143-667: The Seeley Historical Library was originally established as the history library of the University of Cambridge , England . It now holds collections for history, land economy, Latin American studies, politics and international studies and sociology. It is housed within the History Faculty building on the Sidgwick Site off West Road , Cambridge . Since October 2003, incoming books have been classified according to
286-803: 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
429-507: 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,
572-425: 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
715-597: A further attempt to remedy the issue was made in the Summer of 2015, when an entirely new surface was given to the flat concrete roof over the book stacks. In November 2021, a petition calling on the University of Cambridge to change the name of the library to the History Faculty Library has attracted more than 600 signatures. 28 university societies and organisations have backed the petition, including
858-521: A general-purpose writing system with logograms, syllables, and numerals. From the 26th century BCE, the system was adapted to write the Akkadian language , and from there to others, such as Hurrian and Hittite . Scripts similar in appearance to this writing system include those for Ugaritic and Old Persian . Geoffrey Sampson states that Egyptian hieroglyphs "came into existence a little after Sumerian script, and, probably [were], invented under
1001-405: A historian writes a text about slavery based on an analysis of historical documents, then the text 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
1144-650: A language of scholarship. Arabic script was adopted as the primary script of the Persian language and the Old Turkic language . This script also heavily influenced the development of the cursive scripts of Greek, the Slavic languages , Latin , and other languages. The Arabic language also served to spread the Hindu–Arabic numeral system throughout Europe. By the 11th century, the city of Córdoba, Andalusia in what
1287-714: A memorial fund was raised to commemorate historian Sir John Seeley ’s services to the British Empire and to the University; the greater part of this fund was devoted to the endowment of the library, which was named in his honour in 1897. In 1912 the collection relocated to the top floor of the Arts School, Bene't Street , then in 1935 to the Old Schools . In 1968 the Seeley moved to the Sidgwick site as part of
1430-601: A number of Italic scripts derived from the western Greeks. Due to the cultural dominance of the Roman state, the other Old Italic scripts have not survived in any great quantity, and the Etruscan language is mostly lost. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, the production and transmission of literature that had previously been widespread across the Roman world became largely confined to
1573-448: 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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#17327938246851716-606: 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 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
1859-682: A slow decline in importance as the Islamic Golden Age ended. The revival of literacy development in Western Europe led to many innovations in the Latin alphabet and the diversification of the alphabet to codify the phonologies of the various languages. The nature of writing has been constantly evolving, particularly due to the development of new technologies over the centuries. The pen, printing press , computer, and mobile phone are all technological developments which have altered what
2002-431: 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
2145-525: 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 . The word history comes from historía ( Ancient Greek : ἱστορία , romanized : historíā , lit. 'inquiry, knowledge from inquiry, or judge' ). It
2288-671: 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
2431-490: A time after the reformation, expressed the importance of religion in the control of the state and state bureaucracies. In Europe and its colonies in the Americas, the introduction of the printing press and decreasing cost of paper and printing allowed for greater access of ordinary citizens to gain information about the government and conditions in other regions within the jurisdictions. The Reformation with an emphasis on individual reading of sacred texts, eventually increased
2574-519: Is Enheduanna , who is credited as the author of a number of works of Sumerian literature, including Exaltation of Inanna , in the Sumerian language during the 24th century BCE. The next earliest named author is Ptahhotep , who is credited with authoring The Maxims of Ptahhotep , an instructional book for young men in Egyptian composed in the 23rd century BCE. The Epic of Gilgamesh
2717-589: Is attested as early as the 7th millennium BCE, with well-known examples including: Other examples of proto-writing include quipu , a system of knotted cords used as mnemonic devices within the Inca Empire (15th century CE). The origins of writing are more generally attributed to the start of the pottery-phase of the Neolithic , when clay tokens were used to record specific amounts of livestock or commodities. These tokens were initially impressed on
2860-601: Is attested only indirectly. The common manuscript materials in Mesopotamia world were the tablet and the roll, the former probably having a Chaldean origin, the latter an Egyptian. The tablets of the Chaldeans are small pieces of clay, somewhat crudely shaped into a form resembling a pillow, and thickly inscribed with cuneiform characters. Similar use has been seen in hollow cylinders, or prisms of six or eight sides, formed of fine terracotta , sometimes glazed, on which
3003-401: Is crossed when people cease to live only in the present, and become consciously interested both in their past and in their future. History begins with the handing down of tradition; and tradition means the carrying of the habits and lessons of the past into the future. Records of the past begin to be kept for the benefit of future generations. This definition includes within the scope of history
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#17327938246853146-435: 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
3289-400: Is evidenced by still existing papyrus of the earliest Theban dynasties. As the papyrus, being in great demand, and exported to all parts of the world, became very costly, other materials were often used instead of it, among which is mentioned leather, a few leather mills of an early period having been found in the tombs. Parchment , using sheepskins left after the wool was removed for cloth,
3432-662: Is now southern Spain had become one of the world's foremost intellectual centers, and was the site of the largest library in Europe. By the 14th century, the Renaissance in Europe led to a temporary revival of the importance of Greek, and a slow revival of Latin as a significant literary language . A similar though smaller emergence occurred in Eastern Europe, especially in Russia. At the same time Arabic and Persian began
3575-401: 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. Human history
3718-407: 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
3861-529: 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,
4004-415: Is the memory of the past experience of Homo sapiens around the world, as that experience has been preserved, largely in written records. By "prehistory", historians mean the recovery of knowledge of the past in an area where no written records exist, or where the writing of a culture is not understood. By studying painting, drawings, carvings, and other artifacts, some information can be recovered even in
4147-426: Is the process of analyzing and evaluating the information a source provides. Typically, this process begins with external criticism, which evaluates 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,
4290-462: Is the systematic study and documentation of the human past . History is an academic discipline which uses a narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze 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
4433-421: 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
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4576-399: 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
4719-531: Is written, and the medium through which the written word is produced. The mediums, materials, and technologies used by literate societies for writing help determine how writing systems work, what writing is used for, and what social impact it has. For example, the physical durability of the materials used directly determines what historical examples of writing have survived for later analysis: while bodies of inscriptions in stone, bone, or metal are attested from each ancient literate society, much manuscript culture
4862-532: The Ancient South Arabian script , which had initially been used to write early Geʽez texts. Most alphabetic writing systems presently in use either descended from Proto-Sinaitic—usually via the Phoenician alphabet —or were directly inspired by its descendants. In Italy, about 500 years separated the early Old Italic scripts from Plautus ( c. 750–250 BCE ), and in the case of
5005-542: The Byzantine and Sasanian empires, where the primary literary languages were Greek and Persian respectively—though other languages such as Syriac and Coptic were also important. The spread of Islam in the 7th century brought about the rapid establishment of Arabic as a major literary language in much of the Mediterranean and Central Asia. Arabic and Persian quickly began to overshadow Greek's role as
5148-649: The Germanic peoples , the corresponding time span is again similar, from the first Elder Futhark inscriptions to early texts like the Abrogans ( c. 200–750 CE ). These early abjads remained of marginal importance for several centuries, and it is only towards the end of the Bronze Age that forms of Proto-Sinaitic script split into the Proto-Canaanite alphabet ( c. 1400 BCE ),
5291-769: The Hebrew , Arabic and Syriac abjads—with descendants spread as far as the Mongolian script . The South Arabian alphabet gave rise to the Ge'ez abugida . The history of the Greek alphabet began as early as the 8th century BCE, when the Greeks adapted the Phoenician alphabet for their own use. The letters of the Greek alphabet generally visually correspond to those of the Phoenician alphabet, and both came to be arranged using
5434-644: 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,
5577-557: The Library of Congress scheme ; before that a unique system was used. The history library was established in 1807 with a collection of a thousand books donated by the will of John Symonds , professor of modern history. After some years of neglect, the library again became a priority in 1884, on the behest of Oscar Browning . It was moved from the gallery of the Philosophical Library to King's College in 1890. In 1895
5720-559: 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
5863-509: The Qin and Han dynasties, which set out a full system of social control and governance, with criminal procedures and accountability for both government officials and citizens. These laws required complex reporting and documenting procedures to facilitate hierarchical supervision from the village up to the imperial center. While common law developed in a mostly oral environment in England after
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6006-515: 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
6149-521: 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
6292-409: The medical sciences , such as artifacts and fossils unearthed from excavations . Primary sources offer the most direct evidence of historical events. A secondary source is a source that analyzes 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
6435-472: The methods they employ, such as quantitative history and digital history , which rely on quantitative methods and digital media . Comparative history compares historical phenomena from distinct times, regions, or cultures to examine their similarities and differences. Unlike most other branches, oral history relies on oral reports rather than written documents. It reflects the personal experiences and interpretations of what common people remember about
6578-445: 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
6721-482: The 13th century BCE. The earliest attested Chinese writing comprise the body of inscriptions on oracle bones and bronze vessels dating to the Late Shang period ( c. 1200 – c. 1050 BCE ), with the earliest of these dated c. 1250 BCE . Cretan hieroglyphs are found on artifacts of Crete (2nd millennium BCE, MM I to MM III, overlapping with Linear A from MM IIA at
6864-511: 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;
7007-645: 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
7150-649: The 3rd century BCE, and writing was in continuous use from the 1st century CE until shortly after the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century. Maya writing used logograms complemented by a set of syllabic glyphs. The Phoenician alphabet is the continuation of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet into the Iron Age ; it in turn gave rise to the Aramaic and Greek alphabets. To date, most of
7293-509: 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
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#17327938246857436-517: 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
7579-622: The Egyptian empire, and literacy was concentrated among an educated elite of scribes. Only people from certain backgrounds were allowed to train as scribes, in the service of temple, royal, and military authorities. The first alphabetic writing was developed by workers in the Sinai Peninsula to write Semitic languages c. 2000 BCE . This script worked by giving Egyptian hieratic letters Semitic sound values. The Geʽez script native to Ethiopia and Eritrea descends from
7722-548: The Egyptian one. However, scholars have noted that the attestation at Abydos is singular and sudden, while the gradual evolution of the Mesopotamian system is lengthy and well-documented, with its predecessor token system used in agriculture and accounting attested as early as 8000 BCE. As there is no evidence of contact between the Chinese Shang dynasty ( c. 1600 – c. 1050 BCE ) and
7865-514: 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,
8008-688: The Old Kingdom c. 2150 BCE . The Torah—comprising the first five books of the Hebrew Bible —codified the laws of Ancient Israel. Many other codes were to follow in Greece and Rome, with Roman law to serve as a model for church canon law and secular law throughout much of Europe during later periods. In China, the earliest indications of written codifications of law or books of punishments are inscriptions on bronze vessels in 536 BCE. The earliest extant full set of laws dates back to
8151-496: The Roman period, with the return of the church and the Norman conquest , customary law began to be inscribed as were precedents of the courts; however, many elements remained oral, with documents only memorializing public oaths, wills, land transfers, court judgments, and ceremonies. During the late medieval period, however, documents gained authority for agreements, transactions, and laws. Writing has been central to expanding many of
8294-754: The Student Union, which is calling on the university's history department to rename the Seeley Historical Library because its current name celebrates John Robert Seeley, a Cambridge historian “known for his justification of the British Empire". At Christ’s College where Seeley studied and was a tutor, the former "Seeley History Society" has been renamed "Christ’s College History Society". History History (derived from Ancient Greek ἱστορία ( historía ) 'inquiry; knowledge acquired by investigation')
8437-470: 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
8580-555: The absence of a written record. Since the 20th century, the study of prehistory is considered essential to avoid history's implicit exclusion of certain civilizations, such as those of sub-Saharan Africa and pre-Columbian America . Historians in the West have been criticized for focusing disproportionately on the Western world . In 1961, British historian E. H. Carr wrote: The line of demarcation between prehistoric and historical times
8723-486: 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
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#17327938246858866-406: The aim of producing and disseminating knowledge-bearing texts; the contemporary world identifies such social groups as disciplines and their products as disciplinary literatures. The invention of writing facilitated the sharing, comparing, criticizing, and evaluating of texts, resulting in knowledge becoming a more communal property across wider geographic and temporal domains. Religious texts formed
9009-402: The bare idea of writing between cultures. Due to the lack of direct evidence for the transfer of writing, "no definitive determination has been made as to the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt." During the 1990s, symbols originally inscribed between 3400 and 3200 BCE were discovered at Abydos , which shed some doubt on the previous notion that the Mesopotamian sign system predated
9152-493: 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
9295-406: 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
9438-479: The characters were traced with a small stylus, in some specimens so minutely as to require the aid of a magnifying glass. In Egypt the principal writing material was of quite a different sort. Wooden tablets are found pictured on the monuments, while papyrus was also used as early as the 4th millennium BCE. The papyrus reed grew chiefly in Lower Egypt and had various economic means for writing. The pith
9581-409: The common knowledge of scriptural religions, and knowledge of those sacred scriptures became the focus of institutions of religious belief, interpretation, and schooling. Scholars have disagreed concerning when written record-keeping became more like literature, but the oldest surviving literary texts date from a full millennium after the invention of writing. The earliest literary author known by name
9724-409: The content of linguistic utterances can be accurately reconstructed by later readers, is a later development. As proto-writing is not capable of fully reflecting the grammar and lexicon used in languages, it is often difficult or impossible to deduce what the author intended to communicate. The earliest uses of writing were to document agricultural transactions and contracts in ancient Sumer , but it
9867-442: 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
10010-412: The core functions of governance through law, regulation, taxation, and documentary surveillance of citizens; all dependent on growth of bureaucracy which elaborates and administers rules and policies and maintains records. These developments which rely on writing increase the power and extent of states. At the same time writing has increased the ability of citizens to become informed about the operations of
10153-408: The culture. Scholars have disagreed concerning when prehistory becomes history and when proto-writing became true writing. Sumerian writing evolved from a system of clay tokens used to represent commodities. By the end of the 4th millennium BCE, this had evolved into a method of keeping accounts, which recorded numbers using a round stylus pressed into the clay at different angles. This system
10296-514: 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 . Some branches of history are characterized by
10439-432: The distribution of shares, and records management . Economic theory itself only began to be developed in the latter eighteenth century through the writings of such theorists as François Quesnay and Adam Smith . Even the concepts of an economy and a national economy were established through their texts and the texts of their colleagues. Since then economics has developed as a field with many authors contributing texts to
10582-471: The earliest true writing systems, both having gradually evolved from proto-writing between 3400 and 3100 BCE. The Proto-Elamite script is also believed to have been in use during this period. Regarding Egyptian hieroglyphs, scholars point to very early differences with Sumerian cuneiform "in structure and style" as to why the two systems "(must) have developed independently," and if any "stimulus diffusion" of writing did occur, it only served to transmit
10725-528: The earliest). Linear B, the writing system of the Mycenaean Greeks , has been deciphered while Linear A has yet to be deciphered. The sequence and the geographical spread of the three overlapping, but distinct, writing systems can be summarized as follows: Of several symbol systems used in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica , the Maya script appears to be the best developed, and has been fully deciphered. The earliest inscriptions identifiable as Maya date to
10868-417: The emergence of newspapers with national circulation along with scripted national radio and television news broadcasts also created horizons of attention through the 20th century, with both benefits and costs. Much of what is considered knowledge is inscribed in written text and is the result of communal processes of production, sharing, and evaluation among social groups and institutions bound together with
11011-428: 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
11154-548: 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
11297-425: 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
11440-505: 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
11583-555: The form of governance is. Extensive bureaucracies arose in the ancient Near East and China which relied on a literate class of scribes and bureaucrats. In the Ancient Near East this was carried out through the formation of scribal schools, while in China this led to a series of written imperial examinations based on classic texts which in effect regulated education over millennia. Literacy remained associated with rise in
11726-428: 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
11869-537: 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
12012-425: 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,
12155-487: 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
12298-513: The government bureaucracy, and printing as it emerged was tightly controlled by the government, with vernacular texts only emerging later and then being limited in their range up through the early twentieth century and the fall of the Ching dynasty. In ancient Greece and Rome, class distinctions of citizen and slave, wealthy and poor limited education and participation. In Medieval and early modern Europe church dominance of education, both before and for
12441-764: The historical period in which they were writing, which is not necessarily the same as the period in which they specialized. Chroniclers and annalists , though they are not historians in the true sense, are also frequently included. History of writing#Inventions of writing The history of writing traces the development of writing systems and how their use transformed and was transformed by different societies. The use of writing prefigures various social and psychological consequences associated with literacy and literary culture. Each historical invention of writing emerged from systems of proto-writing that used ideographic and mnemonic symbols but were not capable of fully recording spoken language. True writing , where
12584-634: 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
12727-453: The independent development of writing within Egypt. The Abydos glyphs, found in tomb U-J, are written on ivory and are likely labels for other goods found in the grave. While sign usage in Mesopotamian tokens is attested c. 8000 BCE , Egyptian writing appears suddenly in the late 4th millennium BCE. Frank J. Yurco states that depictions of pharaonic iconography such as
12870-684: 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 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
13013-461: 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,
13156-454: The influence of the latter", and that it is "probable that the general idea of expressing words of a language in writing was brought to Egypt from Sumerian Mesopotamia". However, more recent scholars have held that the evidence for direct influence is sparse. During the 1990s, the discovery of glyphs at Abydos dated between 3400 and 3200 BCE has challenged the hypothesis that writing diffused from Mesopotamia to Egypt, pointing instead to
13299-411: The information content of a source is understood, internal criticism is specifically interested in determining accuracy. Critics ask whether 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
13442-402: The interest in the past held by such peoples as Aboriginal Australians and New Zealand Māori , and the oral records they maintained and transmitted to succeeding generations, even before their contact with Europeans. Historiography has 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,
13585-409: The inventory of hieroglyphic symbols derived from "fauna and flora used in the signs [which] are essentially African" and in "regards to writing, we have seen that a purely Nilotic, hence African origin not only is not excluded, but probably reflects the reality", although he acknowledges the geographical location of Egypt made it a receptacle for many influences. Writing was of political importance to
13728-692: The literate civilizations of the Near East, and the methods of logographic and phonetic representation in Chinese characters are distinct from those used in cuneiform and hieroglyphs, written Chinese is considered to be an independent development. During the Early Bronze Age (3300–2100 BCE), the first writing systems evolved from systems of proto-writing , which used ideographic and mnemonic symbols to communicate information, but did not record human language directly. Proto-writing
13871-451: The messenger's mouth was heavy and he couldn't repeat (the message), the Lord of Kulaba patted some clay and put words on it, like a tablet. Until then, there had been no putting words on clay. The emergence of writing in a given area is usually followed by several centuries of fragmentary inscriptions . Historians mark the "historicity" of a culture by the presence of coherent texts written by
14014-692: 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
14157-416: 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 the 1960s"). Thirdly, it may refer to why history is produced: the philosophy of history . As a meta-level analysis of descriptions of
14300-625: The new History Faculty building designed by James Stirling . Today the library accommodates over 300 students and houses more than 95,000 volumes. The skylight over the reading room is a crucial part of the design, although it is difficult to see from outside the building and contributes nothing to its silhouette. Although the building was admired by students of architecture it is less well regarded by those who have to work in it. A 1968 review noted that environmental controls might be difficult to operate by humanities-oriented occupants. Expensive modifications were necessary to render it usable, and in 1984
14443-411: 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, analyzed, and interpreted. Historical research often starts with 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
14586-470: 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
14729-406: The past, encompassing eyewitness accounts, hearsay , and communal legends . Counterfactual history uses counterfactual thinking to examine alternative courses of history, exploring what could have happened under different circumstances. Certain branches of history are distinguished by their theoretical outlook, such as Marxist and feminist history . Some distinctions focus on the scope of
14872-418: 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 a single coherent narrative or a series of competing narratives. The historical method is a set of techniques historians use to research and interpret
15015-617: The path of an ox-drawn plough, and was used until the 6th century. Greek is in turn the source for all the modern scripts of Europe. The most widespread descendant of Greek is the Latin script , named for the Latins , a central Italian people who came to dominate Europe with the rise of Rome. Around the 5th century BCE, the Romans adopted writing from the Etruscan civilization , who wrote in
15158-425: The physical properties of the paper itself, while the latter involves using additives to improve strength. According to Denise Schmandt-Besserat , writing had its origins in the counting and cataloguing of agricultural produce, and then economic transactions involving the produce. Government tax rolls followed thereafter. Written documents became essential for the accumulation and accounting of wealth by individuals,
15301-506: 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
15444-403: The process involves distinguishing between original works, mere copies, and deceptive forgeries. Internal criticism evaluates 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
15587-535: The professional literature, and governments collecting data, instituting policies and creating institutions to manage and advance their economies. Deirdre McCloskey has examined the rhetorical strategies and discursive construction of modern economic theory. Graham Smart has examined in depth how the Bank of Canada uses writing to cooperatively produce policies based on economic data and then to communicate strategically with relevant publics. Private legal documents for
15730-659: The rise of capitalism. Paper money (initially appearing in China in the 11th century) and other financial instruments relied on writing, initially in the form of letters and then evolving into specialized genres , to explain the transactions and guarantees (from individuals, banks, or governments) of value inhering in the documents. With the growth of economic activity in late Medieval and Renaissance Europe, sophisticated methods of accounting and calculating value emerged, with such calculations both carried out in writing and explained in manuals. The creation of corporations then proliferated documents surrounding organization, management,
15873-502: 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
16016-583: 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
16159-679: The royal crowns, Horus falcons and victory scenes were concentrated in the Upper Egyptian Naqada and A-Group cultures. He further elaborates that "Egyptian writing arose in Naqadan Upper Egypt and A-Group Nubia , and not in the Delta cultures, where the direct Western Asian contact was made, [which] further vitiates the Mesopotamian-influence argument". Egyptian scholar Gamal Mokhtar argues that
16302-501: The sale of land appeared in Mesopotamia in the early 3rd millennium BCE, not long after the initial appearance of cuneiform writing. The first written legal codes followed shortly thereafter c. 2100 BCE with the most well known being the Code of Hammurabi, inscribed on stone stelae throughout Babylon. c. 1750 BCE . While ancient Egypt did not have codified laws, legal decrees and private contracts did appear in
16445-511: The same alphabetical order . Those adapting the Phoenician system added three letters to the end of the series, called the "supplementals". Several varieties of the Greek alphabet developed. One, known as the Cumae alphabet , was used west of Athens and in southern Italy. The other variation, known as Eastern Greek, was used in present-day Turkey and by the Athenians, and eventually the rest of
16588-612: 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
16731-584: The spread of literacy beyond the governing classes and opened the door to wider knowledge and criticism of government actions. Divisions in English society during the 16th century, the English Civil War of the 17th century, and the increased role of parliament that followed, along with the splitting of political religious control were accompanied by pamphlet wars . Newspaper publishing and journalism , having origins in commercial information, soon
16874-476: The state, and religious organizations as well as the transactions of trade, loans, inheritance, and documentation of ownership. With such documentation and accounting larger accumulations of wealth became more possible, along with the power that accompanied wealth, most prominently to the benefit of royalty, the state, and religions. Contracts and loans supported the growth of long-distance international trade with accompanying networks for import and export, supporting
17017-428: The state, to become more organized in expressing needs and concerns, to identify with regions and states, and to form constituencies with particular views and interests; the history of journalism is closely linked to citizen information, regional and national identity, and expression of interests. These changes have greatly influenced the nature of states, increasing the visibility of people and their views no matter what
17160-464: 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 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
17303-477: The studied topic. Big history is the branch with the broadest scope, covering everything from the Big Bang to the present. World history is another branch with a wide topic. It examines human history as a whole, starting with the evolution of human-like species. The terms macrohistory , mesohistory , and microhistory refer to different scales of analysis, ranging from large-scale patterns that affect
17446-437: 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
17589-533: 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
17732-463: The surface of round clay envelopes and then stored in them. The tokens were then progressively replaced by flat tablets, on which signs were recorded with a stylus. Actual writing is first recorded in Uruk (modern Iraq), at the end of the 4th millennium BCE, and soon after in various parts of the Near East. An ancient Sumerian poem gives the first known story of the invention of writing: Because
17875-423: The symbols used in writing generally correspond to elements of spoken language. In general, systems of symbolic communication like signage, painting, maps, and mathematics are distinguished from writing systems, which require knowledge of an associated spoken language to read a text. The norms of writing generally evolve more slowly than those of speech; as a result, linguistic features are frequently preserved in
18018-654: The undeciphered Byblos syllabary , and the South Arabian alphabet ( c. 1200 BCE ). Proto-Canaanite, which was probably influenced by the Byblos syllabary, in turn inspired the Ugaritic alphabet ( c. 1300 BCE ). Anatolian hieroglyphs are an indigenous script native to western Anatolia , used to record the Hieroglyphic Luwian language. It first appeared on Luwian royal seals from
18161-479: The university came close to pulling the whole building down. The remodelling of Stirling's attempt to create an environmentally sustainable structure was announced in 2004. The project was headed by John McAslan , who said that "The main problem with the building is that it leaks, it’s too bright, too hot in summer and too cold in winter.” Drainage problems and leaks have persisted in the Seeley Library, and
18304-427: 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
18447-431: The use of land, labor , 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
18590-800: The whole globe to detailed studies of small communities, particular individuals, or specific events. Closely related to microhistory is the genre of historical biography , which recounts an individual's life in its historical context and the legacy it left. Public history involves activities that present history to the general public . It usually happens outside the traditional academic settings in contexts like museums , historical sites , and popular media. Professional and amateur historians discover, collect, organize, and present information about past events. They discover this information through archeological evidence, written primary sources, verbal stories or oral histories, and other archival material. In lists of historians , historians can be grouped by order of
18733-461: The world that spoke Greek adopted this variation. After first writing right to left, like the Phoenicians, the Greeks eventually chose to write from left to right. Occasionally however, the writer would start the next line where the previous line finished, so that the lines would read alternately left to right, then right to left, and so on. This is known as boustrophedon writing, which imitated
18876-480: The writing systems used throughout Afro-Eurasia descend from either Aramaic or Greek. The Greek alphabet was the first to introduce letters representing vowel sounds. It and its descendant in the Latin alphabet gave rise to several European scripts in the first several centuries CE, including the runic , Gothic , and Cyrillic alphabets. The Aramaic alphabet evolved into the Brahmic scripts of India, as well as
19019-405: The written form of a language after they cease to appear in the corresponding spoken language. Before the 20th century, most scholarly theories of the origins of writing involved some form of monogenesis , the assumption that writing had been invented only once as cuneiform in ancient Sumer , and spread across the world from there via cultural diffusion . According to these theories, writing
19162-617: 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
19305-422: 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
19448-403: Was gradually augmented with pictographic marks indicating what was being counted, which were made using a sharp stylus. By the 29th century BCE, writing used a wedge-shaped stylus and included phonetic elements representing syllables of the Sumerian language , and gradually replaced round-stylus and sharp-stylus markings during the 27th and 26th centuries BCE. Finally, cuneiform became
19591-722: Was in that sense that Aristotle used the word in his History of Animals . The ancestor word ἵστωρ 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
19734-399: 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
19877-424: Was sometimes cheaper than papyrus, which had to be imported outside Egypt. With the invention of wood-pulp paper , the cost of writing material began a steady decline. Wood-pulp paper is still used today, and in recent times efforts have been made to improve bond strength of fibers. Two main areas of examination in this regard have been "dry strength of paper" and "wet web strength". The former involves examination of
20020-490: Was soon used in the areas of finance, religion, government, and law. Writing allowed the spread of these social modalities and their associated knowledge, and ultimately the further centralization of political power. Writing systems typically satisfy three criteria. Firstly, the writing must have some purpose or meaning to it, and a point must be communicated by the text. Secondly, writing systems make use of specific symbols which may be recorded on some writing medium . Thirdly,
20163-820: Was such a particular technology that exposure through activities like trade was a much more likely means of acquisition than independent reinvention. Specifically, many theories were dependent on a literal account of the Book of Genesis , including the emphases it placed on Mesopotamia . Over time, greater awareness of the systems of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica conclusively established that writing had been independently invented multiple times. Four independent inventions of writing are most commonly recognized —in Mesopotamia ( c. 3400–3100 BCE ), Egypt ( c. 3250 BCE ), China (before c. 1250 BCE ), and Mesoamerica (before c. 1 CE ). Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs are considered
20306-413: Was taken out and divided by a pointed instrument into the thin pieces of which it is composed; it was then flattened by pressure, and the strips glued together, other strips being placed at right angles to them, so that a roll of any length might be manufactured. Writing seems to have become more widespread with the invention of papyrus in Egypt. That this material was in use in Egypt from a very early period
20449-522: Was to offer political information and was instrumental to the formation of a public sphere. Newspapers were instrumental in the sharing of information, fostering discussion, and forming political identities in the American Revolution , and then the new nation. The circulation of newspapers also created urban, regional, and state identification in the latter nineteenth century and after. A focus on national news that followed telegraphy and
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