Category talk:Theories of history

Populating this category
I'm sure there are a bunch of pages that could go under this category and it's really an interesting topic. I'll try to start working on it later, any help would be appreciated! PoptartKing 05:06, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Merge with Category:Historiography
Historiography is the study of Historians and their works while this category is about historical theories. They aren't the same thing at all, so I'm removing the merge template. --JeffW 20:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * From Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, "Historiography": "2. the bodies of techniques, theories, and principles of historical research and presentation; methods of historical scholarship." The word "historiography" covers several related areas, of which your definition is only one. I am restoring the template. Please follow procedure and present an argument against the merge on the talk page for that purpose if you still disagree. Katherine Tredwell 20:32, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I did present an argument on the talk page that you just responded to. In what way did I not follow procedure?  I just went by the text on the page Category:Historiography.  If that text is incomplete then please update it.  --JeffW 21:34, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I didn't read the whole template and thought this was one of those merge templates that just puts something in a some maintenance category. I see now that this is a CFD template and I'll go there for the discussion.  --JeffW 21:38, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Don't merge. Historiography could be anything related to systematic historical research, while Theories of history is a useful subset common expanations to historical phenomena. A quick look at the list of articles labeled Theories of history will reveal the usefulnes of having such a category. H@r@ld 23:53, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I hope you will visit the page to discuss categories for deletion, where more has been said. I have suggested making "theories of history" a subcategory of "historiography" as an alternative to a simple merge. JeffW seems to oppose such a move on the grounds that theories of history are not historiographical. I would appreciate seeing what you have to say about the debate thus far. Katherine Tredwell 00:20, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Propose "Theorists of History"
It looks like Category:Theories of history is being kept - or at least I no longer see the CFD or the merge tags, and the cat is now a subcat of Category:Historiography. I notice, however, that Francis Fukuyama and Friedrich Nietzsche (et al.) are people, not theories, and thus this category does not really describe them well.

Therefore, I propose Category:Theorists of history as a new subcat of Category:Theories of history. Unless someone knows of a better term, which is why I'm making a proposal rather than simply being bold. I thought of "Historical theorists", but the way that category names around here work, that seems more like "theorists of historical, rather than current, interest" rather than "theorists whose field is history."

Unless someone else is just itching to do it, I am perfectly willing to create and populate whatever category, if any, achieves consensus. I figure it should also have Category:Historians as a parent, but I may have overlooked some additional parent cats as well. --KGF0 ( T | C ) 06:35, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Done.--Maxaxa (talk) 23:30, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Cyclical Theory
The entry "Cyclical Theory" regarding Schlesinger's theory of cycles in American history should go here. Endeavored to add it but was unable to access list from "edit" function. This may be the result of my ignorance of the peculiarities of editing Categories or a consequence of some maintenance of the Wikipedia being done simultaneous with my editorial attempt. If someone else is able to to insert the internal link, please do. LAWinans (talk) 07:33, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ditto for A Short History of Progress and Societal collapse. Someone added this category to the former but a link does not yet appear in the list that I too cannot yet edit. Regards, 122.148.173.37 (talk) 08:59, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Both the book and the article are in subcategory "Cyclical theories" of the category.--Maxaxa (talk) 23:37, 27 October 2022 (UTC)