History

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

History (derived from Ancient Greek ἱστορία (historía) 'inquiry; knowledge acquired by investigation') is the systematic study and documentation of the human past. History is an academic discipline which uses a narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect. Historians debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effects. Historians debate the nature of history as an end in itself, and its usefulness in giving perspective on the problems of the present.

The period of events before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of these events. Historians seek knowledge of the past using historical sources such as written documents, oral accounts or traditional oral histories, art and material artifacts, and ecological markers.

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. History differs from myth in that it is supported by verifiable evidence. However, ancient cultural influences have helped create 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 certain topical or thematic elements of historical investigation. History is taught as a part of primary and secondary education, and the academic study of history is a major discipline in universities.

Herodotus, a 5th-century BCE Greek historian, is often considered the "father of history", as one of the first historians in the Western tradition, though he has been criticized as the "father of lies". Along with his contemporary Thucydides, he helped form the foundations for the modern study of past events and societies. 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 East Asia a state chronicle, the Spring and Autumn Annals, was reputed to date from as early as 722 BCE, though only 2nd-century BCE texts have survived. The title "father of history" has also been attributed, in their respective societies, to Sima Qian, Ibn Khaldun, and Kenneth Dike.

Definition

As an academic discipline, history is the study of the past. It conceptualizes and describes what happened by collecting and analyzing evidence to construct narratives. These narratives cover not only how events unfolded but also why they happened and in which contexts, providing an explanation of relevant background conditions and causal mechanisms. History also examines the meaning of historical events and the underlying human motives driving them.

In a slightly different sense, history refers to the past events themselves. In this sense, history is what happened rather than the academic field studying what happened. When used as a countable noun, a history is a representation of the past in the form of a history text. History texts are cultural products involving active interpretation and reconstruction. The narratives presented in them can change as historians discover new evidence or reinterpret already-known sources. The nature of the past itself, by contrast, is static and unchangeable. Some historians focus on the interpretative and explanatory aspects to distinguish histories from chronicles, arguing that chronicles only catalog events in chronological order, whereas histories aim at a comprehensive understanding of their causes, contexts, and consequences.

Traditionally, history was primarily concerned with written documents. It focused on recorded history since the invention of writing, leaving prehistory to other fields, such as archeology. Today, history has a broader scope that includes prehistory, starting with the earliest human origins several million years ago.

It is controversial whether history is a social science or forms part of the humanities. Like social scientists, historians formulate hypotheses, gather objective evidence, and present arguments based on this evidence. At the same time, history aligns closely with the humanities because of its reliance on subjective aspects associated with interpretation, storytelling, human experience, and cultural heritage. Some historians strongly support one or the other classification while others characterize history as a hybrid discipline that does not belong to one category at the exclusion of the other. History contrasts with pseudohistory, which deviates from historiographical standards by relying on disputed historical evidence, selectively ignoring genuine evidence, or using other means to distort the historical record. Often motivated by specific ideological agendas, pseudohistorians mimic historical methodology to promote misleading narratives that lack rigorous analysis and scholarly consensus.

Purpose

Various suggestions about the purpose or value of history have been made. Some historians propose that its primary function is the pure discovery of the truth about the past. This view emphasizes that the disinterested pursuit of truth is an end in itself, while external purposes, associated with ideology or politics, threaten to undermine the accuracy of historical research by distorting the past. In this role, history also challenges traditional myths lacking factual support.

A different perspective suggests that the main value of history lies in the lessons it teaches for the present. This view is based on the idea that an understanding of the past can guide decision-making, for example, to avoid repeating previous mistakes. A related perspective focuses on a general understanding of the human condition, making people aware of the diversity of human behavior across different contexts—similar to what one can learn by visiting foreign countries. History can also foster social cohesion by providing people with a collective identity through a shared past, helping to cultivate and preserve cultural heritage and values across generations.

History is sometimes used for political or ideological purposes, for instance, to justify the status quo by making certain traditions appear respectable or to promote change by highlighting past injustices. Pushed to extreme forms, this can result in pseudohistory or historical denialism when evidence is intentionally ignored or misinterpreted to construct a misleading narrative serving external interests.

Etymology

History by Frederick Dielman (1896)

The word history comes from historía (Ancient Greek: ἱστορία, romanized: historíā, lit. 'inquiry, knowledge from inquiry, or judge'). It was in that sense that Aristotle used the word in his History of Animals. The ancestor word ἵστωρ is attested early on in Homeric Hymns, Heraclitus, the Athenian ephebes' oath, and in Boeotic 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 stær ("history, narrative, story"), but this word fell out of use in the late Old English period. 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)".

It was from Anglo-Norman that history was brought into Middle English, and it has persisted. It appears in the 13th-century Ancrene Wisse, but seems to have become a common word in the late 14th 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-15th century. 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 16th 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).

In an expression of the linguistic synthetic vs. analytic/isolating dichotomy, English like Chinese (史 vs. 诌) 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". 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" or the word historiography. The adjective historical is attested from 1661, and historic from 1669.

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. 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. 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"). Part of the historian's role is to skillfully and objectively use the many sources from the past, most often found in the archives. The process of creating a narrative inevitably generates debate, as historians remember or emphasize different events of the past.

The study of history has sometimes been classified as part of the humanities, other times part of the social sciences. It can be seen as a bridge between those two broad areas, incorporating methodologies from both. Some historians strongly support one or the other classification. In the 20th century the Annales school revolutionized the study of history, by using such outside disciplines as economics, sociology, 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 attempted to answer historical questions through the study of written documents and oral accounts. From the beginning, historians have 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. But writing is the marker that separates history from what comes before.

Archaeology is especially helpful in unearthing buried sites and objects, which contribute to the study of history. Archeological finds rarely stand alone, with narrative sources complementing its discoveries. Archeology's methodologies and approaches are independent from the field of history. "Historical archaeology" is a specific branch of archeology which often contrasts its conclusions against those of contemporary textual sources. For example, Mark Leone, the excavator and interpreter of historical Annapolis, Maryland, US, has sought to understand the contradiction between textual documents idealizing "liberty" and the material record, demonstrating the possession of slaves and the inequalities of wealth made apparent by the study of the total historical environment.

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 intersections are present. It is possible for historians to concern themselves with both the very specific and the very general, though the 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 may be studied out of simple intellectual curiosity.

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 toward 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. Historians debate whether history can be taught as a single coherent narrative or a series of competing narratives.

Methods

Main article: Historical method

The historical method is a set of techniques historians use to research and interpret the past, covering the processes of collecting, evaluating, and synthesizing evidence. It seeks to ensure scholarly rigor, accuracy, and reliability in how historical evidence is chosen, analyzed, and interpreted. Historical research often starts with a research question to define the scope of the inquiry. Some research questions focus on a simple description of what happened. Others aim to explain why a particular event occurred, refute an existing theory, or confirm a new hypothesis.

Sources and source criticism

To answer research questions, historians rely on various types of evidence to reconstruct the past and support their conclusions. Historical evidence is usually divided into primary and secondary sources. A primary source is a source that originated during the period that is studied. Primary sources can take various forms, such as official documents, letters, diaries, eyewitness accounts, photographs, and audio or video recordings. They also include historical remains examined in archeology, geology, and the medical sciences, such as artifacts and fossils unearthed from excavations. Primary sources offer the most direct evidence of historical events.

A secondary source is a source that analyzes or interprets information found in other sources. Whether a document is a primary or a secondary source depends not only on the document itself but also on the purpose for which it is used. For example, if a historian writes a text about slavery based on an analysis of historical documents, then the text is a secondary source on slavery and a primary source on the historian's opinion. Consistency with available sources is one of the main standards of historical works. For instance, the discovery of new sources may lead historians to revise or dismiss previously accepted narratives.

Source criticism is the process of analyzing and evaluating the information a source provides. Typically, this process begins with external criticism, which evaluates the authenticity of a source. It addresses the questions of when and where the source was created and seeks to identify the author, understand their reason for producing the source, and determine if it has undergone some type of modification since its creation. Additionally, the process involves distinguishing between original works, mere copies, and deceptive forgeries.

Internal criticism evaluates the content of a source, typically beginning with the clarification of the meaning within the source. This involves disambiguating individual terms that could be misunderstood but may also require a general translation if the source is written in an ancient language. Once the information content of a source is understood, internal criticism is specifically interested in determining accuracy. Critics ask whether the information is reliable or misrepresents the topic and further question whether the source is comprehensive or omits important details. One way to make these assessments is to evaluate whether the author was able, in principle, to provide a faithful presentation of the studied event and to consider the influences of their intentions and prejudices. Being aware of the inadequacies of a source helps historians decide whether and which aspects of it to trust, and how to use it to construct a narrative.

Synthesis and schools of thought

The selection, analysis, and criticism of sources result in the validation of a large collection of mostly isolated statements about the past. As a next step, sometimes termed historical synthesis, historians examine how the individual pieces of evidence fit together to form part of a larger story. Constructing this broader perspective is crucial for a comprehensive understanding of the topic as a whole. It is a creative aspect of historical writing that reconstructs, interprets, and explains what happened by showing how different events are connected. In this way, historians address not only which events occurred but also why they occurred and what consequences they had. While there are no universally accepted techniques for this synthesis, historians rely on various interpretative tools and approaches in this process.

One tool to provide an accessible overview of complex developments is the use of periodization. It divides a timeframe into different periods, each organized around central themes or developments that shaped the period. For example, the three-age system divides early human history into Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age based on the predominant materials and technologies during these periods. Another methodological tool is the examination of silences, gaps or omissions in the historical record of events that occurred but did not leave significant evidential traces. Silences can happen when contemporaries find information too obvious to document but may also occur if there were specific reasons to withhold or destroy information. Conversely, when large datasets are available, quantitative approaches can be used. For instance, economic and social historians commonly employ statistical analysis to identify patterns and trends associated with large groups.

Different schools of thought often come with their own methodological implications for how to write history. Positivists emphasize the scientific nature of historical inquiry, focusing on empirical evidence to discover objective truths. In contrast, postmodernists reject grand narratives that claim to offer a single, objective truth. Instead, they highlight the subjective nature of historical interpretation, which leads to a multiplicity of divergent perspectives. Marxists interpret historical developments as expressions of economic forces and class struggles. The Annales school highlights long-term social and economic trends while relying on quantitative and interdisciplinary methods. Feminist historians study the role of gender in history, with a particular interest in the experiences of women to challenge patriarchal perspectives.

Areas of study

History is a wide field of inquiry encompassing many branches. Some branches focus on a specific time period. Others concentrate on a particular geographic region or a distinct theme. Specializations of different types can usually be combined. For example, a work on economic history in ancient Egypt merges temporal, regional, and thematic perspectives. For topics with a broad scope, the amount of primary sources is often too extensive for an individual historian to review. This forces them to either narrow the scope of their topic or rely on secondary sources to arrive at a wide overview.

By period

Chronological division is a common approach to organizing the vast expanse of history into more manageable segments. Different periods are often defined based on dominant themes that characterize a specific time frame and significant events that initiated these developments or brought them to an end. Depending on the selected context and level of detail, a period may be as short as a decade or longer than several centuries. A traditionally influential approach divides human history into prehistory, ancient history, post-classical history, early modern history, and modern history.

Prehistory started with the evolution of human-like species several million years ago, leading to the emergence of anatomically modern humans about 200,000 years ago. Subsequently, humans migrated out of Africa to populate most of the earth. Towards the end of prehistory, technological advances in the form of new and improved tools led many groups to give up their established nomadic lifestyle, based on hunting and gathering, in favor of a sedentary lifestyle supported by early forms of agriculture. The absence of written documents from this period presents researchers with unique challenges. It results in an interdisciplinary approach relying on other forms of evidence from fields such as archaeology, anthropology, paleontology, and geology.

Ancient history, starting roughly 3500 BCE, saw the emergence of the first major civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, China, and Peru. The new social, economic, and political complexities necessitated the development of writing systems. Thanks to advancements in agriculture, surplus food allowed these civilizations to support larger populations, accompanied by urbanization, the establishment of trade networks, and the emergence of regional empires. Meanwhile, influential religious systems and philosophical ideas were first formulated, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism, and Greek philosophy.

In post-classical history, beginning around 500 CE, the influence of religions continued to grow. Missionary religions, like Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, spread rapidly and established themselves as world religions, marking a cultural shift as they gradually replaced local belief systems. Meanwhile, inter-regional trade networks flourished, leading to increased technological and cultural exchange. Conquering many territories in Asia and Europe, the Mongol Empire became a dominant force during the 13th and 14th centuries.

In early modern history, starting roughly 1500 CE, European states rose to global power. As gunpowder empires, they explored and colonized large parts of the world. As a result, the Americas were integrated into the global network, triggering a vast biological exchange of plants, animals, people, and diseases. The Scientific Revolution prompted major discoveries and accelerated technological progress. It was accompanied by other intellectual developments, such as humanism and the Enlightenment, which ushered in secularization.

In modern history, beginning at the end of the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution transformed economies by introducing more efficient modes of production. Western powers established vast colonial empires, gaining superiority through industrialized military technology. The increased international exchange of goods, ideas, and people marked the beginning of globalization. Various social revolutions challenged autocratic and colonial regimes, paving the way for democracies. Many developments in fields like science, technology, economy, living standards, and human population accelerated at unprecedented rates. This happened despite the widespread destruction caused by two world wars, which rebalanced international power relations by undermining European dominance.

By geographic location

Areas of historical study can also be categorized by the geographic locations they examine. Geography plays a central role in history through its influence on food production, natural resources, economic activities, political boundaries, and cultural interactions. Some historical works limit their scope to small regions, such as a village or a settlement. Others focus on broad territories that encompass entire continents, like the histories of Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Oceania.

The history of Africa stands at the dawn of human history with the evolution of anatomically modern humans about 200,000 years ago. The invention of writing and the establishment of civilization happened in ancient Egypt in the 4th millennium BCE. Over the next millennia, other notable civilizations and kingdoms formed in Nubia, Axum, Carthage, Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. Islam began spreading across North Africa in the 7th century CE and became the dominant faith in many empires. Meanwhile, trade along the trans-Saharan route intensified. Beginning in the 15th century, millions of Africans were enslaved and forcibly transported to the Americas as part of the Atlantic slave trade. Most of the continent was colonized by European powers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among rising nationalism, African states gradually gained independence in the aftermath of World War II, a period that saw economic progress, rapid population growth, and struggles for political stability.

In the history of Asia, anatomically modern humans arrived around 100,000 years ago. As one of the cradles of civilization, Asia was home to some of the first ancient civilizations in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and China, which began to emerge in the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE. In the following millennia, all major world religions and several influential philosophical traditions were conceived and spread, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity, and Islam. The Silk Road facilitated trade and cultural exchange across Eurasia, while powerful empires rose and fell, such as the Mongol Empire, which dominated the continent during the 13th and 14th centuries CE. European influence grew over the following centuries, culminating in the 19th and early 20th centuries when many parts of Asia came under direct colonial control until the end of World War II. The post-independence period was characterized by modernization, economic growth, and a steep increase in population.

The history of Europe began about 45,000 years ago with the arrival of the first anatomically modern humans. The Ancient Greeks laid the foundations of Western culture, philosophy, and politics in the first millennium BCE. Their cultural heritage continued in the Roman Empire and later the Byzantine Empire. The medieval period began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century CE and was marked by the spread of Christianity. Starting in the 15th century, European exploration and colonization interconnected the globe, while cultural, intellectual, and scientific developments transformed Western societies. From the late 18th to the early 20th centuries, European global dominance was further solidified by the Industrial Revolution and the establishment of large overseas colonies. It came to an end because of the devastating effects of two world wars. In the following Cold War era, the continent was divided into a Western and an Eastern bloc, which later reunified to form the European Union.

In the history of the Americas, the first anatomically modern humans arrived around 20,000 to 15,000 years ago. The Americas were home to some of the earliest civilizations, like the Norte Chico civilization in South America and the Maya and Olmec civilizations in Central America. Over the next millennia, major empires arose beside them, such as the Teotihuacan, Aztec, and Inca empires. Following the arrival of the Europeans from the late 15th century onwards, the spread of newly introduced diseases drastically reduced the local population. Together with colonization and the massive influx of African slaves, it led to the collapse of major empires as demographic and cultural landscapes were reshaped. Independence movements in the 18th and 19th centuries led to the formation of new nations across the Americas. In the 20th century, the United States emerged as a dominant global power and a key player in the Cold War.

The history of Oceania starts with the arrival of anatomically modern humans about 60,000 to 50,000 years ago. They established diverse regional societies and cultures, first in Australia and Papua New Guinea and later also on other Pacific Islands. The arrival of the Europeans in the 16th century prompted significant transformations. By the end of the 19th century, most of the region had come under Western control. Oceania was dragged into various conflicts during the world wars and experienced decolonization in the post-war period.

By theme

Historians often limit their inquiry to a specific theme belonging to a particular field. Some historians propose a general subdivision into three major themes: political history, economic history, and social history. However, the boundaries between these branches are vague and their relation to other thematic branches, such as intellectual history, is not always clear.

Political history studies the organization of power in society, examining how power structures arise, develop, and interact. Throughout most of recorded history, states or state-like structures have been central to this field of study. It explores how a state was organized internally, like factions, parties, leaders, and other political institutions. It also examines which policies were implemented and how the state interacted with other states. Political history has been studied since antiquity, making it the oldest branch of history, while other major subfields have only become established branches in the past century.

Diplomatic and military history are closely related to political history. Diplomatic history examines international relations between states. It covers foreign policy topics such as negotiations, strategic considerations, treaties, and conflicts between nations as well as the role of international organizations in these processes. Military history studies the impact and development of armed conflicts in human history. This includes the examination of specific events, like the analysis of a particular battle and the discussion of the different causes of a war. It also involves more general considerations about the evolution of warfare, including advancements in military technology, strategies, tactics, and institutions.

Economic history examines how commodities are produced, exchanged, and consumed. It covers economic aspects such as the use of land, labor, and capital, the supply and demand of goods, the costs and means of production, and the distribution of income and wealth. Economic historians typically focus on general trends in the form of impersonal forces, such as inflation, rather than the actions and decisions of individuals. If enough data is available, they rely on quantitative methods, like statistical analysis. For periods before the modern era, available data is often limited, forcing economic historians to rely on scarce sources and extrapolate information from them.

Social history is a broad field investigating social phenomena, but its precise definition is disputed. Some theorists understand it as the study of everyday life outside the domains of politics and economics, including cultural practices, family structures, community interactions, and education. A closely related approach focuses on experience rather than activities, examining how members of particular social groups, like social classes, races, genders, or age groups, experienced their world. Other definitions see social history as the study of social problems, like poverty, disease, and crime, or take a broader perspective by examining how whole societies developed. Closely related fields include cultural history, gender history, and religious history.

Intellectual history is the history of ideas. It studies how concepts, philosophies, and ideologies have evolved. It is particularly interested in academic fields but not limited to them, including the study of the beliefs and prejudices of ordinary people. In addition to studying intellectual movements themselves, it also examines the cultural and social contexts that shaped them and their influence on other historical developments. As closely related fields, the history of philosophy investigates the development of philosophical thought while the history of science studies the evolution of scientific theories and practices. The history of art, another connected discipline, examines historical works of art and the development of artistic activities, styles, and movements.

Environmental history studies the relation between humans and their environment. It seeks to understand how humans and the rest of nature have affected each other in the course of history. Other thematic branches include constitutional history, legal history, urban history, business history, history of technology, medical history, history of education, and people's history.

Others

Some branches of history are characterized by the methods they employ, such as quantitative history and digital history, which rely on quantitative methods and digital media. Comparative history compares historical phenomena from distinct times, regions, or cultures to examine their similarities and differences. Unlike most other branches, oral history relies on oral reports rather than written documents. It reflects the personal experiences and interpretations of what common people remember about the past, encompassing eyewitness accounts, hearsay, and communal legends. Counterfactual history uses counterfactual thinking to examine alternative courses of history, exploring what could have happened under different circumstances. Certain branches of history are distinguished by their theoretical outlook, such as Marxist and feminist history.

Some distinctions focus on the scope of the studied topic. Big history is the branch with the broadest scope, covering everything from the Big Bang to the present. World history is another branch with a wide topic. It examines human history as a whole, starting with the evolution of human-like species. The terms macrohistory, mesohistory, and microhistory refer to different scales of analysis, ranging from large-scale patterns that affect the whole globe to detailed studies of small communities, particular individuals, or specific events. Closely related to microhistory is the genre of historical biography, which recounts an individual's life in its historical context and the legacy it left.

Public history involves activities that present history to the general public. It usually happens outside the traditional academic settings in contexts like museums, historical sites, and popular media.

Judgement

See also: Ash heap of history

Since the 20th century, Western historians have disavowed the aspiration to provide the "judgement of history". The goals of historical judgements or interpretations are separate to those of legal judgements, that need to be formulated quickly after the events and be final. A related issue to that of the judgement of history is that of collective memory.

Teaching

Scholarship vs teaching

A major intellectual battle took place in Britain in the early twentieth century regarding the place of history teaching in the universities. At Oxford and Cambridge, scholarship was downplayed. Professor Charles Harding Firth, Oxford's Regius Professor of history in 1904 ridiculed the system as best suited to produce superficial journalists. The Oxford tutors, who had more votes than the professors, fought back in defense of their system saying that it successfully produced Britain's outstanding statesmen, administrators, prelates, and diplomats, and that mission was as valuable as training scholars. The tutors dominated the debate until after the Second World War. It forced aspiring young scholars to teach at outlying schools, such as Manchester University, where Thomas Frederick Tout was professionalizing the History undergraduate programme by introducing the study of original sources and requiring the writing of a thesis.

In the United States, scholarship was concentrated at the major PhD-producing universities, while the large number of other colleges and universities focused on undergraduate teaching. A tendency in the 21st century was for the latter schools to increasingly demand scholarly productivity of their younger tenure-track faculty. Furthermore, universities have increasingly relied on inexpensive part-time adjuncts to do most of the classroom teaching.

Nationalism

From the origins of national school systems in the 19th century, the teaching of history to promote national sentiment has been a high priority. In the United States after World War I, a strong movement emerged at the university level to teach courses in Western Civilization, so as to give students a common heritage with Europe. In the US after 1980, attention increasingly moved toward teaching world history or requiring students to take courses in non-western cultures, to prepare students for life in a globalized economy.

The teaching of history in French schools was influenced by the Nouvelle histoire as disseminated after the 1960s by Cahiers pédagogiques and Enseignement and other journals for teachers. Also influential was the Institut national de recherche et de documentation pédagogique (INRDP). Joseph Leif, the Inspector-general of teacher training, said pupils children should learn about historians' approaches as well as facts and dates. Louis François, Dean of the History/Geography group in the Inspectorate of National Education advised that teachers should provide historic documents and promote "active methods" which would give pupils "the immense happiness of discovery". Proponents said it was a reaction against the memorization of names and dates that characterized teaching and left the students bored. Traditionalists protested loudly it was a postmodern innovation that threatened to leave the youth ignorant of French patriotism and national identity.

Bias in school teaching

History books in a bookstore

In several countries, history textbooks are tools to foster nationalism and patriotism, and give students the official narrative about national enemies. In many countries, history textbooks are sponsored by the national government and are written to put the national heritage in the most favorable light. For example, in Japan, mention of the Nanking Massacre has been removed from textbooks and the entire Second World War is given cursory treatment. Other countries have complained about this. Another example includes Turkey, where there is no mention of the Armenian Genocide in Turkish textbooks as a result of the denial of the genocide. Academic historians have often fought against the politicization of the textbooks, sometimes with success.

It was standard policy in communist countries to present only a rigid Marxist historiography. In the United States, textbooks published by the same company often differ in content from state to state. An example of content that is represented different in different regions of the country is the history of the Southern states, where slavery and the American Civil War are treated as controversial topics. McGraw-Hill Education for example, was criticized for describing Africans brought to American plantations as "workers" instead of slaves in a textbook. In 21st-century Germany, the history curriculum is controlled by the 16 states, and is characterized not by superpatriotism but rather by an "almost pacifistic and deliberately unpatriotic undertone" and reflects "principles formulated by international organizations such as UNESCO or the Council of Europe, thus oriented towards human rights, democracy and peace." The result is that "German textbooks usually downplay national pride and ambitions and aim to develop an understanding of citizenship centered on democracy, progress, human rights, peace, tolerance and Europeanness."

See also

• Glossary of history
• Historic recurrence
• Outline of history

References

Sources

• AASA (2011). Towards a Sustainable Asia: the Cultural Perspectives. Science Press Beijing and Springer. ISBN 978-7-03-029011-3.
• Abrams, Lynn (2016). Oral History Theory. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-27798-9.
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Further reading

• Norton, Mary Beth; Gerardi, Pamela, eds. (1995). The American Historical Association's Guide to Historical Literature (3rd ed.). Oxford U.P; Annotated guide to 27,000 of the most important English language history books in all fields and topics.
• Benjamin, Jules R. (2009). A Student's Guide to History.
• Carr, E.H. (2001). What is History?. With a new introduction by Richard J. Evans. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0333977017.
• Cronon, William (2013). "Storytelling". American Historical Review. 118 (1): 1–19. doi:10.1093/ahr/118.1.1. Archived from the original on 23 July 2016. Retrieved 24 July 2016; Discussion of the impact of the end of the Cold War upon scholarly research funding, the impact of the Internet and Wikipedia on history study and teaching, and the importance of storytelling in history writing and teaching.
• Evans, Richard J. (2000). In Defence of History. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393319598.
• Furay, Conal; Salevouris, Michael J. (2010). The Methods and Skills of History: A Practical Guide.
• Kelleher, William (2008). Writing History: A Guide for Students; excerpt and text search.
• Lingelbach, Gabriele (2011). "The Institutionalization and Professionalization of History in Europe and the United States". The Oxford History of Historical Writing. Vol. 4: 1800–1945. Oxford University Press. pp. 78–. ISBN 978-0199533091. Archived from the original on 15 September 2015. Retrieved 2 July 2015.
• Presnell, Jenny L. (2006). The Information-Literate Historian: A Guide to Research for History Students; excerpt and text search.
• Tosh, John (2006). The Pursuit of History. Pearson Longman. ISBN 1405823518.
• Woolf, D.R. (1998). A Global Encyclopedia of Historical Writing. Vol. 2. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities; excerpt and text search.
• Williams, H.S., ed. (1907). The Historians' History of the World. Vol. Book 1. Archived from the original on 15 September 2015. Retrieved 2 July 2015; This is Book 1 of 25 Volumes.
• Schwarcz, Lilia Moritz (1998). As barbas do imperador: D. Pedro II, um monarca nos trópicos (in Portuguese). São Paulo: Companhia das Letras. ISBN 85-7164-837-9.

External links

• Official website of BestHistorySites
• Official website of BBC History
• Internet History Sourcebooks Project See also Internet History Sourcebooks Project (Collections of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts for educational use)
• Larned, J. N. (1836-1913) at Project Gutenberg including eight History for ready reference items
• HyperHistory - a visual overview of many history timelines
• Macrohistory - a comprehensive timeline of historical events
• GeaCron - an interactive world history atlas