HISTORY AS A DISCIPLINE

Throughout the world, studying history is an essential element of good liberal arts education.
Knowledge of history is indispensable to understanding who we are and where we fit in the
world. As a discipline, history is the study of the past. In other words, historians study and
interpret the past. In order to do this, they must find evidence about the past, ask questions of that
evidence, and come up with explanations that make sense of what the evidence says about the
people, events, places, and time periods under consideration. Because it is impossible for a single
historian to study the history of all people, events, places, and time periods, historians develop
specialties within the discipline.
Historians may study the history of particular groups of people (e.g. women’s history or African-
American history), they may study particular events (e.g. history of the Vietnam War or the
Crusades), they may study the history of a single country or region (e.g. Pacific Northwest
history or Chinese history), or they may confine their interest to a limited time period (e.g. early
American history or Medieval history).

In addition to limiting the scope of their historical study, historians also take different approaches
to their inquiries. For example, they may decide to look at the cultural or social relationships
between the people they are studying, at the intellectual or religious debates within a particular
society or group, at the political or economic history of a country or region, or at the history of
the environment or science and technology during a pivotal time frame. Because different
historians take different approaches to their research and writing, and because individual
historians bring different perspectives and different questions to their work, historical
interpretations are constantly changing and evolving.

The study of history is therefore dynamic and forever new. Far from being the study of facts and
dates, understanding history means understanding how to read and interpret the past. It is through
reading and interpreting our various pasts that we can know and understand the present and the
future.

Why study History?

People live in the present. They plan for and worry about the future. History, however, is the
study of the past. Given all the demands that press in from living in the present and anticipating
what is yet to come, why bother with what has been? Given all the desirable and available
branches of knowledge, why insist—as most American educational programs do—on a good bit
of history?

And why urge many students to study even more history than they are required to? Any subject
of study needs justification: its advocates must explain why it is worth attention. Most widely
accepted subjects—and history is certainly one of them—attract some people who simply like
the information and modes of thought involved. But audiences less spontaneously drawn to the
subject and more doubtful about why to bother need to know what the purpose is. Historians do
not perform heart transplants, improve highway design, or arrest criminals. In a society that quite
correctly expects education to serve useful purposes, the functions of history can seem more
difficult to define than those of engineering or medicine. History is in fact very useful, actually
indispensable, but the products of historical study are less tangible, sometimes less immediate,
than those that stem from some other disciplines.

In the past history has been justified for reasons we would no longer accept. For instance, one of
the reasons history holds its place in current education is because earlier leaders believed that a
knowledge of certain historical facts helped distinguish the educated from the uneducated; the
person who could reel off the date of the Norman conquest of England (1066) or the name of the
person who came up with the theory of evolution at about the same time that Darwin did
(Wallace) was deemed superior—a better candidate for law school or even a business promotion.
Knowledge of historical facts has been used as a screening device in many societies, from China
to the United States, and the habit is still with us to some extent. Unfortunately, this use can
encourage mindless memorization—a real but not very appealing aspect of the discipline.

History should be studied because it is essential to individuals and to society, and because it
harbors beauty. There are many ways to discuss the real functions of the subject—as there are
many different historical talents and many different paths to historical meaning. All definitions
of history's utility, however, rely on two fundamental facts.

History helps us understand people and societies

In the first place, history offers a storehouse of information about how people and societies
behave. Understanding the operations of people and societies is difficult, though a number of
disciplines make the attempt. An exclusive reliance on current data would needlessly handicap
our efforts. How can we evaluate war if the nation is at peace—unless we use historical
materials? How can we understand genius, the influence of technological innovation, or the role
that beliefs play in shaping family life, if we don't use what we know about experiences in the
past? Some social scientists attempt to formulate laws or theories about human behavior. But
even these recourses depend on historical information, except for in limited, often artificial cases
in which experiments can be devised to determine how people act. Major aspects of a society's
operation, like mass elections, missionary activities, or military alliances, cannot be set up as
precise experiments.

Consequently, history must serve, however imperfectly, as our laboratory, and data from the past
must serve as our most vital evidence in the unavoidable quest to figure out why our complex
species behaves as it does in societal settings. This, fundamentally, is why we cannot stay away
from history: it offers the only extensive evidential base for the contemplation and analysis of
how societies function, and people need to have some sense of how societies function simply to
run their own lives.

History helps us understand change and how the society we live in came to be
The second reason history is inescapable as a subject of serious study follows closely on the first.
The past causes the present, and so the future. Any time we try to know why something
happened—whether a shift in political party dominance in the American Congress, a major
change in the teenage suicide rate, or a war in the Balkans or the Middle East—we have to look
for factors that took shape earlier. Sometimes fairly recent history will suffice to explain a major
development, but often we need to look further back to identify the causes of change. Only
through studying history can we grasp how things change; only through history can we begin to
comprehend the factors that cause change; and only through history can we understand what
elements of an institution or a society persist despite change.

The importance of history in explaining and understanding change in human behavior is no mere
abstraction. Take an important human phenomenon such as alcoholism. Through biological
experiments scientists have identified specific genes that seem to cause a proclivity toward
alcohol addiction in some individuals. This is a notable advance. But alcoholism, as a social
reality, has a history: rates of alcoholism have risen and fallen, and they have varied from one
group to the next.

Attitudes and policies about alcoholism have also changed and varied. History is indispensable to
understanding why such changes occur. And in many ways historical analysis is a more
challenging kind of exploration than genetic experimentation. Historians have in fact greatly
contributed in recent decades to our understanding of trends (or patterns of change) in alcoholism
and to our grasp of the dimensions of addiction as an evolving social problem.

One of the leading concerns of contemporary American politics is low voter turnout, even for
major elections. A historical analysis of changes in voter turnout can help us begin to understand
the problem we face today. What were turnouts in the past? When did the decline set in? Once
we determine when the trend began, we can try to identify which of the factors present at the
time combined to set the trend in motion. Do the same factors sustain the trend still, or are there
new ingredients that have contributed to it in more recent decades? A purely contemporary
analysis may shed some light on the problem, but a historical assessment is clearly fundamental
—and essential for anyone concerned about American political health today.

History, then, provides the only extensive materials available to study the human condition. It
also focuses attention on the complex processes of social change, including the factors that are
causing change around us today. Here, at base, are the two related reasons many people become
enthralled with the examination of the past and why our society requires and encourages the
study of history as a major subject in the schools.

The importance of history in our own lives

These two above fundamental reasons for studying history underlie more specific and quite
diverse uses of history in our own lives. History well told is beautiful. Many of the historians
who most appeal to the general reading public know the importance of dramatic and skillful
writing—as well as of accuracy. Biography and military history appeal in part because of the
tales they contain.
History as art and entertainment serves a real purpose, on aesthetic grounds but also on the level
of human understanding. Stories well done are stories that reveal how people and societies have
actually functioned, and they prompt thoughts about the human experience in other times and
places. The same aesthetic and humanistic goals inspire people to immerse themselves in efforts
to reconstruct quite remote pasts, far removed from immediate, present-day utility. Exploring
what historians sometimes call the "pastness of the past"—the ways people in distant ages
constructed their lives—involves a sense of beauty and excitement, and ultimately another
perspective on human life and society.
History contributes to moral understanding
History also provides a terrain for moral contemplation. Studying the stories of individuals and
situations in the past allows a student of history to test his or her own moral sense, to hone it
against some of the real complexities individuals have faced in difficult settings. People who
have weathered adversity not just in some work of fiction, but in real, historical circumstances
can provide inspiration. "History teaching by example" is one phrase that describes this use of a
study of the past—a study not only of certifiable heroes, the great men and women of history
who successfully worked through moral dilemmas, but also of more ordinary people who
provide lessons in courage, diligence, or constructive protest.

History provides identity

History also helps provide identity, and this is unquestionably one of the reasons all modern
nations encourage its teaching in some form. Historical data include evidence about how
families, groups, institutions and whole countries were formed and about how they have evolved
while retaining cohesion. For many Americans, studying the history of one's own family is the
most obvious use of history, for it provides facts about genealogy and (at a slightly more
complex level) a basis for understanding how the family has interacted with larger historical
change. Family identity is established and confirmed. Many institutions, businesses,
communities, and social units, such as ethnic groups in the United States, use history for similar
identity purposes. Merely defining the group in the present pales against the possibility of
forming an identity based on a rich past. And of course nations use identity history as well—and
sometimes abuse it. Histories that tell the national story, emphasizing distinctive features of the
national experience, are meant to drive home an understanding of national values and a
commitment to national loyalty.

Studying history is essential for good citizenship

A study of history is essential for good citizenship. This is the most common justification for the
place of history in school curricula. Sometimes advocates of citizenship history hope merely to
promote national identity and loyalty through a history spiced by vivid stories and lessons in
individual success and morality. But the importance of history for citizenship goes beyond this
narrow goal and can even challenge it at some points.

History that lays the foundation for genuine citizenship returns, in one sense, to the essential uses
of the study of the past. History provides data about the emergence of national institutions,
problems, and values—it's the only significant storehouse of such data available. It offers
evidence also about how nations have interacted with other societies, providing international and
comparative perspectives essential for responsible citizenship. Further, studying history helps us
understand how recent, current, and prospective changes that affect the lives of citizens are
emerging or may emerge and what causes are involved. More important, studying history
encourages habits of mind that are vital for responsible public behavior, whether as a national or
community leader, an informed voter, a petitioner, or a simple observer.

Meaning and Scope of History

History (from Greek historia, meaning "inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation") is the
discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History
can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. 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 sometimes attempts to investigate objectively the patterns of cause and
effect that determine events. Historians debate the nature of history and its usefulness. This
includes discussing the study of the discipline as an end in itself and as a way of providing
"perspective" on the problems of the present. The stories common to a particular culture, but not
supported by external sources (such as the legends surrounding King Arthur) are usually
classified as cultural heritage rather than the "disinterested investigation" needed by the
discipline of history.
Events of the past prior to written record are considered prehistory.

Amongst scholars, the 5thcentury BC Greek historian Herodotus is considered to be the "father
of history", and, along with his contemporary Thucydides, forms the foundations for the modern
study of history. Their influence, along with other historical traditions in other parts of their
world, has spawned many different interpretations of the nature of history which has evolved
over the centuries and is continuing to change. The modern study of history has many different
fields including those that focus on certain regions and those which focus on certain topical or
thematical elements of historical investigation. Often history is taught as part of primary and
secondary education, and the academic study of history is a major discipline in University
studies.

Aristotle regarded it as a "systematic account of a set of natural phenomena, whether or not

chronological ordering was a factor in the account." The term "history" has now come to be
applied to accounts of events that are narrated in a chronological order, and deal with the past of
mankind. E. H. Carr defined history as an "unending dialogue between the present and the
past."
Jawaharlal Nehru observed that man’s growth from barbarism to civilization is supposed to be
the theme of history." Will Durant called history "a narrative of what civilized men have
thought or done in the past time."

B.Shiekh Ali writes, “With the passage of time the scope of history has been widened and new
areas are included in it. History is gradually assuming all the three dimensions, as its main job is
to narrate what happened, to discuss how it happened and to analyse why it happened. It is
growing in its extent as well.” History is one of the oldest subjects. In ancient period there were
only some good historians and their writings were only limited to a few wars, military
achievement and religion etc. Only some particular events were recorded by them, and mostly
their historical works were confined in praise of the kings who patronised them. So the area of
history had not much Scope .But now-a-days the situation has undergone a great change and the
scope of history has widened.

As the society developed the scope of history has been undergoing constant change. There are
three important aspects, first to record what has happened second why and how did it happened
and third how it has happened. Historians have presented the historical events with critical
approach instead of mere cataloguing the events and also describing the rise and fall of dynasties,
lifestyle of the rulers and also customs and conventions. Today the historians discuss activities of
common men also. History has developed its own independent status. Earlier it is closely linked
with philosophy or politics, but now it describes not only beliefs, moral customs of society but
also duties of a common man in society. Infact, the historians are going to include every field of
study.
Thus scope is widening day by day. A Chinese proverb makes the position of common men quite
significant. The great men are public misfortune as it is the common man who has played the
vital role in assisting the great man to achieve frame. The rank and file of the Napoleonic legion
shed their blood but fame went to their master. Therefore the historians have switched over their
attention to the ordinary men, women and children.

The scope of history is now comprehensive, because every aspect of human activities is covered.
Now- a –days historians are studying government laws, legends, folklore and art and they also
cover every phenomena whether philosophical, material, emotional, social or political which has
concerned with men. The main concern of a historian is to study human achievement whether it
is in science, technology or invention. He is not satisfied only by describing the role of dynasties
but he also studies art, science and economics. On the whole ‘scope of his study has become so
comprehensive that no activity of human being is left untouched’.

In the present age micro history writing has gained significance. The scholars now are attracted
by intensive study of rural systems and institution. They show their keen interest in social and
economic developments. The historians also show their interest in labour developments, class
struggle art, craft, industry and other changes in the society. The status of women is also a field
of discussion among the scholars. Now more emphasis is being given to writing of philosophy of
history. Marx, Hegal, Spengler and Comte are eminent scholars who painted out the progress and
decline of societies. At last it is quite clear that history had wide area of study and its scope is
widening day by day.

Some scholars point out that historians are presenting history in two ways. First they collect data
about the events and secondly they interpret and describe the causes of these events. So it is clear
that the first way of writing history concerns with objectivity and there is subjectivity in the
latter.
Trevelyen says that a historian is required to perform three functions which include scientific,
imaginative and literary. Now the scope of history covers whole aspect of mankind, whether it is
nature or man. In fact study of nature has significant role in the history. Because big mountains,
rivers and hills influence human advancement. So while writing history one cannot ignore their
importance.

The scope of history has now widened after the discovery of many ancient coins and inscriptions.
These inscriptions paved the way for archaeology further widened the knowledge of ancient
history. These provide an account of ancient man and his life style. The archaeologists opened
new grounds for historians through their excavations in many parts of the world. They now
conclude that human life could be traced back the period much earlier that commonly held. Thus
these discoveries are responsible for pushing back the history by millions of years.

History is now assuming a universal character. Because earlier world was divided into a social,
political and cultural units and these units considered themselves superior. As civilizations of
India,
China and Iran considered themselves superior than others. But after advancement of
communication many countries of world came closer to each other. They knew each other and a
feeling of oneness developed. As a result a unified culture developed and history assumed
universal character. Prof. Elton has rightly remarked, ”All good historical writing is universal
history in the sense that it remembers the universal while dealing with part of it.”

At present great emphasis is given on systematic and exhaustive collection of source material as
well as adoption of a critical attitude in making their assessment. Till nineteenth century study of
history is limited only to political events. But now social, moral, economic and literary life of the
people is also studied. At last whole outlook and approach has changed, they are moving towards
close to common men. A new concept of historical relativism has widened the scope of history.