— Ch. 1 · Origins Of Historical Thought —
Historian.
~6 min read · Ch. 1 of 6
Herodotus of Halicarnassus lived during the fifth century BC and produced The Histories, a work that later earned him the title father of history. He traveled extensively across Mediterranean cultures to gather written accounts while attempting to distinguish between more reliable and less reliable sources. His approach included attributing historical events to both human actions and divine intervention. Thucydides followed with an account of the war between Athens and Sparta that largely eliminated divine causality in favor of rationalistic explanation. Xenophon introduced autobiographical elements and character studies into his Anabasis after 355 BCE. Sima Qian around 100 BCE created the Shiji Records of the Grand Historian which extended back to the 16th century BCE. This monumental work included treatises on specific subjects alongside biographies of prominent people and commoners from previous eras. The Spring and Autumn Annals covered the State of Lu from 722 to 481 BCE using annalistic principles. Early Roman historians like Cato the Elder wrote Origines in Latin starting 234, 149 BCE to counteract Greek cultural influence. Strabo combined geography with history presenting descriptive accounts of peoples known to his era. Livy recorded Rome's rise from city-state to empire until 17 CE including speculation about Alexander the Great marching against Rome.
The Enlightenment Shift
Voltaire published The Age of Louis XIV in 1751 and Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations in 1756. He stated in 1739 that his chief object was not political or military history but rather the history of arts commerce civilization and human mind. Edward Gibbon released The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on the 17th of February 1776 earning approximately £9000 for its sales. David Hume published a six-volume History of England in 1754 extending from Julius Caesar's invasion to the Revolution of 1688. William Robertson served as Historiographer Royal publishing The History of Scotland covering 1542 through 1603 in 1759. His most famous work The History of the Reign of Charles V appeared in 1769 after accessing previously unstudied documentary sources. Thomas Carlyle released The French Revolution: A History in three volumes during 1837 introducing passion new to historical writing. Jules Michelet coined the term Renaissance meaning Re-birth in French language within his nineteen-volume Histoire de France covering Charlemagne to the outbreak of the Revolution. Hippolyte Taine became chief theoretical influence of French naturalism promoting sociological positivism and historicist criticism. Jacob Burckhardt published The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy in 1860 establishing himself as first master of cultural history.