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83-461: In historical records the village was first mentioned in 1400. The Byzantine Monomachus crown was unearthed there in 1860 by a farmer ploughing in what was then Nyitraivánka in the Kingdom of Hungary . The village lies at an altitude of 146 metres and covers an area of 14.909 km². It has a population of about 2415 people. The village is approximately 98% Slovak . The village has

166-767: 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

249-438: 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

332-470: 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. 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

415-501: 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,

498-425: 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. 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

581-596: A common eye. He was the first director of International School Ibadan . In 1965 he was elected chairman of the Association of Commonwealth Universities . Ebere Nwaubani argues that Dike was the first modern scholarly proponent of Africanist history. His publications were a watershed in African historiography. Dike has been described as first African to get a PhD in history. At the University College of Ibadan, he became

664-554: A multi-disciplinary approach in African historiography . He is credited with "having played the leading role in creating a generation of African historians who could interpret their own history without being influenced by Eurocentric approaches." He has been called the "father of modern African historiography". Dike was born in Awka , eastern Nigeria . He attended Fourah Bay College , Sierra Leone and also Durham University for his BSc ,

747-404: A narrative. 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

830-438: 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

913-448: 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

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996-465: A public library a gym and football pitch . The records for genealogical research are available at the state archive "Statny Archiv in Nitra, Slovakia" This Nitra Region geography article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . History History (derived from Ancient Greek ἱστορία ( historía )  'inquiry; knowledge acquired by investigation')

1079-412: A single coherent narrative or a series of competing narratives. 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, analysed, and interpreted. Historical research often starts with

1162-431: 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

1245-723: 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 . 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 also examines

1328-671: 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

1411-457: 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 analysing and evaluating the information a source provides. Typically, this process begins with external criticism, which evaluates

1494-399: 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

1577-597: 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

1660-431: 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

1743-435: 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

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1826-397: Is intentionally ignored or misinterpreted to construct a misleading narrative serving external interests. 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

1909-405: 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 has

1992-407: 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. Historians write in

2075-529: 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,

2158-462: Is the systematic study and documentation of the human past . History is an academic discipline which uses a narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyse 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

2241-421: 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

2324-399: 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

2407-638: 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,

2490-552: 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

2573-504: 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

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2656-855: The University of Aberdeen for his MA , and King's College London for his PhD . During the 1960s, as a member of the University of Ibadan's history department, he played a pioneering role in promoting African leadership of scholarly works published on Africa . As the head of the organizing committee of the First International Congress of Africanists in Ghana in 1963, he sought for a strengthened meticulous non-colonial focused African research, publication of research in various languages including indigenous and foreign, so as to introduce native speakers to history and for people to view African history through

2739-516: 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

2822-450: 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

2905-445: 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

2988-505: 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;

3071-628: 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

3154-400: 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

3237-504: 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

3320-513: 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

3403-514: 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 . 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,

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3486-688: The Ibadan School of African history and promoted the use of oral evidence by African historians. Dike was also the first president of ASUTECH (Anambra State University of Technology, now Nnamdi Azikiwe University ). His publications include the following: Report on the Preservation and Administration of Historical Records in Nigeria (1953), Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta 1830-1885 (1956), A Hundred Years of British Rule in Nigeria (1957), The Origins of

3569-465: 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

3652-534: 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

3735-405: 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

3818-493: 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. Areas of historical study can also be categorized by

3901-406: 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

3984-415: 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

4067-442: 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

4150-574: 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 . Kenneth Dike Kenneth Onwuka Dike // (17 December 1917 – 26 October 1983 )

4233-412: 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

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4316-428: 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

4399-548: 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

4482-644: The first African professor of history and head of a history department. He founded the Nigerian National Archives , and helped in the founding of the Historical Society of Nigeria. His book Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta 1830-1885 dealt with 19th-century economics politics in the Niger Delta . He focused on internal African factors, especially defensive measures undertaken by the delta societies against imperialist penetration. Dike helped create

4565-425: 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

4648-498: 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

4731-529: 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

4814-585: 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

4897-425: 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,

4980-478: 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

5063-634: 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

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5146-413: The historical record. Often motivated by specific ideological agendas , pseudohistorians mimic historical methodology to promote misleading narratives that lack rigorous analysis and scholarly consensus. 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

5229-457: 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,

5312-495: 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

5395-588: 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

5478-692: 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

5561-401: The most direct evidence of historical events. A secondary source is a source that analyses 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

5644-452: 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

5727-470: 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

5810-505: 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

5893-502: The role of gender in history, with a particular interest in the experiences of women to challenge patriarchal perspectives. 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

5976-583: 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

6059-589: 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

6142-612: 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

6225-437: 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

6308-533: 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

6391-518: 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

6474-427: 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

6557-432: The use of land, labour , 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

6640-561: Was a Nigerian educationist, historian and the first Nigerian Vice-Chancellor of the nation's premier college, the University of Ibadan . During the Nigerian civil war , he moved to Harvard University . He was a founder of the Ibadan School that dominated the writing of the History of Nigeria until the 1970s. Dike was a pioneer in the movement towards utilising oral traditions in

6723-601: 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

6806-422: 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

6889-399: 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

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