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188-499: Africanists argue that there is a need to "deexoticize" Africa and banalise it, rather than understand Africa as exceptionalized and exoticized. African scholars, in recent times, have focused on decolonizing African studies, and reconfiguring it to reflect the African experience through an African lens. The early anthropological foundations for much of the knowledge about Africa in modern academic fields, including African studies, are

376-529: A chronological form that abstained from analysis and focused on moralistic teaching. In 281 AD the tomb of King Xiang of Wei ( d.  296 BC ) was opened, inside of which was found a historical text called the Bamboo Annals , after the writing material. It is similar in style to the Spring and Autumn Annals and covers events from the mythical Yellow Emperor to 299 BC. Opinions on

564-499: A critical perspective. The kind of issues addressed and implications for the approach involve pondering why, if a key development goal is to alleviate poverty, is poverty increasing? Why is there such a gap between plans and outcomes? Why are those working in development so willing to disregard history and the lessons it might offer? Why is development so externally driven rather than having an internal basis? In short, why does so much planned development fail? Kinship can refer both to

752-690: A history of Egypt in Greek for the Ptolemaic royal court during the 3rd century BC. The Romans adopted the Greek tradition, writing at first in Greek, but eventually chronicling their history in a freshly non-Greek language. Early Roman works were still written in Greek, such as the annals of Quintus Fabius Pictor . However, the Origines , composed by the Roman statesman Cato the Elder (234–149 BC),

940-689: A literary device in narratives that analogically explain the origins of darker skinned North Africans in North Africa and the Islamic world. Caravans have been equated with slave ships , and the amount of forcibly enslaved Africans transported across the Sahara are alleged to be numerically comparable to the considerably large amount of forcibly enslaved Africans transported across the Atlantic Ocean. The simulated narrative of comparable numbers

1128-416: A racist geographic construction, serves as an objectified , compartmentalized region of "Africa proper", "Africa noire," or "Black Africa." The African diaspora is also considered to be a part of the same racialized construction as Sub-Saharan Africa. North Africa serves as a racialized region of " European Africa", which is conceptually disconnected from Sub-Saharan Africa, and conceptually connected to

1316-535: A universal history , the Bibliotheca historica , that sought to explain various known civilizations from their origins up until his own day in the 1st century BC. The Chaldean priest Berossus ( fl.  3rd century  BC) composed a Greek-language History of Babylonia for the Seleucid king Antiochus I , combining Hellenistic methods of historiography and Mesopotamian accounts to form

1504-644: A break-away group of the Aborigines' Protection Society . These anthropologists of the times were liberal, anti-slavery, and pro- human-rights activists. They maintained international connections. Anthropology and many other current fields are the intellectual results of the comparative methods developed in the earlier 19th century. Theorists in diverse fields such as anatomy , linguistics , and ethnology , started making feature-by-feature comparisons of their subject matters, and were beginning to suspect that similarities between animals, languages, and folkways were

1692-605: A culture from an emic (conceptual, vs. etic , or technical) point of view. The study of kinship and social organization is a central focus of sociocultural anthropology, as kinship is a human universal . Sociocultural anthropology also covers economic and political organization , law and conflict resolution, patterns of consumption and exchange, material culture, technology, infrastructure, gender relations, ethnicity, childrearing and socialization, religion, myth, symbols, values, etiquette, worldview, sports, music, nutrition, recreation, games, food, festivals, and language (which

1880-553: A diametric binary to Europe . Among studies in the Francophone world, ties between North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa have been denied or downplayed, while the ties (e.g., religious, cultural) between the regions and peoples (e.g., Arab language and literature with Berber language and literature) of the Middle East and North Africa have been established by diminishing the differences between the two and selectively focusing on

2068-411: A diffuse assemblage of ethnology, human biology, comparative linguistics, and prehistory, held together mainly by the vested interests, sunk costs, and administrative habits of academia, and by a romantic image of comprehensive scholarship. Sociocultural anthropology has been heavily influenced by structuralist and postmodern theories, as well as a shift toward the analysis of modern societies. During

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2256-582: A discipline and was enriched by other fields (e.g., humanities , social sciences , natural sciences ). A considerable number of African studies organizations, which have been financed or financially influenced by foreign government aid provided from North America, Europe, and Asia, have undergone volatility as the pattern of foreign government aid has become volatile; consequently, trends in Africanist scholarship has tended to reflect general optimism or pessimism (e.g., Afro-pessimism in African studies during

2444-676: A few major subdivisions to dozens more. Practical anthropology, the use of anthropological knowledge and technique to solve specific problems, has arrived; for example, the presence of buried victims might stimulate the use of a forensic archaeologist to recreate the final scene. The organization has also reached a global level. For example, the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA), "a network of national, regional and international associations that aims to promote worldwide communication and cooperation in anthropology", currently contains members from about three dozen nations. Since

2632-622: A geographic racial binary of pale-skinned Moors residing further north, closer to the Mediterranean region, and dark-skinned Moors residing further south, closer to the Sahara ). The religious polemical narrative involving the suffering of enslaved European Christians of the Barbary slave trade has also been adapted to fit the simulated narrative of a comparable number of enslaved Africans being transported by Muslim slaver caravans, from

2820-552: A history opens with a chronological outline of court affairs, and then continues with detailed biographies of prominent people who lived during the period in question. The scope of his work extended as far back as the 16th century BC with the founding of the Shang dynasty . It included many treatises on specific subjects and individual biographies of prominent people. He also explored the lives and deeds of commoners, both contemporary and those of previous eras. Whereas Sima's had been

3008-452: A model for later historians. This has led to Gibbon being called the first "modern historian". The book sold impressively, earning its author a total of about £9000. Biographer Leslie Stephen wrote that thereafter, "His fame was as rapid as it has been lasting." Gibbon's work has been praised for its style, its piquant epigrams and its effective irony. Winston Churchill memorably noted, "I set out upon ... Gibbon's Decline and Fall of

3196-455: A passage or a fact were reduced to depend." In this insistence upon the importance of primary sources, Gibbon broke new ground in the methodical study of history: In accuracy, thoroughness, lucidity, and comprehensive grasp of a vast subject, the 'History' is unsurpassable. It is the one English history which may be regarded as definitive. ... Whatever its shortcomings the book is artistically imposing as well as historically unimpeachable as

3384-492: A precedent for subsequent Western historical writings. He was also the first to distinguish between cause and immediate origins of an event, while his successor Xenophon ( c.  431  – 355 BC) introduced autobiographical elements and biographical character studies in his Anabasis . The proverbial Philippic attacks of the Athenian orator Demosthenes (384–322 BC) on Philip II of Macedon marked

3572-410: A result of illness. On the other hand, there are fields that intersect with medical anthropology in terms of research methodology and theoretical production, such as cultural psychiatry and transcultural psychiatry or ethnopsychiatry . Nutritional anthropology is a synthetic concept that deals with the interplay between economic systems , nutritional status and food security , and how changes in

3760-460: A shift away from traditional diplomatic, economic, and political history toward newer approaches, especially social and cultural studies . From 1975 to 1995 the proportion of professors of history in American universities identifying with social history increased from 31 to 41 percent, while the proportion of political historians decreased from 40 to 30 percent. In 2007, of 5,723 faculty members in

3948-463: A significantly different form, in most non-Western contexts. To surmount this difficulty, anthropologists of art have focused on formal features in objects which, without exclusively being 'artistic', have certain evident 'aesthetic' qualities. Boas' Primitive Art , Claude Lévi-Strauss ' The Way of the Masks (1982) or Geertz's 'Art as Cultural System' (1983) are some examples in this trend to transform

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4136-419: A singularly personal point of view. Michelet was one of the first historians to shift the emphasis of history to the common people, rather than the leaders and institutions of the country. He had a decisive impact on scholars. Gayana Jurkevich argues that led by Michelet: 19th-century French historians no longer saw history as the chronicling of royal dynasties, armies, treaties, and great men of state, but as

4324-442: A spate of local histories of the individual city-states ( poleis ), written by the first of the local historians who employed the written archives of city and sanctuary. Dionysius of Halicarnassus characterized these historians as the forerunners of Thucydides, and these local histories continued to be written into Late Antiquity , as long as the city-states survived. Two early figures stand out: Hippias of Elis , who produced

4512-463: A specific topic covers how historians have studied that topic by using particular sources, techniques of research, and theoretical approaches to the interpretation of documentary sources. Scholars discuss historiography by topic—such as the historiography of the United Kingdom , of WWII , of the pre-Columbian Americas , of early Islam , and of China —and different approaches to the work and

4700-640: A specifically Christian historiography can be seen in Clement of Alexandria in the second century. The growth of Christianity and its enhanced status in the Roman Empire after Constantine I (see State church of the Roman Empire ) led to the development of a distinct Christian historiography, influenced by both Christian theology and the nature of the Christian Bible , encompassing new areas of study and views of history. The central role of

4888-511: A unique composite. Reports exist of other near-eastern histories, such as that of the Phoenician historian Sanchuniathon ; but he is considered semi-legendary and writings attributed to him are fragmentary, known only through the later historians Philo of Byblos and Eusebius , who asserted that he wrote before even the Trojan war . The native Egyptian priest and historian Manetho composed

5076-519: A universal history from the beginning of time down to the time of writing, his successor Ban Gu wrote an annals-biography history limiting its coverage to only the Western Han dynasty , the Book of Han (96 AD). This established the notion of using dynastic boundaries as start- and end-points, and most later Chinese histories would focus on a single dynasty or group of dynasties. The Records of

5264-590: A vast panorama of a great period. The tumultuous events surrounding the French Revolution inspired much of the historiography and analysis of the early 19th century. Interest in the 1688 Glorious Revolution was also rekindled by the Great Reform Act of 1832 in England . Nineteenth century historiography, especially among American historians, featured conflicting viewpoints that represented

5452-468: A wide variety of fields, such as teaching, politics, cultural anthropology etc. While the origins of ethnomusicology date back to the 18th and 19th centuries, it was formally termed "ethnomusicology" by Dutch scholar Jaap Kunst c.  1950 . Later, the influence of study in this area spawned the creation of the periodical Ethnomusicology and the Society of Ethnomusicology . Visual anthropology

5640-521: Is a method of analysing social or cultural interaction. It often involves participant observation though an ethnographer may also draw from texts written by participants of in social interactions. Ethnography views first-hand experience and social context as important. Tim Ingold distinguishes ethnography from anthropology arguing that anthropology tries to construct general theories of human experience, applicable in general and novel settings, while ethnography concerns itself with fidelity. He argues that

5828-447: Is a type of archaeology that studies the practices and material remains of living human groups in order to gain a better understanding of the evidence left behind by past human groups, who are presumed to have lived in similar ways. Linguistic anthropology (not to be confused with anthropological linguistics ) seeks to understand the processes of human communications, verbal and non-verbal, variation in language across time and space,

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6016-515: Is also the object of study in linguistic anthropology). Comparison across cultures is a key element of method in sociocultural anthropology, including the industrialized (and de-industrialized) West. The Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) includes 186 such cultures. Biological anthropology and physical anthropology are synonymous terms to describe anthropological research focused on the study of humans and non-human primates in their biological, evolutionary, and demographic dimensions. It examines

6204-439: Is an interdisciplinary subfield of anthropology that studies the interaction of cultural and mental processes . This subfield tends to focus on ways in which humans' development and enculturation within a particular cultural group – with its own history, language, practices, and conceptual categories – shape processes of human cognition , emotion , perception , motivation , and mental health . It also examines how

6392-779: Is classified as part of the Indosphere and the Sinosphere . The archipelago had direct contact with China during the Song dynasty (960–1279), and was a part of the Srivijaya and Majapahit empires. The pre-colonial Philippines widely used the abugida system in writing and seals on documents, though it was for communication and no recorded writings of early literature or history. Ancient Filipinos usually wrote documents on bamboo, bark, and leaves, which did not survive, unlike inscriptions on clay, metal, and ivory did, such as

6580-584: Is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media . While the term is sometimes used interchangeably with ethnographic film , visual anthropology also encompasses the anthropological study of visual representation, including areas such as performance, museums, art, and the production and reception of mass media . Visual representations from all cultures, such as sandpaintings, tattoos, sculptures and reliefs, cave paintings, scrimshaw, jewelry, hieroglyphs, paintings, and photographs are included in

6768-413: Is contradicted by the limited presence of darker skinned North Africans in the present-day Maghreb. As part of this simulated narrative, post-classical Egypt has also been characterized as having plantations . Another part of this simulated narrative is an Orientalist construction of hypersexualized Moors , concubines , and eunuchs . Concubines in harems have been used as an explanatory bridge between

6956-642: Is first attested in reference to history . Its present use first appeared in Renaissance Germany in the works of Magnus Hundt and Otto Casmann . Their Neo-Latin anthropologia derived from the combining forms of the Greek words ánthrōpos ( ἄνθρωπος , " human ") and lógos ( λόγος , " study "). Its adjectival form appeared in the works of Aristotle . It began to be used in English, possibly via French Anthropologie , by

7144-616: Is important", "keen sense of drama", and "grasp of the fact that a whole civilization is a unit of study". At the same time, philosopher David Hume was having a similar effect on the study of history in Great Britain . In 1754 he published The History of England , a 6-volume work which extended "From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688". Hume adopted a similar scope to Voltaire in his history; as well as

7332-456: Is more related to philosophy , literature and the arts (how one's culture affects the experience for self and group, contributing to a more complete understanding of the people's knowledge, customs, and institutions), while social anthropology is more related to sociology and history. In that, it helps develop an understanding of social structures, typically of others and other populations (such as minorities, subgroups, dissidents, etc.). There

7520-414: Is no hard-and-fast distinction between them, and these categories overlap to a considerable degree. Inquiry in sociocultural anthropology is guided in part by cultural relativism , the attempt to understand other societies in terms of their own cultural symbols and values. Accepting other cultures in their own terms moderates reductionism in cross-cultural comparison. This project is often accommodated in

7708-578: Is not political or military history, it is the history of the arts, of commerce, of civilization—in a word—of the human mind." Voltaire's histories used the values of the Enlightenment to evaluate the past. He helped free historiography from antiquarianism, Eurocentrism , religious intolerance and a concentration on great men, diplomacy, and warfare. Peter Gay says Voltaire wrote "very good history", citing his "scrupulous concern for truths", "careful sifting of evidence", "intelligent selection of what

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7896-952: Is one of its primary research designs as well as the text that is generated from anthropological fieldwork. In Great Britain and the Commonwealth countries, the British tradition of social anthropology tends to dominate. In the United States, anthropology has traditionally been divided into the four field approach developed by Franz Boas in the early 20th century: biological or physical anthropology ; social , cultural , or sociocultural anthropology ; archaeological anthropology ; and linguistic anthropology . These fields frequently overlap but tend to use different methodologies and techniques. European countries with overseas colonies tended to practice more ethnology (a term coined and defined by Adam F. Kollár in 1783). It

8084-462: Is sometimes referred to as sociocultural anthropology in the parts of the world that were influenced by the European tradition. Anthropology is a global discipline involving humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. Anthropology builds upon knowledge from natural sciences , including the discoveries about the origin and evolution of Homo sapiens , human physical traits, human behavior ,

8272-500: Is the people they share DNA with. This is called consanguinity or "blood ties". People can also have a chosen family in which they chose who they want to be a part of their family. In some cases, people are closer with their chosen family more than with their biological families. Feminist anthropology is a four field approach to anthropology ( archeological , biological , cultural , linguistic ) that seeks to reduce male bias in research findings, anthropological hiring practices, and

8460-505: Is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior , human biology , cultures , societies , and linguistics , in both the present and past, including archaic humans . Social anthropology studies patterns of behavior, while cultural anthropology studies cultural meaning, including norms and values. The term sociocultural anthropology is commonly used today. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life. Biological or physical anthropology studies

8648-685: The Rikkokushi (Six National Histories), a corpus of six national histories covering the history of Japan from its mythological beginnings until the 9th century. The first of these works were the Nihon Shoki , compiled by Prince Toneri in 720. The tradition of Korean historiography was established with the Samguk Sagi , a history of Korea from its allegedly earliest times. It was compiled by Goryeo court historian Kim Busik after its commission by King Injong of Goryeo (r. 1122–1146). It

8836-604: The African Studies Association of the United Kingdom (ASAUK) was founded, and by 1964, its first yearly conference was organized and attended. With the spread of nationalism , once the African higher education system began to undergo Africanization and its effects began to set in, question and criticism of the fundamental ideas of African studies began to occur as well as improvement of scientific theories and research methods, which developed an African studies that studied African affairs and phenomena , and

9024-764: The African diaspora (e.g., Black is Beautiful ) have invoked and utilized black identity to oppose colonialism and racism . While Berber studies has largely sought to be establish ties between Berbers and North Africa with Arabs and the Middle East, Merolla (2017) indicated that efforts to establish ties between Berbers and North Africa with sub-Saharan Africans and sub-Saharan Africa have recently started to being undertaken. Canada Egypt Ethiopia Germany Ghana Italy India Netherlands Nigeria University of Lagos, Masters in African and Diaspora Studies Switzerland United Kingdom United States of America Anthropology Anthropology

9212-532: The Americanized narratives (e.g., the trans-Saharan slave trade, imported enslaved Sub-Saharan West Africans, darker skinned Magrebian freedmen) of the present-day European Africanist paradigm. As opposed to having been developed through field research, the analogy in the present-day European Africanist paradigm, which conceptually alienates, dehistoricizes, and denaturalizes darker skinned North Africans in North Africa and darker skinned Africans throughout

9400-517: The Anglophone and Francophone world are affected by the international politics of the Anglophone and Francophone world. While studies in the Anglophone world have more clearly followed the trend of the conceptual separation of Africa, the Francophone world has been more nuanced, which may stem from imperial policies relating to French colonialism in North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. As

9588-531: The Bible as being greater than the Quran and to affirm the viewpoints held by the readers of their composed works. The adoption of 19th century European abolitionists' religious polemical narrative into the present-day European Africanist paradigm may have been due to its correspondence with the established textual tradition. The use of stereotyped hypersexuality for Moors are what 19th century European abolitionists and

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9776-472: The Confucian Classics . More annals-biography histories were written in subsequent dynasties, eventually bringing the number to between twenty-four and twenty-six, but none ever reached the popularity and impact of the first four. Traditional Chinese historiography describes history in terms of dynastic cycles . In this view, each new dynasty is founded by a morally righteous founder. Over time,

9964-695: The Ethiopian Orthodox Church , the reigns of Iyasu II (r. 1730–1755) and Iyoas I (r. 1755–1769) were the first to be included in larger general dynastic histories. During the Renaissance , history was written about states or nations. The study of history changed during the Enlightenment and Romanticism . Voltaire described the history of certain ages that he considered important, rather than describing events in chronological order. History became an independent discipline. It

10152-801: The European exploration of Africa and the Atlantic slave trade by explorers and missionaries as well as the colonial Scramble for Africa by European imperialists . With the start of decolonization of Africa , the Cold War , international development agendas , and Area Studies , which had increasing policy relevance in this emerging environment, this resulted in the mass development of African Studies organizations (e.g., centers, institutes) throughout continental Africa after 1945. Following African independence , many colonial staff in Europe and Africa became

10340-614: The Islamic Golden Age . As such, anthropology has been central in the development of several new (late 20th century) interdisciplinary fields such as cognitive science , global studies , and various ethnic studies . According to Clifford Geertz , ...anthropology is perhaps the last of the great nineteenth-century conglomerate disciplines still for the most part organizationally intact. Long after natural history, moral philosophy, philology, and political economy have dissolved into their specialized successors, it has remained

10528-619: The Jugurthine War . Livy (59 BC – 17 AD) records the rise of Rome from city-state to empire . His speculation about what would have happened if Alexander the Great had marched against Rome represents the first known instance of alternate history . Biography, although popular throughout antiquity, was introduced as a branch of history by the works of Plutarch ( c.  45  – 125 AD) and Suetonius ( c.  69  – after 130 AD) who described

10716-727: The Laguna Copperplate Inscription and Butuan Ivory Seal . The discovery of the Butuan Ivory Seal also proves the use of paper documents in ancient Philippines. After the Spanish conquest, pre-colonial Filipino manuscripts and documents were gathered and burned to eliminate pagan beliefs. This has been the burden of historians in the accumulation of data and the development of theories that gave historians many aspects of Philippine history that were left unexplained. The interplay of pre-colonial events and

10904-670: The Middle Ages . They wrote about the history of Jesus Christ, that of the Church and that of their patrons, the dynastic history of the local rulers. In the Early Middle Ages historical writing often took the form of annals or chronicles recording events year by year, but this style tended to hamper the analysis of events and causes. An example of this type of writing is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , which

11092-500: The Middle East and Arab world , whereas, the study of sub-Saharan Africa was viewed as conceptually distinct from North Africa, and as its own region, viewed as inherently the same. The common pattern of conceptual separation of continental Africa into two regions and the view of conceptual sameness within the region of sub-Saharan Africa has continued until present-day. Yet, with increasing exposure of this problem, discussion about

11280-517: The Middle East , Asia , and the Islamic world . As a result of these racialized constructions and the conceptual separation of Africa, darker skinned North Africans, such as the so-called Haratin , who have long resided in the Maghreb , and do not reside south of Saharan Africa, have become analogically alienated from their indigeneity and historic reality in North Africa. While the origin of

11468-498: The Royal African Society collaborating with ASAUK to keep it viable, various African scholars (e.g., Reginald Cline-Cole , Raufu Mustapha, Ola Uduku , Tunde Zack-Williams) in the United Kingdom steered development of African studies in the newer direction of accountability of African leaders and in including the African diaspora in the scope of its research focus. As African countries experienced economic turmoil in

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11656-601: The Warring States period (403 BC) to the end of the Five Dynasties period (959) in chronological annals form, rather than in the traditional annals-biography form. This work is considered much more accessible than the "Official Histories" for the Six dynasties , Tang dynasty , and Five Dynasties , and in practice superseded those works in the mind of the general reader. The great Song Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi found

11844-492: The global financial system from an anthropological perspective. Political economy in anthropology is the application of the theories and methods of historical materialism to the traditional concerns of anthropology, including, but not limited to, non-capitalist societies. Political economy introduced questions of history and colonialism to ahistorical anthropological theories of social structure and culture. Three main areas of interest rapidly developed. The first of these areas

12032-631: The medieval Islamic world also developed an interest in world history. Islamic historical writing eventually culminated in the works of the Arab Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), who published his historiographical studies in the Muqaddimah (translated as Prolegomena ) and Kitab al-I'bar ( Book of Advice ). His work was forgotten until it was rediscovered in the late 19th century. The earliest works of history produced in Japan were

12220-585: The modern period . "Haratin" is considered to be an offensive term by the darker skinned Maghrebians it is intended to identify; for example, people in the southern region (e.g., Wad Noun , Draa ) of Morocco consider it to be an offensive term. Despite its historicity and etymology being questionable, European colonialists and European Africanists have used the term Haratin as identifiers for groups of " black " and apparently " mixed " people found in Algeria , Mauritania , and Morocco. The Saadian invasion of

12408-591: The period of colonialism had ceased, African intellectuals constructed and organized the African higher education system in Africa, and in response to this development, during the 1950s and 1960s, Europeans in the United Kingdom created African studies institutions. The shortcomings of Western disciplinary approaches to the study of Africa resulted in the development of an interdisciplinary configuration of African studies. With some degree of interaction (e.g., collaboration, debate) with their African counterparts, by 1963,

12596-755: The wider Greek world , a development which would be an important influence on the writing of history elsewhere around the Mediterranean region. The tradition of logography in Archaic Greece preceded the full narrative form of historiography, in which logographers such as Hecataeus of Miletus provided prose compilations about places in geography and peoples in an early form of cultural anthropology , as well as speeches used in courts of law . The earliest known fully narrative critical historical works were The Histories , composed by Herodotus of Halicarnassus (484–425 BC) who became known as

12784-444: The " science of biography ", " science of hadith " and " Isnad " (chain of transmission). These methodologies were later applied to other historical figures in the Islamic civilization . Famous historians in this tradition include Urwah (d. 712), Wahb ibn Munabbih (d. 728), Ibn Ishaq (d. 761), al-Waqidi (745–822), Ibn Hisham (d. 834), Muhammad al-Bukhari (810–870) and Ibn Hajar (1372–1449). Historians of

12972-440: The "father of history". Herodotus attempted to distinguish between more and less reliable accounts, and personally conducted research by travelling extensively, giving written accounts of various Mediterranean cultures. Although Herodotus' overall emphasis lay on the actions and characters of men, he also attributed an important role to divinity in the determination of historical events. The generation following Herodotus witnessed

13160-545: The 1960s", the only African American female anthropologist who was also a Caribbeanist . She studied ethnic and family relations in the Caribbean as well as the United States, and thereby tried to improve the way black life, experiences, and culture were studied. However, Zora Neale Hurston, although often primarily considered to be a literary author, was trained in anthropology by Franz Boas, and published Tell my Horse about her "anthropological observations" of voodoo in

13348-411: The 1970s and 1990s, there was an epistemological shift away from the positivist traditions that had largely informed the discipline. During this shift, enduring questions about the nature and production of knowledge came to occupy a central place in cultural and social anthropology. In contrast, archaeology and biological anthropology remained largely positivist. Due to this difference in epistemology,

13536-416: The 1990s). With the factor of non-governmental organizations in Africa, and their use of scholarship from African studies, this has resulted in funders of non-governmental organizations also influencing the focus and development of the scholarship of renowned Africanists; the scholarship then becomes used in future development policies of funders and renowned Africanists may even serve as policy consultants to

13724-575: The 5th century BC with the Histories , by Herodotus , who thus established Greek historiography . In the 2nd century BC, the Roman statesman Cato the Elder produced the Origines , which is the first Roman historiography . In Asia, the father and son intellectuals Sima Tan and Sima Qian established Chinese historiography with the book Shiji ( Records of the Grand Historian ), in

13912-459: The 75 faculty members were under a department named anthropology. Anthropology as a specialized field of academic study developed much through the end of the 19th century. Then it rapidly expanded beginning in the early 20th century to the point where many of the world's higher educational institutions typically included anthropology departments. Thousands of anthropology departments have come into existence, and anthropology has also diversified from

14100-642: The Bible in Christianity is reflected in the preference of Christian historians for written sources, compared to the classical historians' preference for oral sources and is also reflected in the inclusion of politically unimportant people. Christian historians also focused on development of religion and society. This can be seen in the extensive inclusion of written sources in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea around 324 and in

14288-472: The Caribbean (1938). Feminist anthropology is inclusive of the anthropology of birth as a specialization, which is the anthropological study of pregnancy and childbirth within cultures and societies. Medical anthropology is an interdisciplinary field which studies "human health and disease, health care systems, and biocultural adaptation". It is believed that William Caudell was the first to discover

14476-726: The English People . Outside of Europe and West Asia, Christian historiography also existed in Africa. For instance, Augustine of Hippo , the Berber theologian and bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia ( Roman North Africa ), wrote a multiple volume autobiography called Confessions between 397 and 400 AD. While earlier pagan rulers of the Kingdom of Aksum produced autobiographical style epigraphic texts in locations spanning Ethiopia , Eritrea , and Sudan and in either Greek or

14664-489: The European countries providing the funding (e.g., neopatrimonialist analysis of African policy economy and society, the international institutions informed by these analyzes, and the conditional policies employed to induce neo-liberal market reforms in Africa). Given increasing indications that a post-Cold War world did not lead to increasing peace, Africa became a greater focal point of study for North America and Europe by

14852-724: The Grand Historian and Book of Han were eventually joined by the Book of the Later Han (AD 488) (replacing the earlier, and now only partially extant, Han Records from the Eastern Pavilion) and the Records of the Three Kingdoms (AD 297) to form the "Four Histories". These became mandatory reading for the Imperial Examinations and have therefore exerted an influence on Chinese culture comparable to

15040-546: The Islamic world at-large, is primarily rooted in an Americanized textual tradition inherited from 19th century European Christian abolitionists . Consequently, reliable history, as opposed to an antiquated analogy-based history, for darker skinned North Africans and darker skinned Africans in the Islamic world are limited. Part of the textual tradition generally associates an inherited status of servant with dark skin (e.g., Negro labor, Negro cultivators, Negroid slaves, freedman ). The European Africanist paradigm uses this as

15228-400: The Islamic world. Altogether, darker skinned North Africans (e.g., "black" and apparently "mixed" Maghrebians), darker skinned Africans in the Islamic world, the inherited status of servant associated with dark skin, and the trans-Saharan slave trade are conflated and modeled in analogy with African-Americans and the trans-Atlantic slave trade . The trans-Saharan slave trade has been used as

15416-541: The Italian Society of Anthropology and Ethnology (1871), and many others subsequently. The majority of these were evolutionists. One notable exception was the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology, and Prehistory (1869) founded by Rudolph Virchow , known for his vituperative attacks on the evolutionists. Not religious himself, he insisted that Darwin's conclusions lacked empirical foundation. During

15604-689: The Mirror to be overly long for the average reader, as well as too morally nihilist, and therefore prepared a didactic summary of it called the Zizhi Tongjian Gangmu (Digest of the Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government), posthumously published in 1219. It reduced the original's 249 chapters to just 59, and for the rest of imperial Chinese history would be the first history book most people ever read. Historiography of

15792-670: The Philippines refers to the studies, sources, critical methods and interpretations used by scholars to study the history of the Philippines . It includes historical and archival research and writing on the history of the Philippine archipelago including the islands of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The Philippine archipelago was part of many empires before the Spanish Empire arrived in the 16th century. Southeast Asia

15980-406: The Roman Empire [and] was immediately dominated both by the story and the style. ... I devoured Gibbon. I rode triumphantly through it from end to end and enjoyed it all." Gibbon was pivotal in the secularizing and 'desanctifying' of history, remarking, for example, on the "want of truth and common sense" of biographies composed by Saint Jerome . Unusually for an 18th-century historian, Gibbon

16168-718: The Sahara", and "sub-Saharan Africa." North Africa has been conceptually " Orientalized " and separated from sub-Saharan Africa. While its historic development has occurred within a longer time frame, the epistemic development (e.g., form, content) of the present-day racialized conceptual separation of Africa came as a result of the Berlin Conference and the Scramble for Africa . In African and Berber literary studies, scholarship has remained largely separate from one another. The conceptual separation of Africa in these studies may be due to how editing policies of studies in

16356-643: The Songhai Empire serves as the precursor to later narratives that grouped darker skinned Maghrebians together and identified their origins as being Sub-Saharan West Africa. With gold serving as a motivation behind the Saadian invasion of the Songhai Empire , this made way for changes in latter behaviors toward dark-skinned Africans. As a result of changing behaviors toward dark-skinned Africans, darker skinned Maghrebians were forcibly recruited into

16544-466: The United Kingdom during the 1980s, this was counterbalanced by an increasing research focus on Africa in the United States. After the Civil Rights movement , there was increased collaboration between African and African American scholars. African scholars played a valuable role, via their research and direct cultural connections to/in Africa, in the development of Africana studies . In addition to

16732-482: The United Kingdom seeking to reposition itself after Brexit . The increasing interest in the study of Africa has contributed to the growth of African Studies Associations, including ASAUK and the Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies (AEGIS), as well as increased research focus on Africa by African studies organizations in Africa. The marketization of African higher education has resulted in

16920-591: The Western world was shaped and developed by figures such as Voltaire , David Hume , and Edward Gibbon , who among others set the foundations for the modern discipline. In the 19th century, historical studies became professionalized at universities and research centers along with a belief that history was like a science. In the 20th century, historians incorporated social science dimensions like politics, economy, and culture in their historiography. The research interests of historians change over time, and there has been

17108-599: The Western world. Exploring and addressing that double bias against women from marginalized racial or ethnic groups is of particular interest in intersectional feminist anthropology. Feminist anthropologists have stated that their publications have contributed to anthropology, along the way correcting against the systemic biases beginning with the "patriarchal origins of anthropology (and (academia)" and note that from 1891 to 1930 doctorates in anthropology went to males more than 85%, more than 81% were under 35, and only 7.2% to anyone over 40 years old, thus reflecting an age gap in

17296-547: The allegation of comparable numbers of forcibly enslaved Africans and the limited amount of present-day darker skinned Maghrebians who have been characterized as their diasporic descendants. Eunuchs were characterized as sentinels who guarded these harems. The simulated narrative is also based on the major assumption that the indigenous peoples of the Maghreb were once purely white Berbers , who then became biracialized through miscegenation with black concubines (existing within

17484-505: The anthropologist must make his writing consistent with their understanding of literature and other theory but notes that ethnography may be of use to the anthropologists and the fields inform one another. One of the central problems in the anthropology of art concerns the universality of 'art' as a cultural phenomenon. Several anthropologists have noted that the Western categories of 'painting', 'sculpture', or 'literature', conceived as independent artistic activities, do not exist, or exist in

17672-446: The anthropology of 'art' into an anthropology of culturally specific 'aesthetics'. Media anthropology (also known as the anthropology of media or mass media) emphasizes ethnographic studies as a means of understanding producers, audiences, and other cultural and social aspects of mass media. The types of ethnographic contexts explored range from contexts of media production (e.g., ethnographies of newsrooms in newspapers, journalists in

17860-465: The area of research. Cultural anthropology, in particular, has emphasized cultural relativism , holism , and the use of findings to frame cultural critiques. This has been particularly prominent in the United States, from Boas' arguments against 19th-century racial ideology , through Margaret Mead 's advocacy for gender equality and sexual liberation, to current criticisms of post-colonial oppression and promotion of multiculturalism . Ethnography

18048-630: The army of Ismail Ibn Sharif as the Black Guard , based on the claim of them having descended from enslaved peoples from the times of the Saadian invasion. Shurafa historians of the modern period would later utilize these events in narratives about the manumission of enslaved "Hartani" (a vague term, which, by merit of it needing further definition, is implicit evidence for its historicity being questionable). The narratives derived from Shurafa historians would later become analogically incorporated into

18236-440: The arts and sciences. He was the first scholar to make a serious attempt to write the history of the world, eliminating theological frameworks, and emphasizing economics, culture and political history. Although he repeatedly warned against political bias on the part of the historian, he did not miss many opportunities to expose the intolerance and frauds of the church over the ages. Voltaire advised scholars that anything contradicting

18424-470: The authenticity of the text has varied throughout the centuries, and it was rediscovered too late to gain the same status as the Spring and Autumn Annals . Sima's Shiji ( Records of the Grand Historian ), initiated by his father the court astronomer Sima Tan (165–110 BC), pioneered the "Annals-biography" format, which would become the standard for prestige history writing in China. In this genre

18612-517: The biological and social factors that have affected the evolution of humans and other primates, and that generate, maintain or change contemporary genetic and physiological variation. Archaeology is the study of the human past through its material remains. Artifacts, faunal remains, and human altered landscapes are evidence of the cultural and material lives of past societies. Archaeologists examine material remains in order to deduce patterns of past human behavior and cultural practices. Ethnoarchaeology

18800-486: The biological development of humans. Archaeology , often termed as "anthropology of the past," studies human activity through investigation of physical evidence. It is considered a branch of anthropology in North America and Asia, while in Europe, archaeology is viewed as a discipline in its own right or grouped under other related disciplines, such as history and palaeontology . The abstract noun anthropology

18988-566: The comparison. It is to be presumed fundamentally that the species, man, is a unity, and that "the same laws of thought are applicable to all men". Waitz was influential among British ethnologists. In 1863, the explorer Richard Francis Burton and the speech therapist James Hunt broke away from the Ethnological Society of London to form the Anthropological Society of London , which henceforward would follow

19176-764: The conceptual separation of Africa has begun to develop. The Sahara has served as a trans-regional zone for peoples in Africa. Authors from various countries (e.g., Algeria, Cameroon, Sudan) in Africa have critiqued the conceptualization of the Sahara as a regional barrier, and provided counter-arguments supporting the interconnectedness of continental Africa; there are historic and cultural connections as well as trade between West Africa , North Africa , and East Africa (e.g., North Africa with Niger and Mali, North Africa with Tanzania and Sudan, major hubs of Islamic learning in Niger and Mali). Africa has been conceptually compartmentalized into meaning "Black Africa", "Africa South of

19364-513: The condition of Africa in terms of pathology and power as it relates to principles of good governance and market efficiency. Under the guise of African development, African systems of higher education (e.g., university missions, visions, curriculums, conceptual tools and theoretical foundations of social research) were subsequently revised to conform to the vision and principles of neoliberalism . Development studies became increasingly interconnected with African studies, as it had undergone growth as

19552-663: The deeds and characters of ancient personalities, stressing their human side. Tacitus ( c.  56  – c.  117  AD) denounces Roman immorality by praising German virtues, elaborating on the topos of the Noble savage . Tacitus' focus on personal character can also be viewed as pioneering work in psychohistory . Although rooted in Greek historiography, in some ways Roman historiography shared traits with Chinese historiography , lacking speculative theories and instead relying on annalistic forms, revering ancestors , and imparting moral lessons for their audiences, laying

19740-411: The demands of critical method, and even, after a time, the goal of writing "scientific" history. Thomas Carlyle published his three-volume The French Revolution: A History , in 1837. The first volume was accidentally burned by John Stuart Mill 's maid. Carlyle rewrote it from scratch. Carlyle's style of historical writing stressed the immediacy of action, often using the present tense. He emphasised

19928-539: The departments of history at British universities, 1,644 (29 percent) identified themselves with social history and 1,425 (25 percent) identified themselves with political history. Since the 1980s there has been a special interest in the memories and commemoration of past events—the histories as remembered and presented for popular celebration. In the early modern period , the term historiography meant "the writing of history", and historiographer meant " historian ". In that sense certain official historians were given

20116-509: The development of historiography during the Age of Enlightenment through his demonstration of fresh new ways to look at the past. Guillaume de Syon argues: Voltaire recast historiography in both factual and analytical terms. Not only did he reject traditional biographies and accounts that claim the work of supernatural forces, but he went so far as to suggest that earlier historiography was rife with falsified evidence and required new investigations at

20304-525: The dynasty becomes morally corrupt and dissolute. Eventually, the dynasty becomes so weak as to allow its replacement by a new dynasty. Christian historical writing arguably begins with the narrative sections of the New Testament, particularly Luke-Acts , which is the primary source for the Apostolic Age , though its historical reliability is disputed . The first tentative beginnings of

20492-550: The early 18th century. In 1647, the Bartholins , early scholars of the University of Copenhagen , defined l'anthropologie as follows: Anthropology, that is to say the science that treats of man, is divided ordinarily and with reason into Anatomy, which considers the body and the parts, and Psychology, which speaks of the soul. Sporadic use of the term for some of the subject matter occurred subsequently, such as

20680-403: The early 2000s. Reasons for increased study range from the restoration of civil and democratic institutions and government in Africa, to the third wave of African literature in Africa and the next up-and-coming scholars inspired by the literature, to Africa being projected to have the largest youth demographic in the world by 2050, to increasing investment by Asian countries, including China , to

20868-505: The field of ethnography . Ethnography can refer to both a methodology and the product of ethnographic research, i.e. an ethnographic monograph . As a methodology, ethnography is based upon long-term fieldwork within a community or other research site. Participant observation is one of the foundational methods of social and cultural anthropology. Ethnology involves the systematic comparison of different cultures. The process of participant-observation can be especially helpful to understanding

21056-441: The field of medical anthropology. Currently, research in medical anthropology is one of the main growth areas in the field of anthropology as a whole. It focuses on the following six basic fields: Other subjects that have become central to medical anthropology worldwide are violence and social suffering (Farmer, 1999, 2003; Beneduce, 2010) as well as other issues that involve physical and psychological harm and suffering that are not

21244-441: The field, film production) to contexts of media reception, following audiences in their everyday responses to media. Other types include cyber anthropology , a relatively new area of internet research , as well as ethnographies of other areas of research which happen to involve media, such as development work, social movements , or health education. This is in addition to many classic ethnographic contexts, where media such as radio,

21432-477: The first comprehensive work on historical criticism , arguing that historians should be skeptical of primary sources, rely on systematically gathered evidence, and should not treat previous scholars with undue deference. In 1084 the Song dynasty official Sima Guang completed the Zizhi Tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government), which laid out the entire history of China from the beginning of

21620-596: The first to use the term ethnology , was formed in 1839 and focused on methodically studying human races. After the death of its founder, William Frédéric Edwards , in 1842, it gradually declined in activity until it eventually dissolved in 1862. Meanwhile, the Ethnological Society of New York, currently the American Ethnological Society , was founded on its model in 1842, as well as the Ethnological Society of London in 1843,

21808-485: The focus of visual anthropology. Economic anthropology attempts to explain human economic behavior in its widest historic, geographic and cultural scope. It has a complex relationship with the discipline of economics, of which it is highly critical. Its origins as a sub-field of anthropology begin with the Polish-British founder of anthropology, Bronisław Malinowski , and his French compatriot, Marcel Mauss , on

21996-542: The former affect the latter. If economic and environmental changes in a community affect access to food, food security, and dietary health, then this interplay between culture and biology is in turn connected to broader historical and economic trends associated with globalization. Nutritional status affects overall health status, work performance potential, and the overall potential for economic development (either in terms of human development or traditional western models) for any given group of people. Psychological anthropology

22184-443: The four sub-fields of anthropology have lacked cohesion over the last several decades. Sociocultural anthropology draws together the principal axes of cultural anthropology and social anthropology . Cultural anthropology is the comparative study of the manifold ways in which people make sense of the world around them, while social anthropology is the study of the relationships among individuals and groups. Cultural anthropology

22372-432: The funding of grants rather than posts, as well as a transition toward contract-based (e.g., fixed term, part-time) hiring of academic professionals. Due to these market forces, long-term academic relationships (e.g., networks, collaborations) became increasingly temporary, which subsequently stifled the ability for innovative studies to be undertaken. Additionally, research focuses became increasingly narrowed to what would be

22560-416: The genres of history, such as political history and social history . Beginning in the nineteenth century, the development of academic history produced a great corpus of historiographic literature. The extent to which historians are influenced by their own groups and loyalties—such as to their nation state —remains a debated question. In Europe, the academic discipline of historiography was established in

22748-582: The groundwork for medieval Christian historiography . The Han dynasty eunuch Sima Qian (145–86 BC) was the first in China to lay the groundwork for professional historical writing . His work superseded the older style of the Spring and Autumn Annals , compiled in the 5th century BC, the Bamboo Annals , the Classic of History , and other court and dynastic annals that recorded history in

22936-470: The height of ancient political agitation. The now lost history of Alexander's campaigns by the diadoch Ptolemy I (367–283 BC) may represent the first historical work composed by a ruler. Polybius ( c.  203  – 120 BC) wrote on the rise of the Roman Republic to world prominence, and attempted to harmonize the Greek and Roman points of view. Diodorus Siculus composed

23124-452: The higher education system of the United Kingdom. Furthermore, the exclusivity and predominance of European-American epistemologies and methodologies contribute to perceptions of European scholars being experts and bearers of universal truth and African scholars and other scholars of color as bearing only a limited expertise in their cultural heritage and identity. The imperialistic power dynamics between non-Africans and Africans in shaping

23312-472: The history of Kings, Parliaments, and armies, he examined the history of culture, including literature and science, as well. His short biographies of leading scientists explored the process of scientific change and he developed new ways of seeing scientists in the context of their times by looking at how they interacted with society and each other—he paid special attention to Francis Bacon , Robert Boyle , Isaac Newton and William Harvey . He also argued that

23500-480: The history of ordinary French people and the landscape of France. Hippolyte Taine (1828–1893), although unable to secure an academic position, was the chief theoretical influence of French naturalism , a major proponent of sociological positivism , and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism. He pioneered the idea of "the milieu" as an active historical force which amalgamated geographical, psychological, and social factors. Historical writing for him

23688-418: The human group, considered as a whole, in its details, and in relation to the rest of nature". Broca, being what today would be called a neurosurgeon , had taken an interest in the pathology of speech. He wanted to localize the difference between man and the other animals, which appeared to reside in speech. He discovered the speech center of the human brain, today called Broca's area after him. His interest

23876-426: The lack of discretion foreign academics have shown toward them, bear resentment toward the way they have been depicted by foreign academics, and consequently, find the intended activities of foreign academics to be predictable. Rather than continuing to rely on the faulty present-day European Africanist paradigm, Mohamed (2012) recommends revising and improving the current Africanist paradigm (e.g., critical inspection of

24064-482: The last three decades of the 19th century, a proliferation of anthropological societies and associations occurred, most independent, most publishing their own journals, and all international in membership and association. The major theorists belonged to these organizations. They supported the gradual osmosis of anthropology curricula into the major institutions of higher learning. By 1898, 48 educational institutions in 13 countries had some curriculum in anthropology. None of

24252-466: The lists of winners in the Olympic Games that provided the basic chronological framework as long as the pagan classical tradition lasted, and Hellanicus of Lesbos , who compiled more than two dozen histories from civic records, all of them now lost. Thucydides largely eliminated divine causality in his account of the war between Athens and Sparta, establishing a rationalistic element which set

24440-478: The middle of the 1980s, the African higher education system and African studies also experienced turmoil (e.g., book famine, brain drain , collapse of the culture of research, collapse of local/epistemic communities and professional associations, decline in the ability of scholars to travel locally, infrastructure decay). The nationalist historiography that had spread earlier began to contract, even as neoliberal analyses and criticisms expanded, which sought to frame

24628-476: The most likely to attract grant money. With the transition of academic publications from print to Internet media, colonial and racial hierarchies were generally reinforced as online Anglophone media publications mediated international/non-African academic discourses and print-based media publications mediated African academic discourses. Further, African scholars continue to experience racism , bias , and discrimination as well as continue to be underrepresented in

24816-548: The narrative in African studies about Africa remains an ongoing problem. While the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) contributes considerable funding to African studies research to various countries (e.g., Ghana , Kenya , Nigeria , Senegal , South Africa ) in Africa, much of the funding sources for research originate from sources abroad. Non-African Africanists tend to operate in

25004-584: The native Ge'ez script , the 4th century AD Ezana Stone commemorating Ezana of Axum 's conquest of the Kingdom of Kush in Nubia also emphasized his conversion to Christianity (the first indigenous African head of state to do so). Aksumite manuscripts from the 5th to 7th centuries AD chronicling the dioceses and episcopal sees of the Coptic Orthodox Church demonstrate not only an adherence to Christian chronology but also influences from

25192-428: The nature of gift-giving exchange (or reciprocity ) as an alternative to market exchange. Economic Anthropology remains, for the most part, focused upon exchange. The school of thought derived from Marx and known as Political Economy focuses on production, in contrast. Economic anthropologists have abandoned the primitivist niche they were relegated to by economists, and have now turned to examine corporations, banks, and

25380-449: The nature of man". Following Broca's lead, Waitz points out that anthropology is a new field, which would gather material from other fields, but would differ from them in the use of comparative anatomy, physiology, and psychology to differentiate man from "the animals nearest to him". He stresses that the data of comparison must be empirical, gathered by experimentation. The history of civilization, as well as ethnology, are to be brought into

25568-453: The neutral and detached tone of the tradition of Gibbon. Carlyle presented the history as dramatic events unfolding in the present as though he and the reader were participants on the streets of Paris at the famous events. Carlyle's invented style was epic poetry combined with philosophical treatise. It is rarely read or cited in the last century. In his main work Histoire de France (1855), French historian Jules Michelet (1798–1874) coined

25756-617: The non-Christian Kingdom of Kush, the Ptolemaic dynasty of Hellenistic Egypt , and the Yemenite Jews of the Himyarite Kingdom . The tradition of Ethiopian historiography evolved into a matured form during the Solomonic dynasty . Though works such as the 13th century Kebra Nagast blended Christian mythology with historical events in its narrative, the first proper biographical chronicle on an Emperor of Ethiopia

25944-835: The normal course of nature was not to be believed. Although he found evil in the historical record, he fervently believed reason and educating the illiterate masses would lead to progress. Voltaire's History of Charles XII (1731) about the Swedish warrior king ( Swedish : Karl XII) is also one of his most famous works. It is not least known as one of Napoleon's absolute favorite books. Voltaire explains his view of historiography in his article on "History" in Diderot's Encyclopédie : "One demands of modern historians more details, better ascertained facts, precise dates, more attention to customs, laws, mores, commerce, finance, agriculture, population." Already in 1739 he had written: "My chief object

26132-563: The origins and introduction of the present characterization of the Saharan caravan; reconsideration of what makes the trans-Saharan slave trade, within its own context in Africa, distinct from the trans-Atlantic slave trade; realistic consideration of the experiences of darker-skinned Maghrebians within their own regional context). Merolla (2017) has indicated that the academic study of sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa by Europeans developed with North Africa being conceptually subsumed within

26320-842: The past) continue to affect Africans on the continent and in the diaspora . After roughly 40 years, Africanization of the curriculums (e.g., theory, method, evidence) in Africa remains ongoing. The current major problem in African studies that Mohamed (2010/2012) identified is the inherited religious, Orientalist , colonial paradigm that European Africanists have preserved in present-day secularist , post-colonial , Anglophone African historiography . African and African-American scholars also bear some responsibility in perpetuating this European Africanist preserved paradigm . Following conceptualizations of Africa developed by Leo Africanus and Hegel , European Africanists conceptually separated continental Africa into two racialized regions – sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa . Sub-Saharan Africa, as

26508-481: The path of the new anthropology rather than just ethnology. It was the 2nd society dedicated to general anthropology in existence. Representatives from the French Société were present, though not Broca. In his keynote address, printed in the first volume of its new publication, The Anthropological Review , Hunt stressed the work of Waitz, adopting his definitions as a standard. Among the first associates were

26696-434: The patterns of domination and inequality between Europeans and Africans. Deconstructionist methods contributed to the increasing realization that European imperialistic ideas and conceptualizations of evidence, data, and truth interfered with the ability of researchers to engage with the ideas and conceptualizations that were held by and lived out by Africans in their daily lives. While research focus on Africa decreased in

26884-561: The present-day European Africanist paradigm have in common. Due to a lack of considerable development in field research regarding enslavement in Islamic societies, this has resulted in the present-day European Africanist paradigm relying on unreliable estimates for the trans-Saharan slave trade. However, insufficient data has also used as a justification for continued use of the faulty present-day European Africanist paradigm. Darker skinned Maghrebians, particularly in Morocco, have grown weary of

27072-441: The press , new media , and television have started to make their presences felt since the early 1990s. Ethnomusicology is an academic field encompassing various approaches to the study of music (broadly defined), that emphasize its cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dimensions or contexts instead of or in addition to its isolated sound component or any particular repertoire. Ethnomusicology can be used in

27260-425: The presumptions of European imperialism and advocated for Africans to have a knowledge of themselves due to this being essential to the political and economic wellness of their citizenry. Consequently, the dialectics of African independence made way for European scholars, such as Basil Davidson and Thomas Hodgkin , to begin to contest colonial ideas and standards (e.g., requirements of documentary evidence like what

27448-459: The primary reference point for its construction of origins narratives for darker skinned North Africans (e.g., imported slaves from Sub-Saharan West Africa ). With darker skinned North Africans or darker skinned Africans in the Islamic world treated as an allegory of alterity , another part of the textual tradition is the trans-Saharan slave trade and their presence in these regions are treated as that of an African diaspora in North Africa and

27636-422: The provision of data, initiation of direct action, and/or the formulation of policy". Applied anthropology is the practical side of anthropological research; it includes researcher involvement and activism within the participating community. It is closely related to development anthropology (distinct from the more critical anthropology of development ). Anthropology of development tends to view development from

27824-451: The pursuit of anthropology by first-wave feminists until later in life. This correction of systemic bias may include mainstream feminist theory , history , linguistics , archaeology , and anthropology. Feminist anthropologists are often concerned with the construction of gender across societies. Gender constructs are of particular interest when studying sexism . According to St. Clair Drake , Vera Mae Green was, until "[w]ell into

28012-583: The quest for liberty was the highest standard for judging the past, and concluded that after considerable fluctuation, England at the time of his writing had achieved "the most entire system of liberty, that was ever known amongst mankind". The apex of Enlightenment history was reached with Edward Gibbon 's monumental six-volume work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , published on 17 February 1776. Because of its relative objectivity and heavy use of primary sources , its methodology became

28200-461: The result of processes or laws unknown to them then. For them, the publication of Charles Darwin 's On the Origin of Species was the epiphany of everything they had begun to suspect. Darwin himself arrived at his conclusions through comparison of species he had seen in agronomy and in the wild. Darwin and Wallace unveiled evolution in the late 1850s. There was an immediate rush to bring it into

28388-484: The role as perceived experts of the field, who shape the image and view of Africa to countries abroad, whereas African researchers tend to operate in the role of consultants/assistants. Consequently, the narrative in African studies tends to reflect non-African interests and views rather than African interests and views. Since African independence, the long-term effects and persisting elements of enslavement and colonialism (e.g., racist fantasies and projections, silencing of

28576-427: The role of forces of the spirit in history and thought that chaotic events demanded what he called 'heroes' to take control over the competing forces erupting within society. He considered the dynamic forces of history as being the hopes and aspirations of people that took the form of ideas, and were often ossified into ideologies. Carlyle's The French Revolution was written in a highly unorthodox style, far removed from

28764-491: The scholarly production of knowledge. Anthropology engages often with feminists from non-Western traditions, whose perspectives and experiences can differ from those of white feminists of Europe, America, and elsewhere. From the perspective of the Western world , historically such 'peripheral' perspectives have been ignored, observed only from an outsider perspective, and regarded as less-valid or less-important than knowledge from

28952-605: The secularist narratives of the present-day European Africanist paradigm. The Orientalist stereotyped hypersexuality of the Moors were viewed by 19th century European abolitionists as deriving from the Quran. The reference to times prior, often used in concert with biblical references, by 19th century European abolitionists, may indicate that realities described of Moors may have been literary fabrications. The purpose of these apparent literary fabrications may have been to affirm their view of

29140-572: The similarities between the two. In the Francophone world, construction of racialized regions, such as Black Africa (sub-Saharan Africans) and White Africa (North Africans, e.g., Berbers and Arabs), has also developed. Despite having invoked and utilized identities in reference to the racialized conceptualizations of Africa (e.g., North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa) to oppose imposed identities, Berbers have invoked North African identity to oppose Arabized and Islamicized identities, and sub-Saharan Africans (e.g., Negritude , Black Consciousness ) and

29328-566: The social sciences. Paul Broca in Paris was in the process of breaking away from the Société de biologie to form the first of the explicitly anthropological societies, the Société d'Anthropologie de Paris , meeting for the first time in Paris in 1859. When he read Darwin, he became an immediate convert to Transformisme , as the French called evolutionism . His definition now became "the study of

29516-488: The social uses of language, and the relationship between language and culture. It is the branch of anthropology that brings linguistic methods to bear on anthropological problems, linking the analysis of linguistic forms and processes to the interpretation of sociocultural processes. Linguistic anthropologists often draw on related fields including sociolinguistics , pragmatics , cognitive linguistics , semiotics , discourse analysis , and narrative analysis. Ethnography

29704-635: The source. Such an outlook was not unique in that the scientific spirit that 18th-century intellectuals perceived themselves as invested with. A rationalistic approach was key to rewriting history. Voltaire's best-known histories are The Age of Louis XIV (1751), and his Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations (1756). He broke from the tradition of narrating diplomatic and military events, and emphasized customs, social history and achievements in

29892-496: The south of Saharan Africa, into North Africa and the Islamic world. Despite being an inherited part of the 19th century religious polemical narratives, the use of race in the secularist narrative of the present-day European Africanist paradigm has given the paradigm an appearance of possessing scientific quality. The religious polemical narrative (e.g., holy cause, hostile neologisms ) of 19th century European abolitionists about Africa and Africans are silenced, but still preserved, in

30080-543: The staff of the emergent African Studies organizations. Following African independence and the end of World War II, colonial methods of producing knowledge underwent challenges and changes. Due to World War II occurring and Africa not being directly partaking in it, the African world was viewed by many Africans as a distinct option apart from the Eastern world and Western world , and African leaders (e.g., Nnamdi Azikiwe , Kwame Nkrumah , Leopold Senghor ) refused to accept

30268-604: The study of the patterns of social relationships in one or more human cultures, or it can refer to the patterns of social relationships themselves. Over its history, anthropology has developed a number of related concepts and terms, such as " descent ", " descent groups ", " lineages ", " affines ", " cognates ", and even " fictive kinship ". Broadly, kinship patterns may be considered to include people related both by descent (one's social relations during development), and also relatives by marriage. Within kinship you have two different families. People have their biological families and it

30456-521: The study of North Africa has largely been initiated by the Arabophone and Francophone world, denial of the Arabic language having become Africanized throughout the centuries it has been present in Africa has shown that the conceptual separation of Africa remains pervasive in the Francophone world; this denial may stem from historic development of the characterization of an Islamic Arabia existing as

30644-400: The subjects it covers. Christian theology considered time as linear, progressing according to divine plan. As God's plan encompassed everyone, Christian histories in this period had a universal approach. For example, Christian writers often included summaries of important historical events prior to the period covered by the work. Writing history was popular among Christian monks and clergy in

30832-616: The term Renaissance (meaning "rebirth" in French ), as a period in Europe's cultural history that represented a break from the Middle Ages, creating a modern understanding of humanity and its place in the world. The 19-volume work covered French history from Charlemagne to the outbreak of the French Revolution . His inquiry into manuscript and printed authorities was most laborious, but his lively imagination, and his strong religious and political prejudices, made him regard all things from

31020-419: The term "Haratin" remains speculative, the term may not date much earlier than the 18th century CE and has been involuntarily assigned to darker skinned Maghrebians. Prior to the modern use of the term Haratin as an identifier, and utilized in contrast to bidan or bayd (white), sumr/asmar, suud/ aswad , or sudan/sudani (black/brown) were Arabic terms utilized as identifiers for darker skinned Maghrebians before

31208-503: The term "historiography" is taken to refer to written history recorded in a narrative format for the purpose of informing future generations about events. In this limited sense, " ancient history " begins with the written history of early historiography in Classical Antiquity , established in 5th century BC Classical Greece . The earliest known systematic historical thought and methodologies emerged in ancient Greece and

31396-692: The time of the Han Empire in Ancient China . During the Middle Ages , medieval historiography included the works of chronicles in medieval Europe , the Ethiopian Empire in the Horn of Africa , Islamic histories by Muslim historians , and the Korean and Japanese historical writings based on the existing Chinese model. During the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment , historiography in

31584-447: The times. According to 20th-century historian Richard Hofstadter: The historians of the nineteenth century worked under the pressure of two internal tensions: on one side there was the constant demand of society—whether through the nationstate, the church, or some special group or class interest—for memory mixed with myth, for the historical tale that would strengthen group loyalties or confirm national pride; and against this there were

31772-493: The title " Historiographer Royal " in Sweden (from 1618), England (from 1660), and Scotland (from 1681). The Scottish post is still in existence. Historiography was more recently defined as "the study of the way history has been and is written—the history of historical writing", which means that, "When you study 'historiography' you do not study the events of the past directly, but the changing interpretations of those events in

31960-423: The understanding of cognition, emotion, motivation, and similar psychological processes inform or constrain our models of cultural and social processes. Historiography Historiography is the study of the methods used by historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension, the term historiography is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of

32148-479: The use by Étienne Serres in 1839 to describe the natural history, or paleontology, of man, based on comparative anatomy, and the creation of a chair in anthropology and ethnography in 1850 at the French National Museum of Natural History by Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau . Various short-lived organizations of anthropologists had already been formed. The Société Ethnologique de Paris ,

32336-596: The use of secondary sources written by historians to evaluate the primary sources, do not provide a critical examination of the methodology of the early Philippine historical study. During the Age of Enlightenment , the modern development of historiography through the application of scrupulous methods began. Among the many Italians who contributed to this were Leonardo Bruni (c. 1370–1444), Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540), and Cesare Baronio (1538–1607). French philosophe Voltaire (1694–1778) had an enormous influence on

32524-499: The variations among different groups of humans, how the evolutionary past of Homo sapiens has influenced its social organization and culture, and from social sciences , including the organization of human social and cultural relations, institutions, social conflicts, etc. Early anthropology originated in Classical Greece and Persia and studied and tried to understand observable cultural diversity, such as by Al-Biruni of

32712-517: The work of Franz Boas and Bronisław Malinowski in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, social anthropology in Great Britain and cultural anthropology in the US have been distinguished from other social sciences by their emphasis on cross-cultural comparisons , long-term in-depth examination of context, and the importance they place on participant-observation or experiential immersion in

32900-600: The works of individual historians." Understanding the past appears to be a universal human need, and the "telling of history" has emerged independently in civilizations around the world. What constitutes history is a philosophical question (see philosophy of history ). The earliest chronologies date back to ancient Egypt and Sumerian / Akkadian Mesopotamia , in the form of chronicles and annals . However, most historical writers in these early civilizations were not known by name, and their works usually did not contain narrative structures or detailed analysis. By contrast,

33088-576: The young Edward Burnett Tylor , inventor of cultural anthropology , and his brother Alfred Tylor , a geologist. Previously Edward had referred to himself as an ethnologist; subsequently, an anthropologist. Similar organizations in other countries followed: The Anthropological Society of Madrid (1865), the American Anthropological Association in 1902, the Anthropological Society of Vienna (1870),

33276-408: Was an important exponent of the Greco-Roman tradition of combining geography with history, presenting a descriptive history of peoples and places known to his era. The Roman historian Sallust (86–35 BC) sought to analyze and document what he viewed as the decline of the Republican Roman state and its virtues, highlighted in his respective narrative accounts of the Catilinarian conspiracy and

33464-426: Was completed in 1145 and relied not only on earlier Chinese histories for source material, but also on the Hwarang Segi written by the Silla historian Kim Daemun in the 8th century. The latter work is now lost. The Shitong , published around 710 by the Tang Chinese historian Liu Zhiji (661–721), was the first work to provide an outline of the entire tradition of Chinese historiography up to that point, and

33652-407: Was concerned with the "pre-capitalist" societies that were subject to evolutionary "tribal" stereotypes. Sahlin's work on hunter-gatherers as the "original affluent society" did much to dissipate that image. The second area was concerned with the vast majority of the world's population at the time, the peasantry, many of whom were involved in complex revolutionary wars such as in Vietnam. The third area

33840-468: Was made for Amda Seyon I (r. 1314–1344), depicted as a Christian savior of his nation in conflicts with the Islamic Ifat Sultanate . The 16th century monk Bahrey was the first in Ethiopia to produce a historical ethnography , focusing on the migrating Oromo people who came into military conflict with the Ethiopian Empire. While royal biographies existed for individual Ethiopian emperors authored by court historians who were also clerical scholars within

34028-416: Was mainly in Biological anthropology , but a German philosopher specializing in psychology, Theodor Waitz , took up the theme of general and social anthropology in his six-volume work, entitled Die Anthropologie der Naturvölker , 1859–1864. The title was soon translated as "The Anthropology of Primitive Peoples". The last two volumes were published posthumously. Waitz defined anthropology as "the science of

34216-424: Was never content with secondhand accounts when the primary sources were accessible (though most of these were drawn from well-known printed editions). He said, "I have always endeavoured to draw from the fountain-head; that my curiosity, as well as a sense of duty, has always urged me to study the originals; and that, if they have sometimes eluded my search, I have carefully marked the secondary evidence, on whose faith

34404-491: Was not called philosophia historiae anymore, but merely history ( historia ). Muslim historical writings first began to develop in the 7th century, with the reconstruction of the Prophet Muhammad 's life in the centuries following his death. With numerous conflicting narratives regarding Muhammad and his companions from various sources, it was necessary to verify which sources were more reliable. In order to evaluate these sources, various methodologies were developed, such as

34592-506: Was on colonialism, imperialism, and the creation of the capitalist world-system . More recently, these political economists have more directly addressed issues of industrial (and post-industrial) capitalism around the world. Applied anthropology refers to the application of the method and theory of anthropology to the analysis and solution of practical problems. It is a "complex of related, research-based, instrumental methods which produce change or stability in specific cultural systems through

34780-428: Was the work of several different writers: it was started during the reign of Alfred the Great in the late 9th century, but one copy was still being updated in 1154. Some writers in the period did construct a more narrative form of history. These included Gregory of Tours and more successfully Bede , who wrote both secular and ecclesiastical history and who is known for writing the Ecclesiastical History of

34968-495: Was undertaken and driven by Africans; the African intellectuals that drove this nationalist historiography drew from local epistemic communities while partaking in the international academic community. With an increasing realization of the lasting impacts of enslavement and colonialism that were still present during the middle of the 1970s, Walter Rodney theorized about and authored, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa . African scholars added to this theorization in highlighting

35156-445: Was used for the history of Europe ) that resulted in the history of Africa being dismissed. The inherent dynamics of Africa and the value and use of African orature as a form of evidence was underscored by African scholar, Kenneth Dike . In 1964, the General History of Africa was developed by various African scholars (e.g., Jacob Ajayi , Adu Boahen , Ali Mazrui , Djibril Tamsir Niane , Bethwell Allan Ogot , Ki-Zerbo ). After

35344-433: Was written in Latin , in a conscious effort to counteract Greek cultural influence. It marked the beginning of Latin historical writings . Hailed for its lucid style, Julius Caesar 's (103–44 BC) de Bello Gallico exemplifies autobiographical war coverage. The politician and orator Cicero (106–43 BC) introduced rhetorical elements in his political writings. Strabo (63 BC – c.  24  AD)

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