Thucydides's History: The History Of Historiography

History can be defined as the investigation and inquiry of the human past in terms of human actions and historians are the ones tasked to examine sources and uncover what really happened. In their quest to understand this past, historians developed different ways of approaching it which I shall address in this paper via answering the following question, “What is the history of historiography?”.

Our historiographical timeline starts in the Antiquity period. In this period, the events recorded were not concerned with human actions but were rather focused on gods, their changing will and some heroic human figures. History of this time didn’t result from any kind of research but was rather an account of the writer’s knowledge.

This theocratic

Thucydides further stressed the importance of evidence and went about collecting data from direct observation and witnesses. He also introduced the practice of ascertaining the evidence and double checking it. Thucydides did not however address the function and value of history in his writings.

Roman historiography also introduced the concepts of humanism and substantialism whereby humanism stands for the responsibility that man has over his actions and substantialism argues that only that which is unchanging is

From here on, I would like to go though some of the major thinkers from the 19th century on that have considerably influenced the historiographical methodology.

I shall start by Leopold Von Ranke who introduced scientific historiography also known as objective historiography. Ranke was concerned about the aims of history and how historians have previously interpreted past events to buttress their political or moral goals or perceptions. He asked historians to focus on facts.

While modern historiography began with Ranke, Hegel also argued for a rational and logical type of history. He considered history philosophical as according to him it didn’t only ascertain facts but was also delving into the reasons behind them. Hegel perceives the movement of history to be in spirals but to never repeat itself in a completely identical form in a way that shows progression and betterment from the preceding movement, this is called dialectic progression.

Karl Marx’s historical materialism also presents us with a dialectical development whereby according to him development results from the fight of opposites that are interdependent but that inherently contrast each