present tense in Turkish and Swahili, but this article does not discuss these). The aorist aspect is sometimes also called the stem id- "see") has d, ἵστωρ has s, according to the Greek phonological Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system. When describing the formal area of study, the term typically describes linguistic analysis either beneath the rule that a dental stop (t, d, or th) before another dental stop becomes s.^[13]

It was still in the Greek sense that Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount of St. Alban, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist and author. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Although his political career ended in disgrace, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of used the term in the late 16th century, when he wrote about "Natural History Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards the observational than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research that is published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, Natural history is the systematic study of any category of natural objects or". For him, historia was "the knowledge of objects determined by space and time", that sort of knowledge provided by memory In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing the memory. The late nineteenth and early twentieth century put memory within the paradigms of cognitive psychology. In recent decades, it has (while science Science is a systematic enterprise of gathering knowledge about nature and organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and theories. As knowledge has increased, some methods have proved more reliable than others, and today the scientific method is the standard for science. It includes the use of careful observation, experimentation, was provided by reason Reason is a mental faculty found in humans, that is able to generate conclusions from assumptions or premises. In other words, it is amongst other things the means by which rational beings propose reasons, or explanations of cause and effect. In contrast to reason as an abstract noun, a reason is a consideration which explains or justifies, and poetry Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning. Poetry may be written independently, as discrete poems, or may occur in conjunction with other arts, as in poetic drama, hymns, lyrics, or prose poetry. It is published in dedicated magazines ( was provided by fantasy Fantasy is a genre that uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting. Many works within the genre take place in fictional worlds where magic is common. Fantasy is generally distinguished from science fiction in that it does not provide a logical explanation for the scientifically impossible events).

The word entered the English language English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into South-East Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria. Following the economic, political, military, scientific, cultural, and colonial influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 18th century, and of in 1390 with the meaning of "relation of incidents, story". In Middle English Middle English is the name given by historical linguists to the diverse forms of the English language in use between the late 11th century and about 1470, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the introduction of the printing press into England by William Caxton in the late 1470s, the meaning was "story" in general. The restriction to the meaning "record of past events" arises in the late 15th century. In German, French, and most Germanic and Romance languages, the same word is still used to mean both "history" and "story". The adjective historical is attested from 1661, and historic from 1669.^[14]

Historian in the sense of a "researcher of history" is attested from 1531. In all European languages Most languages of Europe belong to the Indo-European language family; another major family is the Finno-Ugric. The Turkic family also has several European members, while the North and South Caucasian families are important in the southeastern extremity of geographical Europe. Basque is a language isolate directly related to ancient Aquitanian,, 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 The term historiography also denotes a body of historical work on a specialized topic. Scholars discuss historiography topically – such as the “historiography of Catholicism,” the “historiography of early Islam,” or the “historiography of China" – as well as specific approaches and genres, such as political history and social.^[12]

Description

Since historians are observers and participants, the works they produce are written from the perspective of their own time and sometimes with due concern for possible lessons for their own future. In the words of Benedetto Croce Benedetto Croce was an Italian critic, idealist philosopher, and occasionally also a politician. He wrote on numerous topics, including philosophy, history, methodology of history writing and aesthetics, and was a prominent liberal, although he opposed laissez-faire free trade. His influence on Antonio Gramsci is quite notable, "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.^[14] 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.^[15] 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 The humanities are academic disciplines which study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytic, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural and social sciences and other times as part of the social sciences The social sciences are the fields of academic scholarship that explore aspects of human society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences. These include: anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, linguistics, political science, international.^[16] 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.^[17] In modern academia Academia, Acadème, or the Academy are collective terms for the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research, history is increasingly classified as a social science The social sciences are the fields of academic scholarship that explore aspects of human society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences. These include: anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, linguistics, political science, international. In the 20th century, French historian A historian is an individual who studies and writes about history, and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all events in time. If the individual is concerned with events preceding written history, the Fernand Braudel Fernand Braudel was the foremost French historian of the postwar era and a leader of the Annales School. His scholarship focused on three great projects, each representing several decades of intense study: "The Mediterranean" (1923–49, then 1949–66), "Civilization and Capitalism" (1955–79), and the unfinished " revolutionized the study of history, by using such outside disciplines as economics Economics is the social science that is concerned with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek οἰκονομία from οἶκος (oikos, "house") + νόμος (nomos, "custom" or "law"), hence "rules of the house(hold)". Current, anthropology Anthropology is the study of humanity. Anthropology has origins in the natural sciences, the humanities, and social sciences. The term "anthropology", pronounced /ænθrɵˈpɒlədʒi/, is from the Greek ἄνθρωπος, anthrōpos, "human", and -λογία, -logia, "discourse" or "study", and was first, and geography Geography is the study of the Earth and its lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes (276-194 B.C.). Four historical traditions in geographical research are the spatial analysis of natural and 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. For 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.^[18] But writing is the marker that separates history from what comes before.

Archaeology Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of past human societies, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data which they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes. Due to the fact that archaeology employs a wide range of different procedures, it can be 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. Mark Leone, the excavator and interpreter of historical Annapolis in New Jersey (a town on east coast), 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 Culture is a term that has different meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. However, the word "culture" is most commonly used in three basic senses:, 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, 1830–1975." 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.^[19]

History and prehistory

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. Human history is marked both by a gradual accretion of discoveries and inventions, as well as by quantum leaps — paradigm shifts, revolutions — that comprise epochs in the material and spiritual evolution of humankind. 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.^[20] 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.^[21]

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

Historiography

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, worldview, 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.

Philosophy of history

Philosophy of history is an area 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.

Professional historians debate the question of whether history is a science or a liberal art. The distinction is artificial, as many view the field from more than one perspective.^[22] Recent argument in support for the transformation of history into science have been made by Peter Turchin in an article titled "Arise Cliodynamics" in the journal "Nature".^[23][24]

Historical methods

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)^[25] has generally been acclaimed as the "father of history". However, his contemporary Thucydides (ca. 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 and other religious historians, 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.^[25] 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.^[26]

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 (145–90 BC), author of the Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian). For the quality of his timeless 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.

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 and historian Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel brought philosophy and a more secular approach in historical study.^[19]

In the preface to his book, the Muqaddimah (1377), the Arab historian and early sociologist, Ibn Khaldun, warned of seven mistakes that he thought that historians regularly committed. In this criticism, he approached the past as strange and in need of interpretation. The originality of Ibn Khaldun was to claim that the cultural difference of another age must govern the evaluation of relevant historical material, to distinguish the principles according to which it might be possible to attempt the evaluation, and lastly, to feel the need for experience, in addition to rational principles, in order to assess a culture of the past. Ibn Khaldun often criticized "idle superstition and uncritical acceptance of historical data." As a result, he introduced a scientific method to the study of history, and he often referred to it as his "new science".^[27] His historical method also laid the groundwork for the observation of the role of state, communication, propaganda and systematic bias in history,^[28] and he is thus considered to be the "father of historiography"^[29][30] or the "father of the philosophy of history".^[31]

In the West historians developed modern methods of historiography in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in France and Germany. The 19th century historian with greatest influence on methods was Leopold von Ranke in Germany.

In the 20th century, academic historians focused less on epic nationalistic narratives, which often tended to glorify the nation or individuals, to more objective and complex analyses of social and intellectual forces. A major trend of historical methodology in the 20th century was a tendency to treat history more as a social science rather than as an art, which traditionally had been the case. Some of the leading advocates of history as a social science were a diverse collection of scholars which included Fernand Braudel, E. H. Carr, Fritz Fischer, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Bruce Trigger, Marc Bloch, Karl Dietrich Bracher, Peter Gay, Robert Fogel, Lucien Febvre and Lawrence Stone. Many of the advocates of history as a social science were or are noted for their multi-disciplinary approach. Braudel combined history with geography, Bracher history with political science, Fogel history with economics, Gay history with psychology, Trigger history with archeology while Wehler, Bloch, Fischer, Stone, Febvre and Le Roy Ladurie have in varying and differing ways amalgamated history with sociology, geography, anthropology, and economics. More recently, the field of digital history has begun to address ways of using computer technology to pose new questions to historical data and generate digital scholarship.

In opposition to the claims of history as a social science, historians such as Hugh Trevor-Roper, John Lukacs, Donald Creighton, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Gerhard Ritter argued that the key to the historians' work was the power of the imagination, and hence contended that history should be understood as an art. French historians associated with the Annales School introduced quantitative history, using raw data to track the lives of typical individuals, and were prominent in the establishment of cultural history (cf. histoire des mentalités). Intellectual historians such as Herbert Butterfield, Ernst Nolte and George Mosse have argued for the significance of ideas in history. American historians, motivated by the civil rights era, focused on formerly overlooked ethnic, racial, and socio-economic groups. Another genre of social history to emerge in the post-WWII era was Alltagsgeschichte (History of Everyday Life). Scholars such as Martin Broszat, Ian Kershaw and Detlev Peukert sought to examine what everyday life was like for ordinary people in 20th century Germany, especially in the Nazi period.

Marxist historians such as Eric Hobsbawm, E. P. Thompson, Rodney Hilton, Georges Lefebvre, Eugene D. Genovese, Isaac Deutscher, C. L. R. James, Timothy Mason, Herbert Aptheker, Arno J. Mayer and Christopher Hill have sought to validate Karl Marx's theories by analyzing history from a Marxist perspective. In response to the Marxist interpretation of history, historians such as François Furet, Richard Pipes, J. C. D. Clark, Roland Mousnier, Henry Ashby Turner and Robert Conquest have offered anti-Marxist interpretations of history. Feminist historians such as Joan Wallach Scott, Claudia Koonz, Natalie Zemon Davis, Sheila Rowbotham, Gisela Bock, Gerda Lerner, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, and Lynn Hunt have argued for the importance of studying the experience of women in the past. In recent years, postmodernists have challenged the validity and need for the study of history on the basis that all history is based on the personal interpretation of sources. In his 1997 book In Defence of History, Richard J. Evans, a professor of modern history at Cambridge University, defended the worth of history. Another defence of history from post-modernist criticism was the Australian historian Keith Windschuttle's 1994 book, The Killing of History.

Areas of study

Periods

Historical study often focuses on events and developments that occur in particular blocks of time. Historians give these periods of time names in order to allow "organising ideas and classificatory generalisations" to be used by historians.^[32] The names given to a period can vary with geographical location, as can the dates of the start and end of a particular period. Centuries and decades are commonly used periods and the time they represent depends on the dating system used. Most periods are constructed retrospectively and so reflect value judgments made about the past. The way periods are constructed and the names given to them can affect the way they are viewed and studied.^[33]

Geographical locations

Particular geographical locations can form the basis of historical study, for example, continents, countries and cities. Understanding why historic events took place is important. To do this, historians often turn to geography. Weather patterns, the water supply, and the landscape of a place all affect the lives of the people who live there. For example, to explain why the ancient Egyptians developed a successful civilization, studying the geography of Egypt is essential. Egyptian civilization was built on the banks of the Nile River, which flooded each year, depositing soil on its banks. The rich soil could help farmers grow enough crops to feed the people in the cities. That meant everyone did not have to farm, so some people could perform other jobs that helped develop the civilization.

World

World history is the study of major civilizations over the last 3000 years or so. It has led to highly controversial interpretations by Oswald Spengler and Arnold J. Toynbee, among others. World history is especially important as a teaching field. It has increasingly entered the university curriculum in the U.S., in many cases replacing courses in Western Civilization, that had a focus on Europe and the U.S. World history adds extensive new material on Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Regions

• History of Africa begins with the first emergence of modern human beings on the continent, continuing into its modern present as a patchwork of diverse and politically developing nation states.
• History of the Americas is the collective history of North and South America, including Central America and the Caribbean.
  • History of North America is the study of the past passed down from generation to generation on the continent in the Earth's northern and western hemisphere.
  • History of Central America is the study of the past passed down from generation to generation on the continent in the Earth's western hemisphere.
  • History of the Caribbean begins with the oldest evidence where 7,000-year-old remains have been found.
  • History of South America is the study of the past passed down from generation to generation on the continent in the Earth's southern and western hemisphere.
• History of Antarctica emerges from early Western theories of a vast continent, known as Terra Australis, believed to exist in the far south of the globe.
• History of Australia start with the documentation of the Makassar trading with Indigenous Australians on Australia's north coast.
• History of New Zealand dates back at least 700 years to when it was discovered and settled by Polynesians, who developed a distinct Māori culture centred on kinship links and land.
• History of the Pacific Islands covers the history of the islands in the Pacific Ocean.
• History of Eurasia is the collective history of several distinct peripheral coastal regions: the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Europe, linked by the interior mass of the Eurasian steppe of Central Asia and Eastern Europe.
  • History of Europe describes the passage of time from humans inhabiting the European continent to the present day.
    • History of Frisia is the study of the rich history and folklore of the Frisians and their languages, battles, culture, cuisine, and so forth.
  • History of Asia can be seen as the collective history of several distinct peripheral coastal regions, East Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East linked by the interior mass of the Eurasian steppe.
    • History of East Asia is the study of the past passed down from generation to generation in East Asia.
    • History of the Middle East begins with the earliest civilizations in the region now known as the Middle East that were established around 3000 BC, in Mesopotamia (Iraq).
    • History of South Asia is the study of the past passed down from generation to generation in the Sub-Himalayan region.
    • History of Southeast Asia has been characterized as interaction between regional players and foreign powers.

Military history

Military history conflicts within human society usually concentrating on historical wars and warfare, including battles, military strategies and weaponry.^[34] However, the subject may range from a melee between two tribes to conflicts between proper militaries to a world war affecting the majority of the human population. Military historians record the events of military history.

Social history

Social history is the study of how societies adapt and change over periods of time. Social history is an area of historical study considered by some to be a social science that attempts to view historical evidence from the point of view of developing social trends. In this view, it may include areas of economic history, legal history and the analysis of other aspects of civil society that show the evolution of social norms, behaviors and more.

Cultural history

Cultural history replaced social history as the dominant form in the 1980s and 1990s. It typically combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at language, popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past knowledge, customs, and arts of a group of people. How peoples constructed their memory of the past is a major topic.

Diplomatic history

Diplomatic history, sometimes referred to as "Rankian History"^[35] in honor of Leopold von Ranke, focuses on politics, politicians and other high rulers and views them as being the driving force of continuity and change in history. This type of political history is the study of the conduct of international relations between states or across state boundaries over time. This is the most common form of history and is often the classical and popular belief of what history should be.

People's history

A people's history is a type of historical work which attempts to account for historical events from the perspective of common people. A people's history is the history of the world that is the story of mass movements and of the outsiders. Individuals not included in the past in other type of writing about history are part of this theory's primary focus, which includes the disenfranchised, the oppressed, the poor, the nonconformists, and the otherwise forgotten people. This theory also usually focuses on events occurring in the fullness of time, or when an overwhelming wave of smaller events cause certain developments to occur.

Gender history

Gender history is a sub-field of History and Gender studies, which looks at the past from the perspective of gender. It is in many ways, an outgrowth of women's history. Despite its relatively short life, Gender History (and its forerunner Women's History) has had a rather significant effect on the general study of history. Since the 1960s, when the initially small field first achieved a measure of acceptance, it has gone through a number of different phases, each with its own challenges and outcomes. Although some of the changes to the study of history have been quite obvious, such as increased numbers of books on famous women or simply the admission of greater numbers of women into the historical profession, other influences are more subtle.

Public history

Public history is a term that describes the broad range of activities undertaken by people with some training in the discipline of history who are generally working outside of specialized academic settings. Public history practice has quite deep roots in the areas of historic preservation, archival science, oral history, museum curatorship, and other related fields. The term itself began to be used in the U.S. and Canada in the late 1970s, and the field has become increasingly professionalized since that time. Some of the most common settings for public history are museums, historic homes and historic sites, parks, battlefields, archives, film and television companies, and all levels of government.

Pseudohistory

Pseudohistory is a term applied to texts which purport to be historical in nature but which depart from standard historiographical conventions in a way which undermines their conclusions. Works which draw controversial conclusions from new, speculative or disputed historical evidence, particularly in the fields of national, political, military and religious affairs, are often rejected as pseudohistory.

In many countries, such as Japan, Russia, and the United States, the subject taught in the primary and secondary schools under the name "history" has at times been censored for political reasons. To give just a few of many examples: in Japan, mention of the Nanking Massacre has been removed from textbooks; in Russia under Stalin, history was rewritten to conform with communist party doctrine; and in the United States the history of the American Civil War had been censored to avoid giving offense to white Southerners.^[36][37][38] This practice goes back to the earliest recorded times. In Book Three of The Republic, Plato recommends that citizens be taught lies in order to instill patriotism.^[39]

Bibliography

• Benjamin, Jules R. A Student's Guide to History (2009)
• Carr, E.H. with a new introduction by Richard J. Evans; What is History?; Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001, ISBN 0333977017.
• Evans, Richard J.; In Defence of History; W. W. Norton (2000), ISBN 0393319598.
• Furay, Conal, and Michael J. Salevouris. The Methods and Skills of History: A Practical Guide (2010)
• Hall, Timothy C. The Complete Idiot's Guide to World History (2008)
• Kelleher, William. Writing History: A Guide for Students (2008) excerpt and text search
• Presnell, Jenny L. The Information-Literate Historian: A Guide to Research for History Students (2006) excerpt and text search
• Tosh, John; The Pursuit of History (2006), ISBN 1405823518.

See also

• Timeline of world history

• Annal
• Chronicle

References

1. ^ George Santayana, "The Life of Reason", Volume One, p. 82, BiblioLife, ISBN 978-0559478062
2. ^ ^{a b} Joseph, Brian (Ed.); Janda, Richard (Ed.) (2008). The Handbook of Historical Linguistics. Blackwell Publishing (published 30 December 2004). p. 163. ISBN 978-1405127479
3. ^ ^{a b} Profesor Richard J. Evans (2001). "The Two Faces of E.H. Carr". History in Focus, Issue 2: What is History?. University of London. http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Whatishistory/evans10.html. Retrieved 10 November 2008.
4. ^ Professor Alun Munslow (2001). "What History Is". History in Focus, Issue 2: What is History?. University of London. http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Whatishistory/munslow6.html. Retrieved 10 November 2008.
5. ^ Tosh, John (2006). The Pursuit of History (4th ed.). Pearson Education Limited. ISBN 1-4058-2351-8. p 52
6. ^ Peter N. Stearns, Peters Seixas, Sam Wineburg (eds.), ed (2000). "Introduction". Knowing Teaching and Learning History, National and International Perspectives. New York & London: New York University Press. p. 6. ISBN 0-8147-8141-1.
7. ^ Nash l, Gary B. (2000). "The "Convergence" Paradigm in Studying Early American History in Schools". in Peter N. Stearns, Peters Seixas, Sam Wineburg (eds.). Knowing Teaching and Learning History, National and International Perspectives. New York & London: New York University Press. pp. 102–115. ISBN 0-8147-8141-1.
8. ^ Seixas, Peter (2000). "Schweigen! die Kinder!". in Peter N. Stearns, Peters Seixas, Sam Wineburg (eds.). Knowing Teaching and Learning History, National and International Perspectives. New York & London: New York University Press. p. 24. ISBN 0-8147-8141-1.
9. ^ Lowenthal, David (2000). "Dilemmas and Delights of Learning History". in Peter N. Stearns, Peters Seixas, Sam Wineburg (eds.). Knowing Teaching and Learning History, National and International Perspectives. New York & London: New York University Press. p. 63. ISBN 0-8147-8141-1.
10. ^ Mahony, William K. (28 February 1998). The Artful Universe: An Introduction to the Vedic Religious Imagination. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. p. 235. ISBN 0791435806
11. ^ "Online Etymology Dictionary". Etymonline.com. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=history. Retrieved 2010-05-16.
12. ^ ^{a b} Ferrater-Mora, José. Diccionario de Filosofia. Barcelona: Editorial Ariel, 1994.
13. ^ Smyth, Greek Grammar, par. 83: dental stop before another dental stop
14. ^ ^{a b} Whitney, W. D. The Century dictionary; an encyclopedic lexicon of the English language. New York: The Century Co, 1889.
15. ^ WordNet Search – 3.0, "History".
16. ^ Scott Gordon and James Gordon Irving, The History and Philosophy of Social Science. Routledge 1991. Page 1. ISBN 0415056829
17. ^ Ritter, H. (1986). Dictionary of concepts in history. Reference sources for the social sciences and humanities, no. 3. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. Page 416.
18. ^ Michael C. Lemon (1995).The Discipline of History and the History of Thought. Routledge. Page 201. ISBN 0415123461
19. ^ ^{a b} Graham, Gordon (1997). "Chapter 1". The Shape of the Past. Oxford University.
20. ^ Jack Goody (2007) The Theft of History (from Google Books)
21. ^ Carr, Edward H. (1961). What is History?, p.108, ISBN 0140206523
22. ^ Elizabeth Harris, In Defense of the Liberal-Arts Approach to Technical Writing. College English, Vol. 44, No. 6 (Oct., 1982), pp. 628-636
23. ^ Nature. "Arise Cliodynamics. Nature 454, 34-35 (3 July 2008) doi:10.1038/454034a; Published online 2 July 2008". Nature.com. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v454/n7200/full/454034a.html. Retrieved 2010-05-16.
24. ^ "Sott.net". Sott.net. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/161508-Transforming-history-into-science-Arise-cliodynamics-. Retrieved 2010-05-16.
25. ^ ^{a b} Lamberg-Karlovsky, C. C. and Jeremy A. Sabloff (1979). Ancient Civilizations: The Near East and Mesoamerica. Benjamin-Cummings Publishing. p. 5.
26. ^ Lamberg-Karlovsky, C. C. and Jeremy A. Sabloff (1979). Ancient Civilizations: The Near East and Mesoamerica. Benjamin-Cummings Publishing. p. 6.
27. ^ Ibn Khaldun, Franz Rosenthal, N. J. Dawood (1967), The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, p. x, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0691017549.
28. ^ H. Mowlana (2001). "Information in the Arab World", Cooperation South Journal 1.
29. ^ Salahuddin Ahmed (1999). A Dictionary of Muslim Names. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. ISBN 1850653569.
30. ^ Enan, Muhammed Abdullah (2007). Ibn Khaldun: His Life and Works. The Other Press. p. v. ISBN 9839541536
31. ^ Dr. S. W. Akhtar (1997). "The Islamic Concept of Knowledge", Al-Tawhid: A Quarterly Journal of Islamic Thought & Culture 12 (3).
32. ^ Marwick, Arthur (1970). The Nature of History. The Macmillian Press LTD. p. 169.
33. ^ Tosh, John (2006). The Pursuit of History. Pearson Education Limited. pp. 168–169.
34. ^ Pavkovic, Michael; Morillo, Stephen (2006). What is Military History?. Oxford: Polity Press (published 31 July 2006). pp. 3–4. ISBN 9780745633909
35. ^ Burke, P. (1998). New perspectives on historical writing. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press. Page 3.
36. ^ "Blackwell-Synergy.com". Blackwell-Synergy.com. http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1468-2346.2008.00708.x?cookieSet=1. Retrieved 2010-05-16.
37. ^ (Japanese) Iwanami.co.jp
38. ^ James W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, Touchstone, 1996, ISBN 978-0684818863.
39. ^ Plato, The Republic, in The Portable Plato, Penguin, 1977, ISBN 0140150404. "...the audacious fiction, which I propose to communicate gradually, first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, and lastly to the people."

External links

Further reading

• Williams, H. S. (1907). The historians' history of the world. (ed., This is Book 1 of 25 Volumes; PDF version is available)
• Tilly, Chrles; Why and How History Matters, in Robert Goodin & Charles Tilly, eds., Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis (2006) Oxford: Oxford University Press, online

General Information

• Best history sites .net
• BBC History Site
• Mapping History Project – University of Oregon
• The History Channel Online
• Internet History Sourcebooks Project See also Internet History Sourcebooks Project. Collections of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts for educational use

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