What Historians Do
History is a debatable land
Excerpted from A Whirld of Words: A Reader's Commonplace Dictionary. Find the LINK to the Introduction below.
This entry is from one of the more robust subjects in the Dictionary. Originally I conceived of writing a short essay on each of one hundred words critical to informing a sound historical consciousness. It was to be titled In medias res. As I gathered source material the project quickly expanded and metamorphosed into the rudiments of the Dictionary. The perspectives voiced here offer an essay on history that I could not hope to rival for breadth and scope, for keeness of perception or wit. Let it speak for itself. Enjoy perusing this constellation of stellar voices speaking about history.
For more on Historians and Historiography, look into these posts:
history
the end of the last Ice Age marks a fundamental turning point in human history. With the advent of agriculture, human societies began to acquire the demographic and technological dynamism that has driven historical change in recent millennia
(Christian 2004) p. 243
we enter recorded history in what is known as the Early Dynastic period (II-III); Enmebaragesi, king of Kish (c. 2600 BC), is the first man known to be commemorated by his own inscription
(Hooker 1990) p. 23
oracles are the earliest institution we read of in history
(Vico 1972) p. 289
geography and chronology – the two eyes of history; the first historians of the nations were the poets
(Vico 1944) p. 167, 180
history for the ancients consisted of actions (praxeis) and speeches (logoi); Homer was the model for both. Direct speech in the Homeric epics (one half of the Iliad and three fifths of the Odyssey) plays an important dramatic role by presenting past events as if present. In this and other respects, Homer exerted a lasting influence on Greek historiography
(Aune 1987) p. 91
the third word of Herodotus's opening sentence is historiē. It derives from a Homeric word, histōr, meaning a judge or arbitrator
(Romm 1998) p. 20
in Homer a legal dispute is brought before a ίστωρ, a man of skill who inquires into the alleged facts and decides what the true facts are. ἱστορίη meant an inquisition of this kind
(Bury 1908) p. 16
Greek prose was at first employed primarily for the publication of Ionian historiē; for presenting the results of systematic 'inquiry' or 'research'on a variety of subjects from astronomy to biology, including historical research in connection with the description of lands and peoples (as in the travel book of Hecataeus, a Milesian contemporary of Heraclitus). The old Ionic term historiē (ἱστορίη) soon became fixed in its narrow application to 'history' in our sense, because it was this type of investigation that first gave birth to major works of prose literature: the Histories of Herodotus and Thucydides
(Heraclitus 1987) p. 96
history is a child building a sand-castle by the sea, and that child is the whole majesty of man's power in the world
Heraclitus, fr. 24 (Heraclitus and Diogenes 1979) p. 15
philosophy by examples
Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Fischer 1970) p. 78
a mistress of eloquence
Diodorus of Agyrium (Toynbee 1952) p. 49
what Alcibiades did and suffered
Aristotle (Berlin 2001) p. 10
let history teach you, and there is no better teacher
(Xenophon 1914) p. 295
the best documented year of all Roman history, the twelve months subsequent to the Ides of March
(Syme 2002) p. 74
the light of trueth, the witnesse of tymes, the Mistresse of lyfe, the Messenger of antiquitie, and the lyfe of memorye, preservinge from oblivion deedes worthye of memorye
Cicero (Rackin 1993) p. 2
it is true that oratory and history have much in common, but they differ in many of the points where they seem alike. Both employ narrative, but with a difference: oratory deals largely with the humble and trivial incidents of everyday life, history is concerned with profound truths and the glory of great deeds. The bare bones of narrative and a nervous energy distinguish the one, a fulness and a certain freedom of style the other. Oratory succeeds by its vigour and severity of attack, history by the ease and grace with which it develops its theme. Finally, they differ in vocabulary, rhythm and period-structure, for, as Thucydides says [I.22], there is all the difference between a ‘lasting possession’ and a ‘prize essay’: the former is history, the latter oratory
(Pliny 1969) p. 146
Tacitus subscribes emphatically to the view that the function of history is to foster virtue and to castigate vice by preserving examples of both
(Burrow 2008) p. 139
this I regard as history's highest function, to let no worthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds
(Tacitus 1990) p. 60
my policy is to trace proposals in detail only if conspicuously honourable or of noteworthy disgrace, for in my view the principal obligation of histories is that manifestations of excellence not go unspoken and, for perverse words and deeds, to generate fear from posterity and infamy
(Tacitus 2012) p. 117
for Augustine history is an illustration of man's lust for domination
(Bainton 1950) p. 168
according to Tacitus, and according to truth, from which his judgments seldom deviate, the principle duty of history is to erect a tribunal
(Bolingbroke 1972) p. 18
so very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history, when, on the one hand, those who afterwards write it find long periods of time intercepting their view, and, on the other hand, the contemporary records of any actions and lives, partly through envy and ill-will, partly through favor and flattery, pervert and distort truth
(Plutarch 1990) p. 129
I humbly entreat the reader, that if he shall in this that we have written find anything not delivered according to the truth, he will not impute the same to me, who, as the true rule of history requires, have labored sincerely to commit to writing such things as I could gather from common report, for the instruction of posterity
(Bede 1970) p. 3
Marsilio Ficino wrote to the son of Poggio Bracciolini: 'History is necessary, not only to make life agreeable, but also to endow it with a moral significance'
(Panofsky 1955) p. 25
master of our actions
Machiavelli (Butterfield 1960) p. 36
to Richard Stanyhurst, editor of Holinshed’s Chronicles, history was: ‘The marrow of reason, the cream of experience, the sap of wisdom, the pith of judgment, the library of knowledge, the kernel of policy, the unfoldress of treachery, the calendar of time, the lantern of truth, the life of memory, the doctress of behavior, the register of antiquity, the trumpet of chivalry’
(Kenyon 1983) p. 1
Raleigh’s History of the World – the frontispiece shows History, a female figure, treading down Death and Oblivion, flanked by Truth and Experience, supporting the globe; and over all is the eye of Providence
(Tillyard 1962) p. 17
history, in the thought of the humanists as well as the ancients, belonged to the art of rhetoric
(Grafton 2009) p. 37
of history, that is, the true narration of things, there are three kinds: human, natural, and divine; history ought to be nothing else than the image of truth, and, as it were, a record of events which is placed in the clearest public view for the decision of all
(Bodin 1966) p. 15, 51
by 1560 a new ars historica had taken shape – an art cast as a guide not to writing, but to reading history. By 1600 everyone agreed with Tommaso Campanella, who found a characteristically striking way to advertise his own addition to the literature: anyone who refused to study the past, he warned, and to trust the sense-evidence reported by historians and other witnesses, 'like a worm in cheese (sicut vermis in caseo), would know nothing, except the parts of the cheese that touch him'
(Grafton 2007) p. 26
Hakluyt, in introducing his Voyages, declared: 'Geography and Chronology I may call the sun and the moon, the right eye and the left, of all history'
(Nevins 1962) p. 302
history is like foreign travel; it broadens the mind, but it does not deepen it
Descartes (Toulmin 1990) p. 33
a Register and Explication of particular affairs, undertaken to the end that the memory of them may be preserved and so Universals may be the more evidently confirm'd, by which we may be instructed how to live well and Happily
Degory Wheare (Johns 1998) p. 442
James Harrington in his Oceana (1656) produced a kind of optimistically republican schematization of general history. The key to his history is the distribution of landed property, which is the basis of all power. Pocock sums up Harrington's Oceana as 'a Machiavellian meditation on feudalism'
(Burrow 2008) p. 300
a heap of evils
Thomas Hobbes (Fischer 1970) p. 201
to instruct and enable man, by the knowledge of actions past, to bear themselves prudently in the present and profitably towards the future
Thomas Hobbes (Martinich 1999) p. 78
nothing but the crimes and misfortunes of the human race
Manichaeans (Bayle 1965) p. 147
the love of history seems inseparable from human nature, because it seems inseparable from self-love. We imagine that the things, which affect us, must affect posterity: this sentiment runs through mankind. We are fond of preserving, as far as it is in our frail power, the memory of our own adventures, of those of our own time, and of those that preceded it. History, true or false, speaks to our passions always. Nature has opened this study to every man who can read and think. I have read some where or other, in Dionysius Halicarnassus, I think, that history is philosophy teaching by examples. The school of example is the world: and the masters of this school are history and experience
(Bolingbroke 1972) p. 7-10
a man of parts may improve the study of history to its proper and principal use; he may sharpen the penetration, fix the attention of his mind, and strengthen his judgment; he may acquire the faculty and the habit of discerning quicker, and looking farther; and of exerting that flexibility, and steadiness, which are necessary to be joined in the conduct of all affairs that depend on the concurrence or opposition of other men. The study of history will prepare us for action and observation. By knowing the things that have been, we become better able to judge of the things that are
(Bolingbroke 1972) p. 29
history must have a certain degree of probability and authenticity. History has been purposely and systematically falsified in all ages. History has been sometimes called, 'magistra vitae'
(Bolingbroke 1972) p. 51, 58, 63
man is the subject of every history; and to know him well, we must see him and consider him, as history alone can present him to us, in every age, in every country, in every state, in life and in death. All history that descends to a sufficient detail of human actions and characters, is useful to bring us acquainted with our species, nay, with ourselves. We are not only passengers or sojourners in this world, but we are absolute strangers at the first step we make in it. History is a collection of the journals of those who have traveled through the same country, and been exposed to the same accidents: and their good and their ill success are equally instructive
(Bolingbroke 1972) p. 71, 72
history is concerned with human action, the story of effort, struggle, purposes, motives, hopes, fears, attitudes, which can be known in a superior – 'inside' – fashion, for which our knowledge of the external world cannot possibly be the paradigm – a matter about which the Cartesians, for whom natural knowledge is the model, must therefore be in error; the ground of the sharp division drawn by Vico between the natural sciences and the humanities
Giambattista Vico (Berlin 2000) p. 9
history is to Hume the noblest and most beautiful occupation of the mind
(Cassirer 1951) p. 226
tricks we play on the dead
Voltaire (Hughes 1964) p. 11
philosophy of history: the term was invented by Voltaire
(Carr 1961) p. 20
for Voltaire history is not an end but a means; it is an instrument of self-education of the human mind
(Cassirer 1951) p. 221
Voltaire laid it down that 'all history is modern history'
(Collingwood and Dussen 1993) p. 328
a narration of events and facts delivered with dignity
Samuel Johnson (Hitchings 2005) p. 152
a bit of Old Stilton
Samuel Johnson (Jackson 1981) p. 169
there is no part of history so generally useful as that which relates the progress of the human mind
Samuel Johnson (Humphreys 1963) p. 179
we must consider how very little authentic history there is. We can depend on as true that certain kings reigned, that certain battles were fought. But all the coloring, all the philosophy of history is conjecture (Dr. Johnson to Boswell, on 18 April 1775). Then, sir, you would reduce all history to no better than an almanack, or mere chronological series of events (Boswell replied. Gibbon, who was present, said nothing) [On 17 February 1776, Volume the First appeared]
(Clive 1989) p. 74
the register of the follies and misfortunes of mankind
Edward Gibbon (Commager et al. 1965) p. 72
history – which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind
(Gibbon 1983) v. I, p. 69
that History is a liberal and useful study, and that the history of our own country is best deserving of our attention are propositions too clear for argument, and too simple for illustration
(Gibbon 1972) p. 534
history consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetites, which shake the public
(E. Burke 1963) p. 492
history is a preceptor of prudence, not of principles
(E. Burke 1963) p. 27
a lie agreed upon
Napoleon (Commager et al. 1965) p. 72
what is history?' said Napoleon,'but a fable agreed upon?'
(Emerson 2000) p. 116
the cynics' definition of history as a mensonge convenu, a lie agreed upon
(Nevins 1962) p. 39
experimental politics
(Maistre 1959) p. 42
a biography of power
Henri Saint-Simon (Manuel 1963) p. 152
history is geography set in motion
Herder (Nevins 1962) p. 309
the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of states, and the virtue of individuals have been sacrificed
(Hegel 1953) p. 27
history is nothing but the relation of the sufferings of the poor from the rich. If the poor man injures the rich, the law is instantly at his heels; the injuries of the rich towards the poor are always inflicted by the law
Bentham (Macaulay 1888) v.1, p. 429
Macaulay perceived history as a succession of dilemmas, debates, and combats. For Macaulay, history was a vast antithesis; 'the long remembrance'. 'No history can present us with the whole truth: but those are the best pictures and the best histories which exhibit such parts of the truth as most nearly produce the effect of the whole'
(Gay 1974) p. 102, 11, 116
history is a debatable land. It lies on the confines of two distinct territories. It is under the jurisdiction of two hostile powers; and, like other districts similarly situated, it is ill defined, ill cultivated, and ill regulated. Instead of being equally shared between its two rulers, the Reason and the Imagination, it falls alternately under the sole and absolute dominion of each. It is sometimes fiction. It is sometimes theory
Macaulay (Hughes-Warrington 2000) p. 210
Did you get that date out of history?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘I suppose history never lies, does it?’ said Mr. Dick, with a gleam of hope. ‘Oh dear, no, sir!’ I replied, most decisively. I was ingenuous and young, and I thought so.
David Copperfield (Dickens 1987) p. 249
history, which I like to think of as the antithesis of poetry, is in relation to time what geography is in relation to space. I cannot avoid seeing in all history nothing but a repetition of the same things, as when a kaleidoscope is turned you see only the same things in differing configurations
(Schopenhauer 1970) p. 221
the storage closet in which the costumes are kept; that gruesome rule of nonsense and accident
(Nietzsche 1955) p. 115, 146
Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce
Karl Marx (Clive 1989) p. 306
There is the moral of all human tales;
'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past.
First freedom and then Glory – when that fails,
Wealth, vice, corruption – barbarism at last.
And History, with all her volumes vast,
Hath but one page
Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (Porter 1988) p. 135
a great dust-heap
Carlyle (Commager et al. 1965) p. 73
history is the autobiography of a madman; the story of hereditary, chronic madness; everything is governed by imaginary interests, fantasies
Alexander Herzen (Berlin 1979) p. 90
history does nothing, it possesses no immense wealth, fights no battles
Marx (Carr 1961) p. 61
history is about the most cruel of all goddesses, and she leads her triumphal car over heaps of corpses, not only in war, but also in 'peaceful' economic development. And we men and women are unfortunately so stupid that we never pluck up courage for real progress unless urged to it by sufferings that seem almost out of proportion
Friedrich Engels (Carr 1961) p. 105
the rational self-consciousness of the human race. What history relates is in fact only the long, heavy, and confused dream of mankind
(Schopenhauer 1966) p. 443, 445
the essence of history is change; the breach with nature caused by the awakening of consciousness
(Burckhardt 1979) p. 56
the record of what one age finds worthy of note in another
(Burckhardt 1958) p. 163
necessary to the living man in three ways: in relation to his action and struggle, his conservatism and reverence, his suffering and his desire for deliverance
(Nietzsche 1979) p. 12
a continual generation and pregnancy of phantoms over the impenetrable mist of unfathomable reality
(Nietzsche 1982) p. 156
the science of universal becoming
(Nietzsche 1980) p. 23
history is like a deaf man replying to questions which nobody puts to him
Tolstoy, as a student in the University of Kazan (Berlin 1979) p. 242
vehement actions without scope or term
(M. Arnold 1965) p. 5
fretful foam of vehement actions without scope
Matthew Arnold (Einbinder 1964) p. 188
history is not a creed or a catechism, it gives lessons rather than rules. Bold outlines and broad masses of color rise out of the records of the past. They may be dim, they may be incomplete; but they are definite
(Newman 1960) p. 34
a law which prevails throughout English history in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the law, namely, of the intimate interdependence of war and trade, so that throughout that period trade leads naturally to war and war fosters trade
(Seeley 1971) p. 89
history, I say, is not constitutional law, nor parliamentary tongue-fence, nor biography of great men, nor even moral philosophy. It deals with states, it investigates their rise and development and mutual influence, the causes which promote their prosperity or bring about their decay. Events take rank in history not as they are stirring or exciting, much less as they are gratifying to ourselves, but as they are pregnant with consequences. The pregnancy of events is what gives them historical rank
(Seeley 1971) p. 118, 120, 186
nothing is easier than to teach historical method, but, when learned, it has little use. History is a tangled skein that one may take up at any point, and break when one has unraveled enough. One may not begin at the beginning
(Adams 1996) p. 302
the tsar's remark to Pushkin on hearing that he was planning to write about Pugachev, the eighteenth century Russian peasant leader, 'such a man has no history'
(P. Burke 1969) p. 105
much more abominable than we all imagine
Lord Acton (Tulloch 1988) p. 48
the great achievement of history is to develop, perfect, and arm conscience
Lord Acton (Einbinder 1964) p. 204
history is the necessary form of the science of everything which is in a state of becoming. The science of languages is the history of languages. The science of literatures and religions is the history of literatures and religions. The science of the human spirit is the history of the human spirit Ernest Renan
(Southern and Bartlett 2004) p. 116
history is history just because it does not recur
(Croce 1941) p. 103
Henry Adams was convinced that the second law of thermodynamics could function as the first law of history
(Eisenstadt 1966) p. 36
the course of life in time
(Dilthey 1962) p. 74
an account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools
(Bierce 1993)
the act of comprehending and understanding induced by the requirements of practical life
(Croce 1941) p. 17
historical judgment
(Croce 1941) p. 32
there can be no cause in history, says Croce, scientific or metaphysical. What happens, happens for its own sake. For Croce, in strictness, the individual act is the sole reality. Historical judgments are pure apprehensions of the spiritual act
(Sprigge 1952) p. 38
the great lesson of history is that mankind never profits by the lessons of history
G K Chesterton (Nevins 1962) p. 46
the rise of prose was probably a condition of the rise of history
(Bury 1908) p. 16
in history thought is the characteristic and guiding force
(Bury 1930) p. 46
philosophy of history – the investigation of the rational principles which, it is assumed, are disclosed in the historical process due to the cooperation and interaction of human minds under terrestrial conditions
(Bury 1930) p. 46
Freud maintains that human history can be understood only as a neurosis
(Brown 1959) p. 12
what historians think about the past
Charles A. Beard (Noble 1965) p. 128
the most dangerous product which the chemistry of the mind has concocted
Paul Valéry (Fischer 1970) p. 307
the reality of history lies in biological power, in pure vitality, in what there is in man of cosmic energy
(Ortega y Gasset 1961a) p. 26
the reality of man; the past is man's nature
(Ortega y Gasset 1961b) p. 61
European culture is the protagonist of history
(Ortega y Gasset 1963) p. 76
may be servitude, may be freedom; a pattern of timeless moments
(Eliot 1952) p. 142, 144
history is a nightmare from which I am trying to awaken
Stephen Daedalus (Meyerhoff 1959) p. 22
history has meaning as the laboratory in which truth is discovered
(Robinson 1957) p. 8
history is a special form of thought,a kind of research inquiry. We study history in order to attain self-knowledge. The purpose of history is to grasp the present. Historical problems are problems arising in the attempt to understand what I am and what my world is. All history is an attempt to understand the present by reconstructing its determining conditions
(Collingwood and Dussen 1993) p. 7, 9, 315, 406, 420
the understanding of history, like other forms of human evaluation, has its fashions
(Hook 1943) p. 246
in the last analysis it is human consciousness which is the subject-matter of history. The interrelations, confusions, and infections of human consciousness are, for history, reality itself
(Bloch 1964) p. 151
leave history to itself
Auden (Meyerhoff 1959) p. 23
What is history? An unending dialogue between the present and the past. History means interpretation. Interpretation is the life-blood of history. History as a process of interaction, a dialogue between the historian in the present and the facts of the past
(Carr 1961) p. 26, 32, 35, 42
continuity is by no means the most conspicuous feature of history
F.J.C. Hearnshaw (Meyerhoff 1959) p. 32
history is a way of thinking; a way of thinking about evidence
(Eisenstadt 1966) p. 9
the aims of history are as diverse as the questions men can ask
(Harvey 1966) p. 186
history is meaningful only by indicating some transcendent purpose beyond the actual facts
(Löwith 1949) p. 5
it is not easy to find a hitching post in history
(Hofstadter 1968) p. 313
history is what takes place behind our backs: so says Hegel, says Jean-Paul Sartre
(Barrett 1972) p. 3
that history of international crime and mass murder which has been advertised as the history of mankind
Karl Popper (Heilbroner 1960) p. 29
a spectacle
Bernard De Voto (Fischer 1970) p. 89
depends so much on things which can only be discovered and verified by insight, sympathy and imagination
(Butterfield 1950) p. 77
both a story and a study; a realm in which trust is the enemy of truth
(Butterfield 1959) pp. 8, 205
at the deepest levels of experience, in intimations of the nature of God and the economy of the universe, in new insights into the powers and powerlessness of man, the changing scene of history has its focus and its justification
(Southern 1953) p. 219
an argument without end
Pieter Geyl (Mehta 1962) p. 158
the description of change; there can be no history without a point of view
(Popper 2002) p. 29, 139
history, that sure blunderer
(Wilbur 1963) p. 100
historical meaning is only a masked theology
(Camus 2008) p. 245
all history is contemporary history
(Trevor-Roper 1957) p. 12
to me the interest of history lies not in its periods but in its problems, and, primarily, in one general problem which is its substance in all times and all places: the interplay between heavy social forces or intractable geographical facts and the creative or disruptive forces which wrestle with them: the nimble mind, the burning conscience, the blind passions of man. History is an endless play of forces, all determinable, except one: and that one is the dynamic element, the human mind which sometimes triumphs, sometimes destroys, sometimes founders
(Trevor-Roper 1957) p. viii
the very existence of truth in history is an unresolved problem and involves profound questions about the nature of historical judgment
(Stern 1973) p. 26
a reinterpretation of the past which leads to conclusions about the present
(Momigliano 1966) p. 21
that every individual life between birth and death can eventually be told as a story with beginning and end is the prepolitical and prehistorical condition of history, the great story without beginning and end
(Arendt 1958) p. 184
first of all what man does with power
(Heschel 1962) p. 170
a vast panorama of idols worshiped and idols smashed
(Heschel 1965) p. 104
the teacher of life
Pope John XXIII (Quinn 1999) p. 43
the autobiography of God
Sidney Hook (Hook 1950) p. 36
it may be that universal history is a history of a handful of metaphors
(Borges 1983) p. 189
the penalty we pay for original sin
(Rexroth 1944) p. 23
John of Patmos, the philosopher of history
(Rexroth 1968) p. 78
comet tails and sunspots suffice to account for all history
(Rexroth 1968) p. 256
history is, strictly speaking, the study of questions
(Auden 1968) p. 97
Ronald Syme regarded history as discovery: 'it is a liberal and a liberating force. To become intelligible, history has to aspire to the coherence of fiction, while eschewing most of its methods. There is no choice, no escape'
(Syme 2002) p. xxxi
history is not the mere collecting of facts: the exposition must be built up on some leading idea, or indeed on several, and be interpreted in their light
(Syme 1979) p. 55
history is narrative, not research, disputation, and the passing of judgments
(Syme 1979) p. 149
as strife is the father of all things, so is dispute and contention the soul of history
(Syme 1979) p. 205
to become intelligible, history has to aspire to the coherence of fiction, while eschewing most of its methods. There is no choice, no escape
(Syme 1988) p. 19
in the ancient world we observe that history arises from political life, it is written on the whole by men who have had experience of war and government; and quite frequently they do not take up the pen until their political career is over
(Syme 1991) p. 89
the notion of scientific history is an absurdity unless by ‘scientific’ we simply mean being as accurate and comprehensive as possible
(Syme 1991) p. 95
a rationale of history is the first step whereby the dispossessed repossess the world
(K. Burke 1959) p. 315
a history – in Arthur Danto’s phrase – is ‘a narrative structure imposed upon events’
(Kermode 1979) p. 117
'the history we read is, strictly speaking, not factual at all but a series of accepted judgments', writes professor Barraclough
(Carr 1961) p. 13
history is actually a bridge connecting the past and the present, and pointing the road to the future. History is any integrated narrative, description or analysis of past events or facts written in a spirit of critical inquiry for the whole truth. The beginning of wisdom in history is doubt. As the spirit of doubt, of scientific criticism, is the beginning of wisdom in historical study, nothing must be taken for granted and everything subjected to strict rules of evidence. It is a simple further step to say that in the practical study of history, the primary requirement is that it be dealt with as a set of problems. The chief interest of history lies in accounting for past events by a reasoned array of causes, and in refusing to admit that mere fortuity produced them until we have no alternative. No greater error can be made in historical study than to regard man as primarily a rational being; he is primarily an emotional being. History which lacks a thesis is a body lacking a skeleton – it is invertebrate. On the material side, history is the story of man's increasing ability to control energy
(Nevins 1962) p. 14, 39, 52, 67, 219, 232, 295, 315
in truth the actual past is gone; and the world of history is an intangible world, re-created imaginatively, and present in our minds
(Meyerhoff 1959) p. 128
there are cumulative effects in history
(Meyerhoff 1959) p. 324
the 'sense of history' defined to include three factors: the sense of anachronism; the awareness of evidence; the interest in causation. Historical criticism depends on seeing the 'sources' not as given but as themselves the product of historical forces
(P. Burke 1969) p. 19
history no longer speaks to the general public because it has lost its grip on literature
Trevor-Roper (Gay 1974) p. 186
history is approaching a speechless end,
as Henry Adams said
(Berryman 1959) p. 59
that indecent alloy of banality and apocalypse
(Cioran 1998b) p. 4
a fatality we cannot escape
(Cioran 1998a) p. 34
a problem-solving discipline
(Fischer 1970) p. xv
what historians do
(Berlin 1969) p. xxx
in my view, 'history', as a plenum of documents that attest to the occurrence of events, can be put together in a number of different and equally plausible narrative accounts of 'what happened in the past', accounts from which the reader, or the historian himself, may draw different conclusions about 'what must be done' in the present. We apprehend the past and the whole spectacle of history-in-general in terms of felt needs and aspirations that are ultimately personal, having to do with the ways we view our own positions in the ongoing social establishment, our hopes and fears for the future, and the image of the kind of humanity we would like to believe we represent
(White 1973) p. 283
history is the science of time
(Gagnon 1982) p. 43
the history of mankind is the history of migration
W.R. Bohning (Heather 2010) p. 2
the past events of which we have knowledge. The advantage of history is knowing that there is as much relevance to be found in the Peloponnesian War as in yesterday's newspaper. 'Others fear what the morrow may bring', said a Moslem sage, 'but I am afraid of what happened yesterday'
(Tuchman 1981) p. 27, 268
history's claim to be the cautionary science
(Boorstin 1994) p. ix
the trail of ash
(Warren 2001) p. 214
a state of consciousness
(Sebba and Watson 1987) p. 71
memory, record, and interpretation; whose chief element is vulgarity and whose immediate agent is the state
(Brodsky 1986) pp. 57; 48
there is no 'history' but a multiple, overlapping and interactive series of legitimate versus excluded histories
Michel Foucault (Appignanesi et al. 1995) p. 83
the pulse of New World history is the racing pulse beat of fear, the tiring cycles of stupidity and greed
(Walcott 1998) p. 39
what happened in the past, what people believe happened in the past, and what historians say happened in the past
(Winks 1998) p. xiii
history is above all else an argument. It is an argument between different historians; and, perhaps, an argument between the past and the present
(J. Arnold 2000) p. 13
the aimless and endless sequence of dominations and their dismantling
(Breisach 2003) p. 159
an existential necessity
(Breisach 2003) p. 207
history became a transforming force in Western culture, enhancing the aspirations of nationalism, industrialism, colonialism, and capitalism
(Breisach 2003) p. 13
history is constrained by the metaphors at its disposal
(Smail 2008) p. 77
what if we were to think of history as a kind of mapping? The past is a landscape and history is the way we represent it. It would establish the linkage between pattern recognition as the primary form of human perception and the fact that all history – even the most simple narrative – draws upon the recognition of such patterns
(Gaddis 2002) p. 33
a central theme of big history is how the rules of change vary at different scales. Big history – attempting to view history on the largest possible scale
(Christian 2004) p. 7, 513
what is distinctive about humans is that they can learn collectively. Collective learning is what gives humans a history, because it means that the ecological skills available to humans have changed over time. And there is a clear directionality in this process. The evolution of symbolic language may mark the critical threshold that leads to human history
(Christian 2004) p. 147, 152
the era of agrarian civilizations has dominated conventional accounts of human history. The large-scale rhythms of modern history are shaped less by Malthusian cycles, which were a result of insufficient productivity, than by business cycles, which are generated by overproduction
(Christian 2004) p. 283, 352
he said that history was a nightmare during which he was trying to get a good night’s rest
(Bellow 1976) p. 3
I do not accept any interpretation of history that declares the deepest experience of any person to be superfluous
(Bellow 2015) p. 303
history is far more intimately related to fiction than we have been accustomed to assume
(Alter 1981) p. 24
the perilously momentous realm of history
(Alter 1981) p. 189
there are many ways in which history is important. It shapes our identity; it gives reality and authenticity to our family and communal life; it creates for us a sense of a shared past; and, not least, it fashions our sense of justice
(Wood 2003) p. 20
history is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of ‘history’ it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time ‒ and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened
(Thompson 1998) p. 67
history is like therapy for the present: it makes it talk about its parents
(Jasanoff 2017) p. 6
there is no further certainty in history than the combination of coherence and intelligibility. The only kind of proof a historian can have – the proof of coherence and plausibility. We must not expect too much of history. It will not tell us what to believe or how to act; it will not make us more tolerant or more ecumenical or more peaceful. But if we are any of these things – or even per impossibile if we are the opposite of these things – it will add a new pleasure and breadth to our understanding of what it is we are. History, emphatically, is not everything; but it is an aspect of everything
(Southern and Bartlett 2004) p. 108, 111, 118
history is, at bottom, a persuasive narrative. The presentation of history is always an argument
(Allan 2022) p. 236
LINK to the Introduction to A Whirld of Words: A Reader's Commonplace Dictionary.
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