Essay On History Of History

The discipline of history and its study can have its origin traced to ancient Greece. Ironically, this detailed, research driven study along with all of its associated research methods had its humble beginnings rooted in story telling and fanciful tales designed for the enjoyment its population, not its education. Gradually, the people of Greece became aware of more than just their geographical and political surroundings, forcing the idea of history and how to understand it to evolved. From these beginnings came the fact-driven field of study that we now know.
The foundation of the school of history lies in the humble origins of Homer and his great plays. Written history up to this time had not been cataloged, thus we have no idea of the progression of history from the cave man to the present. However, in Greece, Homeric plays were passed down from generation to generation, as an oral history, and serve as our starting point for the formation of what we know as the study of history.
Homer wrote plays to inspired the aristocratic, describing a virtuous life. As such, they didn't provide any real historical information, but rather an aristocratic view of social responsibility. The epic was written to inspire, not to inform. In this respect, it could (and has) remained timeless. Homer used his plays to show how the timeless virtues and ideals of heroes taught virtue and civic responsibility to the present day people. Though they were devoid of much fact or research , Homer broke ground for the telling of historical events with these plays.
The evolution of Greek History came from Hesiod and his Theogony. Hesiod took the legacy of Homer and affirmed a collective past for humanity. This moved the thought of history...

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...a collective past was sought out, the world became larger and other cultures were introduced as new elements into Greek history. These cultures needed to be fit into a Greek framework and their histories were merged into the Greeks. The emergence of a cultural history now started to bridge the gap between Greek and other civilizations. Next was the analytical, contemporary school of thought. With this new idea, old wars were less important than what had happened most recently, and how those events could be described by eyewitness accounts. The need for substantiating facts from eyewitness accounts became necessary, and the methodology of historical research expanded. In all, the Greeks gave us a good foundation from which the pursuit of history could be expanded. Not complete by any means, it was a great start to which the Western World owes much gratitude.