History 

(derived from Ancient Greek ἱστορία (historía) 'inquiry; knowledge acquired by

investigation')[1] is the systematic study and documentation of the human past.[2][3]
The period of events before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory.[4] "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, art and material artifacts,
and ecological markers.[5] History is incomplete and still has debatable mysteries.
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.[6][7] 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.[6][8][9][10]
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.[11][12] 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 BC Greek historian, is often considered the "father of history", as one of
the first historians in the Western tradition,[13] though he has been criticized as the "father of lies".
[14][15]
 Along with his contemporary Thucydides, he helped form the foundations for the modern
study of past events and societies.[16] 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 BC, though only 2nd-century BC texts have
survived.

Etymology

History by Frederick Dielman (1896)
The word history comes from historía (Ancient Greek: ἱστορία, romanized: historíā, lit. 'inquiry,
knowledge from inquiry, or judge'[17]). It was in that sense that Aristotle used the word in
his History of Animals.[18] 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.[19] 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)".[19]
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.[19] 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).[20]
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", the latter sense sometimes distinguished with a capital letter,
or the word historiography.[18][further explanation needed] The adjective historical is attested from 1661,
and historic from 1669.[21]

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.[22] 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.[23] 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.[24]
The study of history has sometimes been classified as part of the humanities, other times part of
the social sciences.[25] 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.[26] 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.[27]
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.[28] 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.[29]

Prehistory
Further information: Protohistory
Human history is the memory of the past experience of Homo sapiens sapiens around the world,
as that experience has been preserved, largely in written records. By "prehistory", historians
mean the recovery of knowledge of the past in an area where no written records exist, or where
the writing of a culture is not understood. By studying painting, drawings, carvings, and other
artifacts, some information can be recovered even in the absence of a written record. Since the
20th century, the study of prehistory is considered essential to avoid history's implicit exclusion of
certain civilizations, such as those of Sub-Saharan Africa and pre-Columbian America. Historians
in the West have been criticized for focusing disproportionately on the Western world.[30] 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.[31]
This definition includes within the scope of history the strong interests of peoples, such
as Indigenous Australians 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
Main article: Historiography

The title page to La Historia d'Italia

Historiography has a number of related meanings.[32] 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").
[32]
 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.[33][34]

Methods
Further information: Historical method

A
depiction of the ancient Library of
Alexandria

Historical method basics

The following questions are used by

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

The historical method comprises the techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary
sources, and other evidence, to research and write history.
Herodotus, from the 5th-century BC,[35] has been acclaimed as the "father of history". However,
his contemporary Thucydides is credited with having first approached history with a well-
developed historical method in the History of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides, unlike
Herodotus, regarded history as the product of the choices and actions of humans, and looked
at cause and effect, rather than the result of divine intervention (though Herodotus was not
wholly committed to this idea himself).[35] In his historical method, Thucydides emphasized
chronology, a nominally neutral point of view, and that the human world was the result of human
actions. Greek historians viewed history as cyclical, with events regularly recurring.[36]
There was sophisticated use of historical method in ancient and medieval China. The
groundwork for professional historiography in East Asia was established by court historian Sima
Qian (145–90 BC), author of the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) and posthumously known
as the Father of Chinese historiography. 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.[29]
In the preface to his book, the Muqaddimah (1377), the Arab historian and early sociologist, Ibn
Khaldun, warned of 7 mistakes he thought historians 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 to
feel the need for experience, in addition to rational principles, in order to assess a culture of the
past. Ibn Khaldun criticized "idle superstition and uncritical acceptance of historical data". He
introduced a scientific method to the study of history, and referred to it as his "new science".
[37]
 His method laid the groundwork for the observation of the role
of state, communication, propaganda and systematic bias in history,[38] and so is considered to be
the "father of historiography"[39] [40] or the "father of the philosophy of history".[41]
In the West, historians developed modern methods of historiography in the 17th and 18th
centuries, especially in France and Germany. In 1851, Herbert Spencer summarized these
methods:"From the successive strata of our historical deposits, they [historians] diligently gather
all the highly colored fragments, pounce upon everything that is curious and sparkling and
chuckle like children over their glittering acquisitions; meanwhile the rich veins of wisdom that
ramify amidst this worthless debris, lie utterly neglected. Cumbrous volumes of rubbish are
greedily accumulated, while those masses of rich ore, that should have been dug out, and from
which golden truths might have been smelted, are left untaught and unsought."[4