Definition | Methods | Areas of study | Evolution of the discipline | Related fields.
History is the systematic study of the past. As an academic discipline, it analyzes and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened, focusing primarily on the human past. Some theorists categorize history as a social science, while others see it as part of the humanities or consider it a hybrid discipline. Similar debates surround the purpose of history—for example, whether its main aim is theoretical, to uncover the truth, or practical, to learn lessons from the past. In a slightly different sense, the term history refers not to an academic field but to the past itself or to individual texts about the past.
Historical research relies on primary and secondary sources to reconstruct past events and validate interpretations. Source criticism is used to evaluate these sources, assessing their authenticity, content, and reliability. Historians integrate the perspectives of several individual sources to develop a coherent narrative. Different schools of thought, such as positivism, the Annales school, Marxism, and postmodernism, have distinct methodological approaches.
History is a broad discipline encompassing many branches. Some focus on specific time periods, such as ancient history, while others concentrate on particular geographic regions, such as the history of Africa. Thematic categorizations include political history, social history, and economic history. Branches associated with specific research methods include quantitative history, comparative history, and oral history.
History emerged as a field of inquiry in the ancient period to replace myth-infused narratives, with influential early traditions originating in Greece, China, and later also in the Islamic world. Historical writing evolved throughout the ages and became increasingly professional, particularly during the 19th century, when a rigorous methodology and various academic institutions were established. History is related to many fields, including historiography, philosophy, education, and politics.
Definition: As an academic discipline, history is the study of the past. It conceptualizes and describes what happened by collecting and analysing 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 further 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. Under this interpretation, 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 catalogue 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 archaeology. Its scope broadened in the 20th century as historians became interested in the human past before the invention of writing.
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, a label used to describe practices that deviate 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, pseudohistorical practices 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 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 behaviour 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 preserve and cultivate cultural heritage and values across generations. For some scholars, including whig historians and the Marxist scholar E. H. Carr, history is a key to understanding the present and, in Carr's case, shaping the future.
History is sometimes used for political or ideological purposes, for instance, to justify the status quo by emphasising the respectability of certain traditions or to promote change by highlighting past injustices. Pushed to extreme forms, this can result in pseudohistory or historical denialism[d] when evidence is intentionally ignored or misinterpreted to construct misleading narratives serving external interests.
Etymology: The word history comes from the Ancient Greek term ἵστωρ (histōr), meaning 'learned, wise man'. It gave rise to the Ancient Greek word ἱστορία (historiā), which had a wide meaning associated with inquiry in general and giving testimony. The term was later adopted into Classical Latin as historia. In Hellenistic and Roman times, the meaning of the term shifted, placing more emphasis on narrative aspects and the art of presentation rather than focusing on investigation and testimony.
The word entered Middle English in the 14th century via the Old French term histoire. At this time, it meant 'story, tale', encompassing both factual and fictional narratives. In the 15th century, its meaning shifted to cover the branch of knowledge studying the past in addition to narratives about the past. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the word history became more closely associated with factual accounts and evidence-based inquiry, coinciding with the professionalization of historical inquiry. The dual meaning, referring to both mere stories and factual accounts of the past, is present in the terms for history in many other European languages. They include the French histoire, the Italian storia, and the German Geschichte.
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