Talk:History/Archive 1

Internal-wiki links
This article is the epitome of useless links on random nouns. For example, the word "historian" is used 21 times in this article. The 9th time it is used, it is linked to the "Historian" page. As if after reading the first 8 inclusions of the word "historian", someone will all of a sudden forgot what a "historian" is, or have some newfound desire to learn more about historians. Wikipedia is a piece of shit.

Funny, I used to think the exact sme way, then I became a member and try to make Wikipedia a smaller piece of shit. That's much better than posting insults anonymously. Until all idiotic articles are cleaned it will take some time. But this is one of the better ones btw. HyperrealORnot 02:29, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Early comments

 * Guidelines for history on Wikipedia can be found at History.

--hey man, this is cool, keep up the good work.

History is a huge topic. It doesn't have to be limited to one top-level organization scheme. -- Stephen Gilbert

Is the geographical indexing the only kind we will offer from this point? Should we offer any others (for example, History of X where X is an academic discipline, a persistent type of human behavior like religion or philosophy, or other cross sections of human history? -- Dick Beldin

- I dont really agree with this. your point you have made was good, but... your background information does not support your ideas as well as they should. anyways. keep up the good work. User: Mike Ock -

When I started the page I made a couple of time slices, but except for the very early ones (neolithic, bronze age, maybe iron age) they really don't work too well except in localized areas. That's why the geographic overviews are at the top. But histories of disciplines wouldn't hurt to add. -- Josh Grosse

Some typical ways to divide up history that I recall include: by geographical region; by nation-state or empire; by time period (or a region in a time period such as history of medieval Europe); by sector or function within society (history of the church, history of the state which is what much history is thought to be, intellectual history, social history, military history, history of exploration, etc.). See http://dmoz.org/Society/History/ and http://dir.yahoo.com/Arts/Humanities/History/. I'm not suggesting we replicate their category schemes (which wouldn't make sense for an encyclopedia), but just use that for ideas about how to expand ours. I'd lend a direct hand but I haven't studied history in a long time. --LMS

Another possible organisational scheme might be by civilization; i.e. Meditarranean, East (sprang up from eastern Roman empire), West, China, Japan, etc.

-- One of the things I'm beginning to perceive about wikipedia is its inherent organizational flexibility. So long as the name of the article is clear enough it can be linked into any number of organizational schemes. There's no reason the history page shouldn't end up as complicated as the home page - a geographical organization, a chronological organization, historiographic approaches organization (history of religion, history of technology) --- all of these floating over the same body of entries. The hard part is letting go of an ideal top-level schema while composing new entries. --MichaelTinkler

Ain't it grand? ;-) --Larry Sanger

Historians, would you please look at and offer opinions as to whether they have a good top-level category scheme for the history page? This was suggested on a history newsgroup and it looks generally pretty good to me. If you agree, perhaps what we have right now can be worked into that larger and more complete category scheme. --Larry Sanger

- the distinction between 'history' and 'archaeology' in the "definition" of history here is idiosyncratic. Professional historians work with all kinds of materials, including the archaeological materials distinguished in this 'definition.'

True, historians use archaeology, but history is limited to the period of human written records, archaeology is not.

Hi Larry -- AHA member weighing in here. I like the AHA's category scheme, but have always found the overlaps to be a pain. Still, I think it's better than anything else I've seen. -- JHK

I'm not so sure about that biography link -- we have links to individuals, but Biography is no often NOT history 9or so often written as panegyric, or somewhat fictionalized, or, like that recent bio of Reagan, the author creates a fictional "fly-on-the-wall" character, that I'm not sure why there's a separate link. Anybody else think this is redundant? JHK

Redundant because the 9 "historical figures" already have the field covered? :-)

Perhaps it's "fictionalized biography" that deserves an index of its own, outside the main biography index.

Still don't think there needs to be a bio section, we have individual entries, and these are not usually termed bios in other encyclopedia. Also, that 9 was a typo...

More imporatintly, I think we need to change the title system for individuals. Right now, we act as if we're doing dictionary entries. For example, Henry VII is 1) one person, and 2) another person. Would it be possible to either make the entry, e.g., Henry VII of England? Putting the first names in their proper language might be another solution, I suppose, so we'd have Henry, Heinrich, Henri.... At any rate, I don't think what we have is going to work well in the long run -- it will be very cumbersome very quickly. JHK
 * I think we should use *English* forms of the name as much as possible (this is English-wikipedia, after all) and in the case of monarchs the name of the nation. For Emperors we should use 'Emperor Frederick I', 'Emperor Frederick II' on the model of the papal nomenclature.  I don't think ANY of the names will overlap between the Byzantine emperors, HRE Emperors, Chinese Emperors, etc. so they could all be called Emperor So-and-so the Numberth.  This means renaming all the Byzantine and HRE and Roman Emperors, but hell, we did the popes, and there are more than 200 of those. The Spanish are already handled this way (though some of those folks weren't really kings of SPAIN, per se. --MichaelTinkler

My 2 groats worth: This is definitely a problem. Henry I could be any one of perm one to fifteen. But hell, every time I want to reference Henry I, if we qualify by nationality, I have to do: (where { = [ ). This can be a real pain in the neck where you might be referencing ten or twelve monarchs in an article, but highly necessary. The rule of thumb from my point of view is simple: if they're English, they don't need a national qualifier. If they aren't e.g. they're Scots, French, Martian, even Cornish (and we do have the names of some of our kings...) then they need to be qualified. sjc

The tightening of the 1st para is a nicely worked revision. sjc

Thought this might be a useful (non-public) source, if only for structure. -- Sam

I vote for deleting the "herstory" bit, it is a trivialty that does not belong on this page. -- zero

198... With some misgivings I am reverting your additions. They seem more like a personal viewpoint that encyclopedic information. In either case they do no belong in the header. Try making a new section for them. DJ Clayworth 19:59, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Proposal of the "History Timeline"
Classification in itself does not bother me to the high extent, either one of those mentions would do just fine. However there is one thing that I would like to propose and that is a timeline of most important historical events. Maybe we could create an article: "Historical Timeline" or something of the sort? Moreover in that article there could be a further split into smaller timelines, where more events would be mentioned. This would provide a good and solid general overview of history.

interpretation in history
i wanted to find out what people thought about the view that history is solely made up of interpretation. in most cases i agree, but with some historical facts (eg a volcano erupting) there is no room for interpretation, so how do you continue to argue the view? a curious student...

Is there any mention of comparative history in this article? I've tried looking and I can't seem to find it... I'm worried I've invented it... :-s Vanky 12:46, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Eurasia
I see this is listed in sub-regions, but being in fact two 'regions' (Europe & Asia) combined, how can it be such? Grunners 01:39, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

history
does anyone know who invented the french language i really need some help. i am doing a presentation on this on Wendsday frbuary 16, 2005. soo please if you know or find any information on this subject please wright me back as soon as possible! thanks a lot for your help with all of this an dtaking time to help thanks a lot!

interpretation rights and point of view
I think this section has miss the most important message, interpretation rights. Put into simple sentences, "everyone has their own version of interpretation over the events". It is important to point out in this wiki that historical article and reference itself are subjective. So it is important to point out the importance of neutral point of view(NPOV) to the reader.

AP World History Exam
What is the AP World History Exam? Why is it mentioned in the introduction? --Theo (Talk) 20:20, 8 May 2005 (UTC)


 * It's an exam that American high school students can take in order to earn college credit. I don't know why it's in the intro. - Brunnock 22:00, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

Historicity
When, where, how did this word become part of the English language? And who the heck came up with it? Having majored in history I don't ever remember any of my professors using the word "historicity".
 * as near as I have seen. the when was about 1875–80, the where was academia, and believe it was in grammatology in particular. Chance0 10:52, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

announcing policy proposal
This is just to inform people that I want Wikipedia to accept a general policy that BC and AD represent a Christian Point of View and should be used only when they are appropriate, that is, in the context of expressing or providing an account of a Christian point of view. In other contexts, I argue that they violate our NPOV policy and we should use BCE and CE instead. See Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate for the detailed proposal. Slrubenstein  |  Talk  22:55, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

историја
this "history is a Slavic word" business is laughable. It is not a matter of "point of view", Brumi, it is a matter of etymology. You would have to cite a linguistic publication making that sort of claim. Or you could focus on contributing in areas you are familiar with, of course. dab (&#5839;) 11:46, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I could not believe that just correcting something in this article would initiate an edit war. And if Brumi is not persuaded:
 * Epictetus, Works ἱστορήσαντας meaning spectators.
 * Sophocles, Electra ἱστόρει meaning ask.
 * Sophocles, Electra ἴστωρ meaning to know.
 * Plato, Cratylus ἵστορα meaning learned.
 * Lycurgus, Against Leocrates ἴστορες meaning witnesses (in the oath of the Athenian citizen).
 * Hesiod, Works and Days ἵστορα meaning a wise man.
 * Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris ἴστορας meaning to know.
 * Homer, Iliad and ἵστωρ meaning judge.

Slavic speakers spread to the Balkans at about AD 600. The slavic Macedonian language you refer is different from the greek Ancient Macedonian language. --geraki 00:28, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

That's right. Keep on. Just go on and believe in myths. I really wonder how did those 100.000 Slavic warriors who crossed the Danube and half of them got killed and then assimilate almost entire Balkans? And guess what! No archeological proof to prove that Slavs came to Balkans in any period in history.

As for these Greek authors here you posted, most I know were not even Greek.

You guys have little idea what is happening in Slavic academic circles. But you'll see when the time comes.
 * Lemme guess: hunger?

If you find anything I say as lunacy, trust me, I have hundreds of Slavic scholars who will agree. Hmm... In fact why should we lend you our knowledge?! From what we see most of you still believe in Moon landings and theory of relativity.


 * And now for something completely different: The lifetime prevalence of schizophrenia is commonly given at 1%. Erudite Wiki-editors are obviously exempt from this grim statistic.

Historiography
The "By ideological classification" section is nearly redundant with a section near the bottom of the Historical classification page. Which is the more appropriate location? Thanks. &mdash; RJH 19:00, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Prehistory vs. History
I've changed the last sentence of the introduction, as the division that was made there between prehistory and history (the advent of agriculture some 10,000 years ago) was contrary to the definition most often used, as can be seen here. Fram 12:01, 2 September 2005 (UTC)


 * The article is now much improved. I have changed one recent change back.  The usage "H. G. Wells and Will Durant & Ariel Durant" has in recent years come to indicate that the writers joined by an ampersand collaborated.

Umm...
History is the term used in schools as a method of extreme torture. When used as the name of a field of study, history refers to the stupidity of human people, families, and societies. Knowledge of history is often said to encompass both boredom and historical disliking skills.

Traditionally, the study of history has been considered a mistake of the humanities. However, in modern academia, history is increasingly classified as a pointless subject, especially when pointless junk is the focus.

The word "history" is commonly used for the stupidity of humankind. The history of all life on Earth, including the period prior to the appearance of human ancestors, is generally covered under (who really cares). The history of the Earth is a component of the science of geology. (In actuality, the history of the Earth is irrelavent to our everyday lives). The history of the Solar System, the stars, and galaxies is a component of my bowell movements. The history of the Universe as a whole is studied in absolutely nowhere.

More historians limit their study to events that have occurred since the introduction of written records, or since the agricultural revolution and the appearance of civilizations (about 10,000 years ago)(I myself limit my studies to videogames). Others use the term "history" to include the entire hypocracy of humankind, including the blah-blah-blah who cares. The study of events before the first written records (which includes more than 99 percent of the time humans have existed) is sometimes called bullllshit.

Is this right?--86.129.93.39 20:29, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

What?
Is no one here taking this article seriously? History isn't junk. History is something to be learned from. This article needs some major help. I mean the word "fuck" is in the first sentence. -BIG BROTHER


 * Welcome to Wikipedia. A small number of childish people -- many of them children -- think dirty words are funny and put them in Wikipedia articles.  When you see an instance of this, just revert the article to the pre-vandalized version.  Check the Help page if you need isntructions on how to do this. Rick Norwood 13:06, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Structure of the Page
If this page wins the improvement drive, there ought to be a proper overhaul of the way its laid out. Firstly, a distinction should be made between the academic subject of history and the actual history of the world.

The first page - say, "History (Academic)" - should contain information about the subject; historiography, practice, the history of the subject, the science or art debate, blah blah blah.

Perhaps the second section could take the form of a brief history of the world and the human race, but considering the ridiculous amount of petty nationalism this page has brought out in people, trying to limit it would be difficult.

I don't know about the details, it just seems like the page is a little confusing and the moment, and perhaps that's because its not properly defined. Something to think about anyway. - Richar4034


 * Sounds like a good idea, but not an easy task. I think even to get people to agree on how to order the section on a capsule history of the human race would be a major battle, but I'm willing to help if you want to tackle it.  I once wrote a history of Greece that read, "Socrates taught Plato.  Plato taught Aristotle.  Aristotle taught Alexander.  Alexander taught the world."  So you can see that very brief histories appeal to me.  I don't think "History (Academic)" ought to come first, though.  Last, surely.  I've got this page on my watch list, and will be interested to see how things develop. Rick Norwood 20:53, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

thanks to Anonuser
Thanks, Anonuser, for an excellent rewrite. The article is much improved thereby. Rick Norwood 13:31, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Picture
That collage of images at the bottom of the page is a bit US-centred. All the pictures show events in which the US was directly involved or in which they had great interest. And there isn't a single image of key events such as the First World War, the Russian Revolution, or the fall of the Berlin Wall, or of 20th-century themes such as the baby boom, computer technology, or the Third World. I don't think it's fair to shove in a few pictures of Iwo Jima, September 11th, or Ronald Regan, and claim they represent the 20th century! Why are images of 9/11 in there anywhere? Wrong century! Maybe we should change the picture? Rusty2005 22:41, 27 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Or get rid of it entirely. Ashibaka tock 21:42, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I can't find when famous peple were born


 * Type their name in the little box on the left that says, "Search" and then click on "Go". Rick Norwood 20:56, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Lessons of History
First of all, as this is the first time I have commented about an article, please accept my apologies if I press the wrong buttons or transgress against etiquette in other ways.

Moving to the substance, the Italic textLessons of HistoryItalic text Section strikes me as rather contentious. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to rewrite it myself but I hope that someone, perhaps an undergraduate with GHP essays to hand, could help.

In general, partly because of the paragraph ordering and partly because of the comparative weights given to the opposing views, the section suggests that the consensus is that lessons can be learnt from history. Whilst, clearly, there are arguments for that view (in themselves about varying degrees of what can be learnt), I suggest that this is far from the consensus view.

In particular, the statement that, "historians often claim that the study of history teaches valuable lessons ..." seems to me to be questionable. If one defines historians, as the context implies, as professional historians then I cannot think of many examples of this within the last fifty years (I acknowledge here that there may be examples amongst historians writing in languages other than English). Even, to coin a phrase, latter day Whigs (from Churchill to Schaama) only make claims, of varying degrees, about historical progress and not about the ability to learn lessons from history.

In my observation, it is most often politicians rather than historians who make such claims, for example, the invocation of the spectre of pre-Second World War appeasement to help justify the recent Iraq War.

In this context, and because it is mentioned in the section in question, it is perhaps worth noting that appeasement is popularly derided precisely because Churchill succeeded in writing a history that was kind to him (see, in particular, David Reynolds' Italic textIn Command of HistoryItalic text).

Although which side I incline to over this matter is probably evident from my comments above, I am not saying that no lessons can be learnt from history, simply that the section reflects neither the debate over this issue nor the side that, in varying degrees, most historians lean to.

--CPB 12:54, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I can think of several clear lessons of history. When people have more children than they can feed, some children starve. Attempts to fix prices always result in a black market. Attempts to outlaw prostitution always result in corrupt police. I am sure there are many more. Rick Norwood 16:20, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

See also section duplicates historiography article
Hi - the "See also" section of this article is pretty good and interesting. It overlaps with the Historiography article, which also contains a list of approaches to history. Both contain elements the other does not. It would be more valuable as a single list. I'm not sure how to integrate it, so we have a central place for "Approaches to history". Could it justify a new article (perhaps even "List of .." article)? Or perhaps a "See Main" header to keep it one place? Any thoughts or comments. --Stbalbach 02:44, 19 November 2005 (UTC)


 * There is not anything wrong, necessarily, with duplication between articles. In fact, that can't be avoided.  It might be nice if the two lists were the same.  And moving the list to a page "Lists of historical subjects" would also be a good way to handle the problem. Rick Norwood 13:27, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

publication
would you like to publish this article? -- Zondor 22:19, 27 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Sure, why not. Rick Norwood 20:55, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Historiography
Rm: "Historiography is the study and analysis of history through a belief system or philosophy. Although there is arguably some intrinsic bias in historical studies (with national bias perhaps being the most significant), history can also be studied from ideological perspectives, such as Marxist historiography." This is incorrect statement, replaced by the introduction of the Historiography entry (historiography is not the study of history through a belief system: any human being, including historian, has such a belief system. There are intrinsic bias in historical studies, which is not arguable (the first one being the belief on the importance of history and memory; see Friedrich Nietzsche for a full argumentation of this). A "national bias" is certainly a ideological perspective, just as much as Marxist historiography. Kaliz 16:31, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * As an example of why I reverted your recent edit, consider your first sentence:

"Historiography is the study of the way history is written. In a broad sense, history refers to the methodology and practices of writing history."

I think you mean "In a broad sense, historiography..." I started to edit rather than revert what you had written, but I came across so much careless writing that I thought you would prefer to fix it yourself. Rick Norwood 16:56, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Improvement drive
A related topic, History of the world is currently a nomination on WP:IDRIVE. Support the article with your vote to improve its quality. --Fenice 14:18, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Non European histories
Doesn't this article need to address the other significant history-writing traditions ? (Chinese and Islamic) Mountshang 16:44, 3 February 2006 (UTC)


 * That would be good, but we need to attract experts willing to contribute their time. Rick Norwood 21:33, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Herstory
I'd like to make mention again of the term 'Herstory'. There are literally hundreds of books and other assorted media in which this term is used. The presentation in the Herstory article itself is lacking by the fact that it refers so strongly to the humorous aspects and downright falsely states that Femminists generally do not wish for a linguistic change, but of course that is another matter. My point here is that some kind of reference to this rather important 'slang' (or as femminists often reffer to it 'alternate spelling') is needed.

History vs written history
In academic circles, is "history" usually synonymous with recorded/written history, or is the term also used often to refer to periods before the existence of writing? Shawnc 07:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * This is discussed at pre-history - the artificial notion of "written record only" is a 19th century artifact that is long out of style. -- Stbalbach 16:50, 4 March 2006 (UTC)


 * According to Amazon.com, over 600 books with the words "prehistory" or "prehistoric" in the title have been published in the past 5 years. --Sean Brunnock 17:58, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

There is a big difference between prehistory and prehistoric. Prehistory is a serious study of events before written records. Prehistoric can be anything from dinosaurs to When Women Had Tails. Rick Norwood 23:03, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Recent Vandalism
I noticed there has been a lot of vandalism here recently -  should we semi-protect? The Missing Piece 20:25, 4 May 2006 (UTC) Yes please. Alopex 15:24, 13 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Any article whose title is also the name of a subject in high school: history, mathematics, English, etc., is going to get a lot of vandalism, as teens bored out of their minds look for something, anything, to break the tedium. Best just to delete without comment. Rick Norwood 19:05, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia CD Selection
At present it is very noticable that there are very few history articles on the Wikipedia-CD/Download. If any articles are interesting to children aged 8-16 and free from porn, contraversy etc you are invited to mark them on the talk page with

Etymology
Just a speculation : History = Ιστορία = Ιστός + Ροή = Web + Flow/Run. Obviusly, "web" is the world. So, history is about finding out what was the course of the world until now.

Wikipedia and History - a professional historian's assessment
Roy Rosenzweig, December 2005, "Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past", published June 2006. This assessment shows that Wikipedia surpasses other popular encyclopedias in breadth but is inferior in both depth and breadth to the online encyclopedias of the historians - which are accessible only to professional historians. He calls for opening up these encyclopedias to the general reader, which are more extensive (and expensive) than Wikipedia. --Ancheta Wis 15:47, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for sharing. I found this article interesting. I agree that closed encyclopedias need to be opened up as do closed history journals.  What authority does the peer-reviewed process matter if only a few thousand people ever read it?  History on the Web which is accessible to the world for free will be read by millions.  And that free stuff is often biased and wrong but believed because it ranks well in Google! History resources created by real historians need to find new ways to monitize content and still be accessible for free or they will be largery ignored in the new information world.  LarryQ

==

Hello,

Can I add a weblink to www.schoolhistory.co.uk? I have used it for teaching history for several years and it is a fantastic resource for students and teachers which I think deserves wider recognition. It is totally free and without advertising!

Sophie

quality
this article is a mess. it desperately needs some quality and tone worked into it. please, someone (or some people) work on clarifying this morass on the eyes. JoeSmack Talk (p-review!) 18:38, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

•	The Acton wrote his personal epitaph in the introductory note of the Cambridge Modern History •	The book was published after he died •	None of the document can tell us more than the author of the document thought, what he thought had happen. What he thought ought to happen or would happen.