History is the study of the past, with special attention to the written record of the activities of human beings over time. Scholars who write about history are called historians. It is a field of research which uses a narrative to examine and analyse the sequence of events, and it often attempts to investigate objectively the patterns of cause and effect that determine events.1
When used as the name of a field of study, history refers to the study and interpretation of the record of humans, families, and societies as preserved primarily through written sources.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to history:
Essence of history
Studies and fields of history
- Archaeology – study of past human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of material remains and environmental data
- Archontology – study of historical offices and important positions in state, international, political, religious and other organizations and societies
- Art history – the study of changes in and social context of art
- Chronology – locating events in time
- Cultural history – the study of culture in the past
- Economic history – the study of economies in the past
- Environmental history – study of natural history and the human relationship with the natural world
- Futurology – study of the future: researches the medium to long-term future of societies and of the physical world
- History painting – the painting of works of art having historical motifs or depicting great events
- Military history – the study of warfare and wars in history
- Natural history – history of the natural world, now usually referred to as science
- Naval history – the branch of military history devoted to warfare at sea or in bodies of water
- Paleography – the study of ancient texts
- Political history – the study of past political events, ideas, movements, and leaders
- Public history - the presentation of history to public audiences and other areas typically outside academia
- Psychohistory – study of the psychological motivations of historical events
- Social history – the study of societies and social trends in the past
Record of history
History by chronology
Ages of history
Eras of history
History by region
History by continent and country
Economic history by region
Template:Economic history of Europe
Military history by region
History by field
History of religions
History of science
Social sciences
Technology
Methods and tools
- Prosopography – a methodological tool for the collection of all known information about individuals within a given period
- Historical revisionism – traditionally used in a completely neutral sense to describe the work or ideas of a historian who has revised a previously accepted view of a particular topic
- Historiography – the study of historical methodology
General history concepts
Historians
- Herodotus – Dio Cassius – Livy – Appian – Jean Froissart – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel – Voltaire – Edward Gibbon – Thomas Macaulay – Alexis de Tocqueville – Arnold J. Toynbee – J. B. Bury – Will Durant – Samuel Eliot Morison – Francis Parkman
History lists
See also
References
Further reading
External links
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