Exercises

History

by Genevieve Zito Berkhofer & Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr.

History is the study of the human past. Historians study records of past events and prepare new records based on their research. These records, as well as the events themselves, are also commonly called history.

The past has left many traces, including traditions, folk tales, works of art, archaeological objects, and books and other written records. Historians use all these sources, but they mainly study the past as it has been recorded in written documents. Thus, history is generally limited to human events that have taken place since the development of writing about 5 500 years ago.

Historians study all aspects of past human life─social and cultural conditions as well as political and economic events. Some study the past simply to understand better how people of other times acted and thought. Other historians seek to draw lessons from those actions and thoughts as a guide for decisions and policies today. However, they disagree about history's lessons, and so there are many different interpretations of the past.

History became a field of study in many schools during the 1800's. Today, students throughout the world study history in school. They learn about the past chiefly from textbooks but also through such activities as field trips to historical sites and visits to museums. Most nations require schools to teach their country's heritage as a means of developing patriotism. History is thus used not only to tell students how their national way of life developed but also to justify and support national ideals and institutions.

Until the 1900's, historians primarily studied political events. They wrote almost exclusively about diplomacy, wars, and affairs of state. Today, historians also study many other subjects. Some examine economic and social conditions. Others trace the development of religions, the arts, or other elements of culture.

History is often classified as one of the social sciences, along with such fields as economics, psychology, and sociology. However, historians differ from other social scientists in the way in which they study social processes. Other social scientists seek to develop general laws by examining patterns of behavior that recur throughout time. In contrast, historians study the conditions or events of a particular time. Historians may use theories from the other social sciences to help explain these conditions and events. But historians rarely attempt to develop general laws.

The field of history is so vast that historians have traditionally split it into divisions. The three main divisions of history are based on period, nation, and topic. Periods of time form the chief divisions in the study of history. Historians divide Western history into three periods. They are (1) ancient times, from about 3000 B.C. to the A.D. 400's; (2) medieval times, the 400's to the 1500's; and (3) modern times, the 1500's to the present. Scholars may divide these periods into many shorter periods. For example, a historian may study a particular century or a certain period, such as the High Middle Ages (about the 1200's) or the Age of Reason (1700's).

The division of history into periods helps historians organize and focus their studies. However, this division may distort the evidence presented by history. For years, historians considered the medieval era as a period of superstition and disorganization that came between two supposedly better periods of history. This viewpoint prevented them from realizing that the Middle Ages had a vitality of its own and formed the basis of modern European civilization.

The division of history into ancient, medieval, and modern periods applies only to European societies. Historians who study Asian or African societies base their work on entirely different periods. Even the dating system differs because Western society uses the birth of Jesus Christ as a dividing line. The years before the birth of Christ are designated B.C. (before Christ), and those thereafter are considered A.D. (anno Domini─in the year of our Lord).

The division of history by nation involves, for example, the study of American, Chinese, or French history. The division by topic enables historians to deal with particular aspects of past human activity. Many historians study economic, social, and intellectual history in addition to studying traditional political history. Some historians focus on such specialized topics as the history of science, of an ethnic group, or of a city.

The study of history involves many processes and techniques, but most historians follow a few basic steps in their work. First, they select for study an issue or person from some period of the past. Next, they try to read a variety of source materials─everything written by or about the subject. Then they interpret the information obtained from these sources. Finally, they write a narrative history or a biography.

Historians use two main types of sources in their research, primary sources and secondary sources. Primary sources consist of documents and other records produced during the period being studied. They include books, diaries, letters, and government records. Motion pictures and tape recordings may serve as primary sources for events of the 1900's. Secondary sources are materials prepared later by people who studied the primary sources.

Historians choose documents that reveal most accurately the facts they wish to know. Therefore, they prefer primary sources to secondary ones, and confidential reports to public ones. Historians who study recent events use a special type of source. They go to participants in those events and record their oral testimony. Such oral history supplements documentary history.

The scarcity of sources is a great problem for historians, whose work sometimes resembles that of detectives. Many activities and thoughts of ordinary people, plus other useful data, were never recorded. Much that was written down has been lost or destroyed through the years. Also, historians often must rely on the writings of only a few people. Such writings are mere fragments on which to base a reconstruction of the past.

Historians analyze the documents with which they work to determine the reliability of these sources. They compare documents with other sources and also check for such flaws as errors in the order of events or variations in writing style. In addition, the historian must determine whether the author's account of events can be trusted.

Basic historical facts are data generally accepted by all historians because the evidence for them seems unquestionable. However, historians often disagree about the meaning and significance of such facts. These experts try to be as unbiased as possible, but their own beliefs and prejudices influence their interpretation. For example, a historian's social, economic, and religious views help determine what he or she accepts as "normal" in another person. This judgment, in turn, determines what the historian accepts as reliable testimony or as a likely sequence of events. Such interpretation explains why historians who use the same data may disagree about events and their significance.

Some historians rely heavily on information from other social sciences to form their interpretations. For example, the study of history that uses theories and insights from psychology is called psychohistory. Similarly, some historians use statistical methods to interpret data from such sources as old censuses and account books. This approach is called cliometrics.

As the last step in interpretation, a historian prepares a written account of events. The writing of history is part of a field called historiography. Some of the best historians use the techniques of the novelist and dramatist to entertain as well as inform.

Since ancient times, scholars have developed theories of history that attempt to explain the entire course of human events through some general principle. For example, the ancient Greeks regarded history as a cycle of events that repeated itself endlessly. In contrast, the traditional Christian theory considers history as a series of events with a beginning and an end. According to this theory, God directs human events toward the final goal of the redemption of humanity. This theory dominated nearly all the history written in Europe during the Middle Ages.

In modern times, scholars have proposed many other theories. During the late 1700's and the 1800's, philosophers developed the concept of history as a process of inevitable progress. They believed this progress would eventually lead to a thoroughly logical social order based on a scientific understanding of human events.

The German historian Oswald Spengler argued in his book The Decline of the West (1918-1922) that civilizations, like organisms, go through a cycle of birth, development, and death. Arnold Toynbee, a British historian, also presented a cyclical theory in his 12-volume work, A Study of History (1934-1961). However, Toynbee disagreed with Spengler's belief that modern Western civilization is already doomed.

Nearly all theories of history assume that it has meaning and purpose, but there is no overwhelming evidence to support this concept.In fact, many scholars today question whether history has any meaning other than that which people read into it. As a result, most modern philosophers have turned away from such theories. Instead, they examine such issues as the nature of history as a field of knowledge and the method of explanation used by historians.

The world's oldest written history comes from China. Archaeologists have discovered records of Chinese history written before 1000 B.C. The first great Chinese historian, Sima Qian, wrote the earliest major history of China about 100 B.C.

Western historical writing began in ancient Greece. The first major Greek historian was Herodotus, who lived during the 400's B.C. He wrote a long account of the wars between the Greeks and the Persians. Herodotus, who is often called the "Father of History",had few Greek documents and could not read Persian. Therefore, he based his narrative primarily on tradition and oral testimony. He added fictitious details to make it more lively, but modern historians have confirmed the basic accuracy of his writing. Herodotus' most famous successor, Thucydides, strove to write critically and accurately. His History of the Peloponnesian War is an authentic account of the 27-year war in which Sparta finally defeated Athens in 404 B.C.

Several ancient Romans also became famous historians. Livy wrote a long, detailed narrative called History from the Founding of the City. It tells the story of Rome from the city's birth until 9 B.C. Cornelius Tacitus is known especially for his Histories and Annals. These works examine Roman history from the death of the emperor Augustus in A.D. 14 through the reign of Vitellius, which ended in A.D. 69.

Christian writers, including a number of monks, contributed almost all the historical accounts of medieval times that were written during that period. Some Christian historians attempted to write a universal history by combining Jewish and Christian history with the record of the Greek and Roman past. During the early 300's, Eusebius, the bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, produced the most important universal history of that type. In another work, Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius presented a history of Christianity to show that God controlled human events. During the 400's, Saint Augustine developed this idea fully into a philosophy of history in his book The City of God.

The greatest historian of the early Middle Ages was an English monk named Bede. His major work, Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation (731), is still the principal source for English history up to that time. Bede and the other medieval historians tried to show the hand of God in historical events. Today, their works are significant chiefly as records of the events of their times.

During the 1300's, a great Arab historian named Ibn Khaldun wrote his seven-volume Universal History, a study of world civilization. Also at this time in Europe, people other than members of the clergy started to write histories. European historians of the 1400's began to concentrate more on the human view of events and less on the divine aspect.

An important early modern historian was the British scholar Edward Gibbon. His masterpiece, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788), reveals Gibbon's accurate and thorough scholarship. This work also reflects the bias against Christianity of Gibbon and other great thinkers of his day. Gibbon's book blames Christianity in part for the fall of the Roman Empire.

The methods of modern historical study developed during the 1800's, and history became a recognized academic field. Leopold von Ranke, a German historian, had the most significant impact on the development of history in the 1800's. Ranke, who is known as the "Father of Modern History", devised the basic methods used by modern historians to analyze and evaluate documents. He also introduced the use of seminars for training future historians in methods of research.

Ranke mainly studied political history. During the 1900's, however, European and American historians began to emphasize the importance of social and economic forces in history. Today, historians study these and all other aspects of the human past.

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