History (from the Greek historia, from historeo, meaning I inquire into) is a term first used by Herodotus in the sense which it has since retained, of a narrative of events and circumstances relating to man in his social or civic condition. A. record of bare facts by themselves does not constitute history. Such a record (forming a chronicle or annals) is chronologically valuable; but to attain the dignity of history we must have social events and evolution detailed with considerable fulness, and the growth and movements of society, from one phase to another, distinctly traced and recorded.
The modern school of historians devote much attention to the social life of the people; their method being further characterized by the utmost accuracy of research, the extreme importance assigned to contemporary documentary evidence, and careful weighing of data. The field of history proper is so far restricted as to its subject, that only the doings of a community possessing something of an independent organic life can constitute it.
History may be conveniently divided into ancient, mediaeval, and modern; but these divisions have little scientific value. The first includes the Jewish history and that of the nations of antiquity, reaching down to the destruction of the Roman Empire in 476 AD; the second begins with 476 and comes down to the discovery of America in 1492, or to the Reformation; the third section extends from either of these eras to our own times. The earliest written history is found graven on the monuments of Egypt, Assyria, etc. These, though of the barest description, have the value of contemporary chronicles. Next come the histories found in the canonical books of the Old Testament; but the real inventors of the artistic form of history were the Greeks. Research History
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General Information
Research History