What is history anyway? A handful of historians explained (2023)

History is the study of the human past as described inwritten documentsleft by people. The past, with all its complicated decisions and events, the deaths of the participants and the story told, is what is perceived by the general public as the immutable foundation upon which historians andarchaeologistsStanding.

But as purveyors of the past, historians recognize that foundations are actually quicksand, that parts of every story go unreported, and that what has been told is shaped by current conditions. While it is not wrong to say that history is the study of the past, here is a much clearer and more accurate collection of descriptions.

Concise definitions of history.

There's no denying that the best definition isn't short, but it helps if you can also be funny.

Juan Jacob Anderson

"History is a narrative of the events that occurred among mankind, including an account of the rise and fall of nations and other great changes that affected the political and social conditions of mankind." (John Jacob Anderson)

WASHBASIN. Seal and R.J. Duty Man

"History is not what you thought. It is what you remember. All other stories defeat themselves." (1066 and all that)

James Joyce

"History, Stephen said, is a nightmare I'm trying to wake up from." (Ulysses)

Arnold J Toynbee

"History that is not used is nothing, because all intellectual life is action, like practical life, and if it is not used well, it is as if it were dead."

the psychohistorian

Between 1942 and 1944, science fiction author Isaac Asimov wrote the first short stories that would become the basis of theStiftungTrilogy. The main concept of the Foundation Trilogy is that if you are a good enough mathematician, you can accurately predict the future based on the records of the past. Indeed, Asimov was an attentive reader, so it should come as no surprise that his ideas were based on the writings of other historians.

charles austin bart

“If a historical science were realized, it would make possible, like the science of celestial mechanics, predictable prediction of the future in history. It would gather the totality of historical events into a single field, revealing the future unfolding to its ultimate end, including all the obvious choices made and to be made. It would be omniscience. Its creator would possess the qualities that theologians attribute to God. Once the future was revealed, humanity would have nothing to do but wait for its doom. "

Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges

"History is and should be a science... History is not the accumulation of all kinds of events that occurred in the past. It is the science of human societies."

Voltaire

“The first foundations of all history are the stories of parents to children, then passed on from one generation to another; at their origin are more probable when they do not shake common sense, and lose a degree of probability with each generation”. (the philosophical dictionary)

Edward Hallett Carr

"History is... a dialogue between the present and the past. (Originally: History is... a dialogue between the present and the past.)" (What's the story)

Martin Luther King hijo.

"The most important lessons of the story? There are four: first, whom the gods destroy, they first madden with power. second, God's mills grind slowly, but they grind very little. third, the bee fertilizes the flower that steals room, when it's dark enough, you can see the stars." (Attributed to historian Charles Austin Beard, but this version is the one used by Martin Luther King in The Death of Evil Upon the Seashore)

a pack of tricks

Not everyone enjoys studying history or finds it useful.Henry Fordhe was a prime example, as was Henry David Thoreau, which is perhaps one of the few things these two gentlemen had in common.

Voltaire

"History is nothing more than a bunch of tricks we play on the dead." (Original in French) "I saw a time when you didn't like history. After all, it's just a bunch of trouble we cause the dead..."

Henry David Thoreau

"As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to marvel at but the fact that so many men could be humble enough to spend their lives building a tomb for an ambitious hick who would have been wiser and more manly to drown him in the Nile and then gave his body to the dogs".Walden)

Jane Austen

“History, really serious history, cannot interest me. I read it a little out of duty, but it doesn't tell me anything that doesn't bother or tire me; men are all so deaf to nothing and hardly any women, that's pretty exhausting. (northanger abbey)

Ambrosio Bierce

"HISTORY, a nine-tenths lie. I think I'd like it known, before we take the great Niebuhr as our guide, where he went wrong and how much he lied.devil's dictionary)

Malcom X

“A race of men is like an individual man; Until she uses her own talent, is proud of her own history, expresses her own culture, asserts her own identity, she can never fulfill herself."

Over time

Whether you like the story or not, there's no denying the impact it has on us.

Henry David Thoreau

"Most events recorded in history are more notable than important, like solar and lunar eclipses, which attract everyone but whose effects no one bothers to calculate."A week on the Concord and Merrimack rivers.)

Gusti Bienstock Kollman

"You know, it's so strange, I've seen four forms of government in my life: monarchy, republic, Hitler's empire, American democracy. He [Weimar RepublicIt was just... 1918 to 1933, that's fifteen years! Imagine that, just fifteen years old. But Hitler was going to last a thousand years, and he only lasted... 1933 to 1945... twelve, just twelve years! Say ah!"

Plutarch

"It's such a difficult proposition to track and discover the truth of anything throughout history." (the life of plutarch)

douglas adams

“The history of each major galactic civilization generally progresses through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of survival, exploration, and sophistication, also known as the how, why, and where phases. For example, the first phase is characterized by the question "How can we eat?", the second by the question "Why do we eat?" and the third for the question "Where are we going to have lunch?" (The universal backpacker's guide)

According to Prufrock

T. S. Eliot

What forgiveness after such acquaintance? now think
History has many ingenious passages, corridors constructed
and troubles, deceit with whispering ambition,
Take us through the vanities. now think
She relents when our attention wanders
And what happens with such flexible confusions
This bestowal is hungry with desire. It's too late
What is not believed or still believed
Only in memory, the passion reconsidered. give too soon
In weak hands, the thought can be dispensed with
Until rejection sows fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage will save us. unnatural vices
They are born of our heroism. virtues
imposed on us by our insolent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the raging tree.
("The Land of Waste", Prufrock and Other Poems)