Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/History/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 22 April 2025 [1].

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History

Nominator(s): Phlsph7 and Generalissima

History is the academic study of the past. It analyzes and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Thanks to Vyselink, Kowal2701, and Noswall59 for their talk-page comments, UndercoverClassicist for their in-depth GA review, and DoctorWhoFan91 for their peer review! Phlsph7 (talk) 10:07, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! Does the legitimisation of oral sources get a mention in ==Evolution of the discipline==? Kowal2701 (talk) 10:20, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

No, Kowal2701; Hugh Trevor-Roper would be pleased. Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 10:28, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. Oral traditions are mentioned in the first paragraph. I found a way to also include oral history in the paragraph on the 20th century to ensure that Hugh Trevor-Roper would not be too pleased with this section . Oral history is discussed in more detail in the section "Areas of study#Others". Phlsph7 (talk) 10:56, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

Okay, it was just that the multidisciplinary approach in African historiography#Postcolonial historiography was innovative, but understandable if that isn’t due, thanks. Kowal2701 (talk) 11:03, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

Drive-by comment by Llewee - "Education"

Is there any research into what sources of information on history are most influential or whether people's education about history influences identity and beliefs which could be briefly summarised here? Maybe a bit of information could be included about how history education has changed overtime? Also, I think you could include an image related to history lessons (e.g File:Frans Verhas - History lesson at home.jpeg, File:Amsterdamse Vondelschool naar de wekelijkse museumles in het Stedelijk Museum, Bestanddeelnr 910-9349.jpg or File:Girls at Albany Senior School in Enfield during a lesson on American History, 1943. D13781.jpg).--Llewee (talk) 00:14, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

I added some additional information on how history education influences cultural identity. Similar points are also discussed in the second paragraph of "Definition#Purpose". Some changes in the methods of history education are hinted at in the 2nd paragraph of the subsection "Related fields#Education". I reformulated the text to make it more explicit. I like the pictures, I added the last one to the article. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:56, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Comments Support from ErnestKrause

Some comments to get things started.

Comments

• The article is titled 'History' though the subject matter discussed seems much more strongly oriented to "Human History". For example, there is no specific mention of evolutionary history or cosmological history, which are detailed studies in their own right.

  That's correct: the human past is the primary focus of historians. Our article also discusses attempts to apply the historical method to other periods, such as big history and deep history, but they are recent inventions and not widely practiced compared to the more typical activities of historians. I don't think that evolutionary history is influential enough to be discussed. For example, the 2012 book Evolutionary History describes evolutionary history as "a new field that unites history and biology". Let me know if you think otherwise, maybe there is a way to mention it somewhere. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:40, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

"Human history" is one part of history alongside other forms of its study such as "Evolutionary history", "Cosmological history", etc. For example, evolutionary history goes back to Darwin with troglodytes evolving into fishes which then evolved into amphibians which then evolved into mammals which then evolved into chimps, all of which emerged historically before humans would eventually proceed from chimps. That's a long history before human history even emerges. Its not out of the question that you single out human history, though some mention should be made in your article, perhaps in the lede also, that human history is the subject of discussion in the article and that the other forms of history can be linked to elsewhere in Wikipedia. Same for cosmological history and major best-sellers such Stephen Hawkins A Brief History of Time; doesn't cosmological history stand next to human history as a field of study, rather than as a footnote? ErnestKrause (talk) 22:57, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

I expanded the discussion of big history to provide more information on cosmology and evolution. In principle, we could consider giving a longer presentation to cover these fields in more detail. However, there were already concerns during the GA review about giving too much weight to big history since it is not one of the main branches of history.

The second lead sentence discusses how historians focus "primarily on the human past". I think this is not about downgrading how physicists study the origin of the universe or biologists study the origin of life. It's just that this is not what historians primarily study. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:26, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

• A single mention of Herodotus and Thucydides seems a little on the undeveloped side of things. For the history of military warfare, they are seen as central figures in moving the subject matter of the history of human affairs into a preferred narrative form involving historical proofs, artifacts, collaboration of witnesses, accounts of witnesses, comparing differing opinions next to each other, etc. Thucydides does not appear until the second half of the article, and at that only appears a single time in the while article. If he moved history into a more objective form of study, then it seems he deserves more credit.

  I found a way to mention them in relation to political history. Generally speaking, this article focuses on history, not on historiography, so I think it's better not to focus too much on the metatopic of how history as an academic discipline evolved. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:40, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

My point I think is that with Herodotus and especially Thucydides that history was to be a domain which no longer relied on mythological or theological explanations for its merits. No more discussion such as "The Greeks were losing the battle when, all of a sudden, Zeus appeared and vanquished the enemy with thunderbolts". That type of explanation was common before Thucydides and highly criticized after Thucydides. ErnestKrause (talk) 22:57, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

I added a footnote to give more emphasis to it. It is also discussed in the first paragraph of the section "Evolution of the discipline". Phlsph7 (talk) 12:17, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

• The Darwin form of evolutionary history as a part evolutionary biology seems almost an after-thought to this article on "history". If your article is about Human History, then it could obviate the need to look at fossil histories for non-human animals and fauna, etc. Evolutionary history in evolutionary biology devotes much time to this discipline which seem not to be covered in this article. After looking, it appears that Darwin in not mentioned in your article at all.

  See my comment above for evolutionary history. The role of evolution is discussed in a few places, like the sections "Areas of study" and "Related fields#Other fields". If you mean evolution as it is studied by biologists, I'm not sure that the article "history" is the right place to discuss this. I had a look at a few overview sources on history in general, like Arnold 2000, Cannadine 2002, Donnelly 2012, Tosh 2002, and Woolf 2019. They give very little information on the different developments in biological evolution prior to the first human species, if they mention them at all. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:40, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

My comment on Darwin is above. Darwin was a big deal for the history of science, and most of evolutionary history comes before the emergence of human history for Darwin. ErnestKrause (talk) 22:57, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

I mentioned Darwin in relation to the history of science. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:22, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

• I'm not sure that your allusion to prehuman history is quite enough to cover the gap between prehuman history and the history that emerges with the first humans in the species. The current emphasis in your article is strongly centered on "Human History", which may have been your chosen topic for your article being nominated here. Should the title of the article have been "Human History"?

  See my comments above. As far as I can tell, this is how the term "History" is used in high-quality reliable sources when referring to the academic discipline with that name. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:40, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

• You appear to mention environmental history as related only as the interaction of humans with their environment, but for persons who study this field the study of the earth's environment seems to go well past human history historically. Glacial formations, continental drift, geological hemispheric adaptation, all have their own extensive histories which are often studied as the history of glacial formations, the history of continental drift, etc. Apparently its not covered in this nominated article.

  I think this is how the sources define "environmental history". The first sentence of Hughes 2016, p. 1 says that "Environmental history studies the mutual relationships of humans and nature through time". Phlsph7 (talk) 10:40, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

That's a useful example and I think it is relevant to discussing your definition of history as the study of the past, rather than as development through time, as your example states. Isn't the alternative definition of 'history is the study of events as they develop over time' a closer version to a view more consistent with the example of Hughes which you just presented. ErnestKrause (talk) 22:57, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't think that we can extract a definition of history from this definition of environmental history. See my comment further below for more details on this issue. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:30, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

• Cosmological history is next in line for subjects which could receive more attention, which asks the questions of where did the planets come from, when did they first appear, when did the first stars emerge, when did the first galaxies come into existence. Cosmologists often speak of this as 13 billion years history, mostly studied by Hubble and the generations of astronomers and astrophysicists who followed him. Mentioning the 'Big Bang' in your article once seems somehow to fall short of the extensive contributions made to this field which studies cosmological history.

• Again, I don't think that this is what historians primarily do. The overview sources mentioned above don't have much information on the different developments in cosmology, if they mention them at all. Big history discusses these developments, but it is only one among many branches of history. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:40, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

I've already mentioned Stephen Hawkins famous book, though there are many others such as the research of Albert Einstein, E. Hubble, Kip Thorne, and many, many others. They are moving in the direction of Cosmological history being just as important and Human history as disciplines of study. ErnestKrause (talk) 22:57, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

It might well be that the cosmological description of the development of the universe is as important as human history. But this cosmological description is just not the main topic of historians. Traditionally, history was limited to recorded history. Although certain developments in the 2nd half of the 20th century made this a little more complicated, it's still the main focus of historians. See Woolf 2019 pp. 299–300 on this issue. You could also have a look at Cannadine's 2002 What is History Now?, in which each chapter discusses a major branch of history, with no chapters on (or mentions of) evolutionary history or cosmological history. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:30, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

• The important aspect of history emerging as specialized discipline after Thucydides also has is place as a correction to other forms of narrative which stood in its place beforehand. Religious history was often very inventive and included liberal use of poetical or metaphorical expression which is no longer feasible for modern historical narratives. Similarly, mythologies often contain invented histories which would be excluded from the modern historical narrative.

  Some of these topics are discussed in the sections "Definition#Purpose" and "Evolution of the discipline". I think it belongs primarily to historiography, but it would be possible to discuss it in more detail if you think otherwise. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:40, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

• If there is such a thing as modern historical narrative, then it might be nice to see a little more about its development since the Enlightenment or since the Renaissance. There seems to be more to this than stating something like "Auguste Comte articulated positivism, advocating a science-based approach to history." If modern historical narrative is meant to be more scientific than in previous times, then more can be stated to articulate this development.

  The Enlightenment, the Renaissance, and the following developments of history as an academic discipline are discussed in the section "Evolution of the discipline". This section, which covers historiography, could be expanded. Do you have specific facts in mind that should not be left out? However, I would be careful about trying to cram to much into it. Per WP:SUMMARYSTYLE, it may be better to give only a broad outline and leave the details to child articles, like historiography. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:40, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

I'm thinking that the Renaissance took the perspective of rebirth from Greek and Roman culture was significant to them in ways which was not the case for Enlightenment historians. Similarly, Enlightenment historians thought of themselves under different historical circumstances than did Renaissance historians. Peter Gay was the Yale scholar who defined much of what the Enlightenment historians centered upon, as well as the Modernist historical era which followed both the Enlightenment and the Renaissance.

I added some additional information on the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:09, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Something to get things started. ErnestKrause (talk) 00:32, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Hello ErnestKrause and thanks for your comments! Phlsph7 (talk) 10:40, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Second set of Comments

• In addition to the comments added above, I'm thinking that your definition of 'history as the study of the past' comes up a little short; it does not answer all the questions that it should be answering. "History is the study of the development of events over time", seems much more of the mark.
• If you do take up this alternate definition which seems more general, then you would also be able to answer questions such as "Is the study of the present also a historical study of events". Not only that but also the description of anticipated or planned future events which asks "Is the study of events anticipated in the future also falling within the domain of historical study." I think the answer to both is 'yes'. For example, in nuclear geopolitics the outcome of nuclear fall-out is often described in terms of what amounts to a historical construction of first there is overexposure to radiation, then there is radiation sickness, then there is mass extinction within human populations. Often, historical processes as applied to the future as discussed as being eschatological or even apocalyptic events, and they are elborated using a historical type of narrative as is comparable to that found in the study of history of the past.
• By the 'development' and by 'events' in the alternate definition I've been discussing, both of those terms should be broadly construed. For your specific context of human history, then it could be further distinguished as 'human development' of 'human events'. The broader definition as I've presented it might suit your article better.

  For this and the preceding points, see below. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:29, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

• I'm hoping that I'm not the only one interested in defending the positions of Darwin, and Einstein, and Hubble, and Stephen Hawking, since they are all central figures in the history of science in general.

  I found a way to mention Darwin and Einstein. The history of science is only one of countless branches of history and does not belong to the most important ones. Given how broad the topic of our article is, I think it's better to leave further details to child articles per WP:SUMMARYSTYLE. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:24, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

• Should eschatology, forecasting, and historical planning be a part of this article if they are part of describing what the full study of historical process ought to be? Does historical method apply to all three: description of the past, description of the present, and description of anticipated future events.

  Responding to this and the points above, I think there is overwhelming consensus that history is about the past. For example, see Arnold 2000 p.5, Tucker 2011 pp. xii & 1–2, Little 2020 § 1. History and its representation, and Donnelly & Norton 2012 p. xi–xiii. What historians uncover in the past is often relevant to the present and the future, but these periods are not the main objects of study. If you know of high-quality sources that discuss these alternative definitions of history and the application of the historical method to the future, I would be interested to have a look at them and maybe something can be used in the article. I know of Little 2010 p. 6–8, which considers the theoretical possibility of and obstacles to applying the historical approach to the present but is pessimistic about this theoretical possibility. Some philosophers of history speculate whether history is a teleological process moving towards a predetermined goal. This is covered in our article in the section "Philosophy of history". Phlsph7 (talk) 16:28, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Such books as The Population Bomb by Paul Erlich spend over ninety percent of their time doing history analysis in order to forecast future events within a historical perspective. Its difficult for some readers to see you say that this does not fit into the shoebox of 'study of the past'. Do you wish to exclude The Population Bomb and all such titles? ErnestKrause (talk) 19:56, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't want to exclude any topic per se. However, I want to present topics in a balanced manner according to the weight they get in overview sources. A book about predicting overpopulation is not an overview source of the academic discipline of history, and we should not ourselves change widely accepted definitions of history just because of it. See my comments below about overview sources and WP:PROPORTION. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:28, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

• Possibly more about your distinction on 'historiography' as opposed to 'history' proper would be useful.

  We have a full subsection on historiography. The first paragraph of it compares history and historiography. In the definition section, footnote [a] also explains the meanings of the terms "history" and "historiography". If there is an important piece of information that is missing from these explanations, I would be happy to add it. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:37, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

I'll look forward to seeing your formulation of these questions and inquiries. ErnestKrause (talk) 22:57, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Third set of comments

• Even if your version of the definition of it as being 'the study of the past' is common, then it is not very comprehensive; as opposed to "History is the study of the development of events over time", which is much more comprehensive.

  I think our goal is to follow what the reliable sources say. It's not our goal to introduce a new or uncommon definition even if we personally think that it is better. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:48, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

• Many of my comments deal with your having chosen the broadest possible title for your essay. If you had called the article "Human History", then many of my comments would have fallen away. I'm still thinking that "Human history" is a better title for your article.

  This is an encyclopedic article, not an essay. All the main sources of this article call this academic discipline "History". The term "Human history" is sometimes used as a synonym of world history, which is just one branch of history. I think we should follow established nomenclature here instead of introducing our own nomenclature, even if we personally don't agree with established nomenclature. As a sidenote, we already have an article Human history. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:56, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

One of the other popular enhancements to your definition is to say "History is the study of change over time". That would be better. Another option is that of Kant who used the definition which "viewed history as a chronological study of human actions and the development of reason and freedom," which is another alternative. If you are strongly attached to your own version 'as the study of the past', then I would suggest listing these alternative definitions in one of the opening sections of your article alongside each other in order that readers may asses them. Kant is a fairly highly placed source and closer to your view of history as limited to 'human history'. Another can be found in R. G. Collingwood in his book title The Idea of History. ErnestKrause (talk) 17:10, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

This book by Collingwood is useful and I added a reference. On page 9, it says that history is ... the attempt to answer questions about human actions done in the past. I'm open to adding a reference to Kant as well if you know the book and page number of your quote above. I also found a way to include your formulation about events developing over time. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:54, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

See note below. ErnestKrause (talk) 14:29, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

• One more point, and then I'll need to wait to hear more from other editors in reflecting about this article. Even if you deflect my comments about Cosmological history and Evolutionary history, then there are still other sub disciplines still within Human history which seem to be very short in their commentary. Art History for example is mentioned only once, even though it is a major study in academia. Egyptian art, Greek art, Roman art, etc., are all part of history all the way up to Picasso and Pollack in the 20th century. But your article appears to give it only one sentence.

  When a reviewer asks for major additions, I usually consult overview sources to assess WP:WEIGHT in accordance with WP:PROPORTION. Overview sources give a broad summary of what history as an academic discipline is, discussing its definition, branches, methods, and development, among other things. Sources dedicated to explaining cosmology or predicting future overpopulation, like the ones you mentioned earlier, are not overview sources on history and are not particularly helpful for assessing weight in our context, similar to how a source on second-order logic is not helpful to argue that our history article needs a new section on second-order logic. If you can point to high-quality overview sources that say that cosmological history and the prediction of future events are among the main topics discussed by historians, I would be happy to adjust the article. The overview sources that I'm aware of, like the ones I mentioned earlier, don't support these suggestions.

  Many of the main thematic branches, like economic history and social history, only get one paragraph. Art history is not as important, and therefore should get less. I added one more sentence, but I don't think that we should add more. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:19, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

I'll leave it there for now and wait to hear a little more from you and from other editor's comments below. You've put alot of effort into this article which deserves attention. ErnestKrause (talk) 19:56, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to review this article and for sharing your original views. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:20, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

Its fairly clear that you have put some good thought into this article. The Kant essay which you ask about, and which I mentioned above, is in his essay titled "Towards Perpetual Peace" and there is an extended quote and citation on the main Kant page here: Immanuel Kant#Political philosophy, as well as on some of the Kant sibling pages. Nice going in general and I'll move to agree with Noleander below to Support your article for prose. ErnestKrause (talk) 14:29, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

Support Comments from Noleander

• First off, kudos for tackling a Level 2 vital article.

• Lead: phrase establishing the focus on humans could be in a better location: Consider changing History is the systematic study of the past. As an academic discipline, it analyzes and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened, focusing primarily on the human past. to History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on humanity. As an academic discipline, it analyzes and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened.
  • I don't know if this is a good idea - "history" as a concept isn't necessarily focused on humanity, and I think the second sentence does a decent job of giving context for the academic discipline's focus on humanity. - G

• Clarify the article is not about "history" in the lay sense: In a slightly different sense, the term history refers not to an academic field but to the past itself or to individual texts about the past. I'm not sure how to improve that; certainly many WP articles must face the dilemma where the academic topic is a narrow slice of the vernacular word? Consider In addition to denoting a field of academic study, the term history can be used in a general sense to mean the past. or something like that.
  • I tried to incorporate a bit of this at the end of the lede paragraph. - G

• Is "school of thought" the same as "methodological approaches" here: Different schools of thought, such as positivism, the Annales school, Marxism, and postmodernism, have distinct methodological approaches. If the same, consider Historians employ various methodological approaches to the study of history, including positivism, the Annales school, Marxism, and postmodernism.
  • It's my understanding that schools of thought revolve around specific approaches, but they're not synonymous. - G

• More precise wording? Branches associated with specific research methods include quantitative history, comparative history, and oral history. Not sure if all of the listed things are "research methods". Consider Some research focuses on particular kinds of analytics or source data, such as quantitative history, comparative history, and oral history.
  • Incorporated a form of this. - G

• More generic wording for time-period of origin: History emerged as a field of inquiry in the [emphasis added] ancient period to replace myth-infused narratives... The phrase "the ancient time period" is a proper noun, with a link. Personally, I'm not sure when/what "the ancient period" was/is. And for many casual readers, it would be helpful to use plainer words (and avoid the proper noun indicated by the word "the") so they dont have to click the link. Maybe something like History emerged as a field of inquiry in antiquity to replace myth-infused narratives...
  • I agree that "antiquity" is clearer here. - G

• Analogy to scientific method? The historical method is a set of techniques historians use to research ... Some readers might benefit from knowing this is analogous to the scientific method (if it is); I'm assuming many readers learned about the scientific method in school, so identifying it as an analogy might help.
  • (I think it's comparable to the scientific method, but I think Phlsph will be able to better ascertain how to incorporate that. - G)
  • The exact relation between the scientific method and the historical method probably depends on whether history is conceptualized as a science or as part of the humanities. From Tosh 2002 pp. 165–166: The central question in the debate about history and science has always been whether humankind should be studied in the same way as other natural phenomena. Those who answer this question in the affirmative are committed to the methodological unity of all forms of disciplined enquiry into the human and natural order. They argue that history employs the same procedures as the natural sciences and that its findings should be judged by scientific standards. They may differ as to how far history has in fact fulfilled these requirements, but they are agreed that historical knowledge is valid only in so far as it conforms to scientific method. I would have to look more into it, but chances are that the answer might confuse readers more than make the concept accessible. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:39, 21 March 2025 (UTC)
• Simplify: The selection, analysis, and criticism of sources result in the validation of a large collection of mostly isolated statements about the past. As a next step, sometimes termed historical synthesis, historians examine ... The first sentence is a large boulder the reader must climb over to get to the important second sentence :-) Consider After sources are collected and analyzed, historians examine ... I realize that the text "... the validation of a large collection of mostly isolated statements about the past.... " is important, but maybe that belongs in the prior section, devoted to sources?
  • I think this sentence as is functions as a good bridge between the two subsections. It could be put in the prior subsection, but I think that might be more confusing. - G
    • I agree, I think the sentence helps clarify what role historical synthesis plays in comparison to the preceding steps. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:49, 21 March 2025 (UTC)
• Very nice intro sentence for the section: Various suggestions about the purpose or value of history have been made. Some historians propose that ...

• Better wording? Pushed to extreme forms, this can result in pseudohistory or historical denialism when evidence is intentionally ignored or misinterpreted to construct misleading narratives serving external interests. Phrase "external interests" seems vague & not too useful. Consider dropping it altogehter, since the prior sentence already says what the motivations might be, e.g. In extreme cases, evidence is intentionally ignored or misinterpreted to construct misleading narratives, resulting in pseudohistory or historical denialism.
  • I like this, incorporated a version of it. - G

• Room for a couple of examples? .... this can result in pseudohistory or historical denialism when evidence is intentionally ignored or misinterpreted to construct misleading narratives ... This misuse of history seems really important. Is there room to give a couple of concrete examples (preferably from past century)? If not in the body text, perhaps in a footnote? [Edit: I see later in the article is Authoritarian regimes, like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, manipulated historical narratives for ideological purposes. ... still, would be nice to have a footnote up where "historical denialism" is introduced].
  • I added a footnote. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:08, 21 March 2025 (UTC)
• Caption improvement? In the 13th century, Genghis Khan conquered large parts of Asia, establishing the Mongol Empire. Is there any way focus the caption more towards history? e.g. Historians have studied Genghis Khan, and analyzed how his impact reached far beyond the Mongol Empire he founded.
  • I'm actually uncertain if Genghis is a good image there, since he isn't directly mentioned in the article. Ancient Greece and its influence is mentioned, so I replaced the image with a map of that. -G

• History of the whole world: In the second half of the century, attempts to write histories of the world as a whole gained momentum, ... There are books such as A Short History of the World (Wells book) from 1922, so maybe the wording of the article could be tweaked a bit? E.g. In the second half of the century, there were renewed efforts to write histories of the world as a whole.
  • Yeah, implemented a form of this. - G

• More emphasis on bias? The article has: Various historians covered unconventional perspectives, focusing on the experiences of marginalized groups through approaches such as history from below, microhistory, oral history, and feminist history. Postcolonialism aimed to undermine the hegemony of the Western approach.... This seem like a really big deal. Do the sources talk about how historians have often (consciously or unconsciously) portrayed history in a biased/racist/bigoted fahsion? If so, that perhaps it deserves an entire paragraph, rather than a couple of sentences within a larger paragraph? Maybe a full paragraph on bias by historians, and how that is beginning to be rectified in 20th/ 21st centuries? (and my apologies if that is already discussed in the article).
  • The problems of bias and objectivity are currently discussed in the section "Definition", its subsection "Purpose", and later in "Philosophy of history#Historical objectivity". The rectification of some biases is discussed in the section "Evolution of the discipline", such as early modern responses to the religious focus during the medieval period. If there are specific aspects that are not yet covered, we could look into them and maybe include something. However, I would be careful about overemphasizing negative aspects since, overall, history is a respected academic discipline. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:33, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

@Phlsph7: The phrase "Victors write the history books" is pretty common; and there can be no doubt that most cultures present a biased view (in favor of themselves) when presenting their own histories. In US/England, no doubt there has been bias within History departments in universities favoring white/christian/european cultures. How much do sources talk about bias within the academic discipline of history? Do sources not contain sufficient discussion of bias to warrant a paragraph dedicated to the topic of bias? or even a full subsection? There must be critics of the academic discipline of history that claim all history study is tainted with systemic bias, no? Are those sources so thin that they only warrant a few sentences in the article? Noleander (talk) 17:28, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

I searched the article for the word "bias" and found it only once in the body, in the Education section. Even the green quote above: Various historians covered unconventional perspectives, focusing on the experiences of marginalized groups through approaches such as history from below, microhistory, oral history, and feminist history. Postcolonialism aimed to undermine the hegemony of the Western approach.... seems vague and wishy-washy. It uses the word hegemony, but never comes out and states the apparent premise: many/most academic work was biased in favor of the author's race/gender (I presume many sources say that ... do they? If they do: the article should plainly say so). Noleander (talk) 17:33, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

I reformulated some passages to better clarify how the current text in the article concerns the points you mentioned. I also added an example of a historian arguing that all history is biased and a footnote for an example of biased school textbooks. Generally speaking, the problem of historical objectivity is a major topic in the philosophy of history, which is why it has its own subsubsection in the article. However, there is no consensus one way or the other. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:00, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

• Not clear: This approach followed a strict distinction between historical events and the historical texts describing them. I'm not sure what that means, even when considering the prior sentence.

  I reformulated the sentence to clarify this point, and I changed the sentence order. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:56, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

• Ambiguous: Influenced by the Chinese model, a tradition of historical writing emerged in Japan in the 8th century CE. It was also closely related to the imperial household, but Japanese historians placed less importance on critical source evaluation than their Chinese counterparts. Not sure what "also" is intended to tell the reader (bold above). Does it mean that China's imperial household managed history study, and the Japanese household did also? There are a couple of other meanings "also" could take on in that location.

  Your interpretation is correct. I removed the "also" and made this point more explicit. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:56, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

• Year range would be helpful to many of us: During the Renaissance and the early modern period, the different ... I (from U.S.) can kinda guess the time frame of the Renaissance but "early modern period" is unfamiliar to me. The two prceding paragraphs (and others before them) assist the reader by providing year ranges for most named periods. Suggest add year range, at least for "early modern period".

  Added. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:27, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

• Clarify if current meaning of word still encompasses fictional stories: At this time, it meant 'story, tale', encompassing both factual and fictional narratives. In the 15th century, its meaning shifted to cover the branch of knowledge studying the past in addition to narratives about the past.[26] In the 18th and 19th centuries, the word history became more closely associated with factual accounts and evidence-based inquiry, coinciding with the professionalization of historical inquiry.[27] The dual meaning, referring to both mere stories and factual accounts of the past, is present in the terms for history in many other European languages. They include the French histoire, the Italian storia, and the German Geschichte. This does a good job of explaining a transition from stories (factual or fiction); to stories & study. But it kinda leaves the reader hanging: in 21st century English, has it completed that transition to exclude fictional stories? As a layman, I think it has: when I see the word "history" it excludes myth, Paul Bunyan type stuff, and implies truthful, factual stories only (plus study thereof). Suggest add a sentence to end of that paragraph wrapping up by clarifying if current English usage of the word either (a) still includes fictional stories; or (b) excludes fictional stores (perhaps with some rare exceptions).

  Added. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:27, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

• Improve wording? It is controversial whether history is a social science or forms part of the humanities. ... The prose of this article is generally gorgeous, so the pedestrian phrasing "It is controversial whether" is off-putting. Consider something like Historians debate whether history is a social science, or part of the humanities, or both.

  Changed. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:27, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

• Suggest providing a couple of concrete examples (e.g. move info from footnote into text). I know space is tight, but all readers are unique and many will absorb info more readily when seeing concrete examples. A couple of examples jump out at me:

• In extreme forms, evidence is intentionally ignored or misinterpreted to construct misleading narratives, which can result in pseudohistory or historical denialism associated footnote Influential examples are Holocaust denial, Armenian genocide denial, Nanjing Massacre denial, and Holodomor denial. .
• For example, irredentist attempts by one state to annex territory of another state often rely on historical theories claiming that the disputed territory belonged to the first state in the past. .. suggest add example of Israel/West Bank, and other major examples (Russia/Ukraine ... but dont want to fall into WP:RECENTISM trap).

I'm certain that concrete examples will help many readers grasp the essence of those paragraphs/sentences. Perhaps a few other places in the article could use some concrete examples.

Good idea, I added the corresponding examples. I found an influential older example for irredentism to avoid WP:RECENTISM. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:27, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

• That's all I got. Noleander (talk) 18:33, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks a lot for all the helpful suggestions! Phlsph7 (talk) 09:27, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Support. Noleander (talk) 15:49, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

Support from Hawkeye7

First of all, let me congratulate you on undertaking this. Top-level vital articles are generally in poor shape, because the work is just so difficult. Much of the difficulty lies on what to include and what to leave to subarticles, especially when the don't exist or are in equally poor shape; the original creators of Wikipedia thought that articles would be written in a top-down manner; almost never happens that way. Some comments:

• As a military historian, I think that a mention of military history would be appropriate in the lead.

  Added. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:02, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

• "As an academic discipline, history is the study of the past." That is not correct. Palaeontologists, geologists and archaeologists study the past too. History is the study of written records of the past. The time before writing is literally "prehistory".

  What you say is traditionally correct, but became more complicated in the second half of the 20th century with the emergence of branches of history such as world history, big history, and deep history. The third paragraph of the section "Definition" discusses this. I adjusted the text to say that history focuses primarily on the human past which, I hope, is vague enough to avoid these difficulties. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:02, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

• "the three-age system divides early human history into Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age based on the predominant materials and technologies during these periods." But these differ depending on where you are. For example, in ancient Judea, the iron age ends with the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE sharp.

  I reformulated the text to say that the three-age system is traditionally used that way. This does not exclude that it is also used in other ways, for example, to analyze specific regions. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:02, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

• I am not buying the characterisation of military history as closely related to political history

  I guess it depends on how you define the scope of political history. For example, from Jordanova 2000 p. 35: Diplomacy, military activity, constitutions and local government would all come under the rubric 'political history' as conventionally defined. I reformulated our sentence to weaken the claim. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:25, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

• "Military history studies the impact and development of armed conflicts in human history. This includes the examination of specific events, like the analysis of a particular battle and the discussion of the different causes of a war. It also involves more general considerations about the evolution of warfare, including advancements in military technology, strategies, tactics, and institutions." I realise this is asking for my own field to be included, but I would really like military logistics to be added to the list to complete the conventional triumvirate of strategy, tactics and logistics.

  Added. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:00, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

• "The exact definitions of primary source and secondary source are disputed" The most egregious example here is the practice of ancient historians referring to anything written in a dead language as a primary source even when it was written centuries after the event. But by that logic, the graduate student's thesis on Shakespeare would be a primary source.

• Should "whig" be capitalised? (I think it should.)

  It seems that both is possible but uppercase appears to be more common. I changed it. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:13, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

• "More advanced history education encountered in secondary school covers a broader spectrum of topics, ranging from ancient to modern history, at both local and global levels. It further aims to acquaint students with historical research methodologies, including the abilities to interpret and critically evaluate historical claims." That would be nice.

  Yes, it would. The expression "aims to" does the heavy lifting here. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:19, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

All in all, I think this is a really fine effort! Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:11, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Hello Hawkeye7 and thanks for the review. Your expertise is very much appreciated! Phlsph7 (talk) 10:02, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Great work! Moved to support. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:45, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Source and image review

On a topic this large, it's going to be tough to assess "completeness", so I can't give more than a first impression. Oh, but let's begin with images: File:Auguste Comte.jpg has a raw URL. File:Bust of Ibn Khaldun (Casbah of Bejaia, Algeria).jpg needs a copyright tag for the bust. ALT text and image placement seems fine. According to which logic do some sources get Google Books links in the references section and others don't? Is Sage an acronym? I don't know much about the sources, but the formatting seems accurate, the publishers fine and the few spotchecks check out. It seems like most of the sources are about subaspects of history rather than holistic, is that right? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:19, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Fixed the Auguste Comte thing; the Ibn Khaldun bust is already explained by the Licensing tag included on commons. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 07:39, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Hello Jo-Jo Eumerus, thanks for taking care of the source and image reviews! The logic for Google Books links is that sources where there is a Google Books page preview available (or at least where I'm aware of it) get a link because that helps verifiability. Concerning Sage, I assume you are asking if it should be all caps. Our article Sage Publishing says that all caps is the old spelling and the official website https://www.sagepub.com does not use the all caps spelling. While there are more sources on certain subaspects, the article has various overview sources, such as Arnold 2000, Cannadine 2002, Carr 1990, Donnelly 2012, Jenkins 1995, Jordanova 2000, Lemon 1995, and Tosh 2002. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:24, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: Do you have more comments? Phlsph7 (talk) 07:41, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

No. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:00, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Support from UC

I spent a very long time writing out a lot of comments -- and then lost them in a browser crash. I will do my best to fill in.

Hello UndercoverClassicist and thanks for taking another look at the article! Sorry about the browser crash, this can be frustrating. A while back, I started writing my drafts offline in a text editor and I have yet to experience a text editor crash. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:30, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

For now -- the article is extremely impressive, and particularly strong on how it summarises such a complicated range of material while keeping it accurate and maintaining a worldwide perspective.

• Putting on record my support -- this is a really outstanding bit of work, and it's fantastic to see high-traffic, "difficult" being polished up to such a high standard. Well done to you both. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:14, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

A few macro-scale comments that I remember from amid the nitpicking:

• Periodisation: the medieval period gets short shrift (well, no real mention) in the "by period" summary section, which seems to lump it in with the post-classical world and reduce it to the Mongols. Similarly, ancient history (the classical period) needs to be slightly divorced from the "first civilisations", among which the Greeks and Romans aren't generally included.

  I added a footnote to mention the medieval period. I also included a sentence on the classical period, which as the advantage of making easier for the reader to understand why the post-classical period has its name. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:32, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

• • Not sure the footnote was the right call. I do take the point that medieval is a slightly Eurocentric term, but so is classical (the "classical" period in China and Mesoamerica is not the same thing), and there isn't really a widely-accepted global alternative for "the period between about 500 and about 1453 CE". On the other hand, "Medieval history" is a very widely used term in scholarship, book titles, course titles etc, so relegating it to a footnote while other periodisations get full billing (e.g. "early modern") strikes me as an editorial decision which WP:DUEWEIGHT can't really sustain. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:49, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

    I integrated it into the main text. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:44, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

    I will come back to do a proper review, but just looking at In the study of post-classical or medieval history, which began around 500 CE, historians note the growing influence of religions: is this really right? I'm familiar with the historiographical shift from talking about religion to religions, but does anyone really argue (as we've claimed) that religious beliefs were somehow less influential upon human beings circa 400 BCE than they were circa 1200? There's a possible argument that religion becomes more powerful as an explanation for large-scale historical events, but that is usually made for the classical/late antique transition (that is, c. 300–400 CE), which is earlier than we're putting it here. It would be a very bold historian indeed who claimed that religion became a more important historical force as the medieval period went on. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 20:23, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

    This is an interesting thought about the contrast between individual religions and religion/religious beliefs in general. I guess if a missionary converts a person with local pagan religious beliefs to Christianity then the contents of the person's beliefs change but its not clear that the new beliefs have more influence over this person than the previous ones. In our sentence, I changed the expression to "major religions" to clarify that this is not a claim about the influence of religious beliefs in general. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:04, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

    That works nicely. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 11:19, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

• MOS:BIO -- in general, don't include people's dates of birth and death in brackets. In some cases (as for Herodotus and Thucydides), there's a good argument to include the rough date when they wrote.

  Opinions on how to handle this seem to be divided. Earlier, I didn't include them, but because they were requested during my FA nominations of other articles, I started including them in the sections discussing the history of something since the timing is relevant there. For this article, they are only used in the section "Evolution of the discipline". Phlsph7 (talk) 10:43, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

  I don't really see much room for interpretation in the MoS: Beyond the first paragraph of the lead section, birth and death details should only be included after a name if there is special contextual relevance. There's certainly an argument for saying roughly when a person lived or worked, but I can't see an argument that there is a special reason to include birth and death dates here that wouldn't be applicable to another article. In most cases, we've already introduced the timeframe anyway, using phrases like "in the nineteenth century, people like Smith and Jones..." UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:51, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

  I guess one could argue that the contextual relevance comes from the discussion of past developments but I don't feel strongly about this point. You are right that the rough timeframe should already be clear from the text so I removed the brackets. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:22, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

• There are a few places were I think the summarising/simplification has gone too far into sweeping statements that don't quite hold up -- will come back with specific examples.
• In the education section, watch out for poetic language and puffery: there are times when it slips from describing a philosophy of education into what sounds like advocating it.

  I made some adjustments to weaken claims. In various cases, the text describes what history education "aims" or "seeks" to do while leaving it open to what extent it succeeds. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:57, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

• On occasion, I have concerns about WP:DUEWEIGHT, particularly on "Big History" -- which gets far more screen-time than either microhistory or macrohistory, though both of those seem to be much more established fields and far more "canonical" in the conventional narrative of historical theory.

  This topic was expanded in response to another review but I kind of agree that it's too much now so I removed some information. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:18, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Nitpicks to follow. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 15:47, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

• As an academic discipline, history is the study of the past with the main focus on the human past.: I would go further, and say that "history is the study of the human past". We do have the Big Historians, later on, bringing in the pre-human past, but they seem to explicit separate themselves from "normal" historians precisely because normal historians only cover human history. I can imagine a "big biology" that also tries to look at the chemistry and physics of where life comes from, but I don't think that would invalidate the idea that biologists study living things.

  I think a case could be made for your proposal and it would make the definition more accessible. However, it could be hard to get consensus for this since there was already a lengthy discussion above for the opposite position, challenging the focus on the human past. So it might be better to stick with the current wording, which is strictly speaking more precise. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:58, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Jumping around a bit, to where I remember where I was:

• Leopold (von) Ranke should be consistently named -- I would use the honorific throughout, as you have for Geoffrey Elton.

  Added. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:08, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

• I would advise not using the name "Homer" in connection with the Homeric poems: while the Greeks thought of them as having an author by that name, (almost) everybody since the 1960s has seen them as oral poems with no individual author.

  I kept Homer in one instance so he is at least mentioned once. I used the formulation that the text is attributed to him. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:08, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

• Early historians, such as Herodotus and Thucydides, already emphasized this contrast to myth-infused historical narratives, like the poetical stories found in Homer's Iliad: I think this is being too kind (or putting too modern a gloss) on Herodotus and Thucydides. Both of them disagreed with Homer at times, but they also both affirmed the essential validity of the Homeric narrative -- so Thucydides quibbles exactly where Agamemnon ruled and exactly how many ships sailed to Troy, but still regards the Homeric narrative as fundamentally part of the historical story. Similarly, Herodotus's narrative includes the Trojan War and Heracles, as well as plenty of oracles and omens.

  I slightly weakend the claim and added a new source, which says Herodotus had only implicitly criticized Homer for indulging in fantasies rather than in accurately recording the truth. Thucydides feels no such qualms about belittling [Homer].... It's true that they are still far from modern standards (see footnote [p]), but it was nonetheless a significant departure from what came before them. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:35, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

  I still think we've misunderstood. Both writers thought that Homer was wrong, but I don't think either of them made the kind of systematic, theoretical, method-based critique we're claiming through already noted this contrast to myth-infused historical narratives -- all "three" thought that the job of a historian was to listen to stories and write them down, but Herodotus and Thucydides thought that Homer had chosen the wrong stories. There's a point in Book 2 of Herodotus where he talks about the story of how Helen got to Egypt, and says that Homer left out part of the tale because it didn't make for good poetry -- but there's no suggestion here that there's anything wrong with the basic story of the daughter of Zeus who was so beautiful her face could launch a thousand ships. Thucydides, similarly, says that the first people of Sicily were the Cyclopes and the Laestrygonians (both races of man-eating giants in the Odyssey). I can't see how either of those are anything other than myth-infused historical narratives. Thucydides, incidentally, levelled the same charge at Herodotus, and I don't think he did so in a way markedly different from his criticism of Homer. Saying "Homer got stuff wrong" is not the same as saying "Homer is wrong because he does not use 'proper' methods of source criticism" -- I think we're arguing B on the basis of evidence for A. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 20:19, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

  I'm not sure that our formulation implied that Herodotus and Thucydides engaged in "systematic, theoretical, method-based critique". I changed the formulation to "criticized fantasy-inspired historical narratives", which is basically just a rewording of the source and shouldn't have this implication. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:33, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

  It's the "fantasy-inspired" bit that's sticking in my throat. I still need convincing that a) Herodotus and Thucydides considered Homer to be more reliant on fantasy than they were, and b) that fantasy (his own or via his sources) didn't play a major role in inspiring (at least) (important parts of) Herodotus's work. As I've said above, there's a more aggressive argument that says there's plenty of fantasy in Thucydides too. As I at least read their criticisms, they generally say that Homer was too credulous and/or distorted the truth to make for better poetry, which is an important distinction (that a historian should be discriminating, and err on the side of utile rather than dulce), but not quite the one we're making. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 11:39, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

  I think the quote I cited above covers a). For b), see Arnold 2000 p. 17, [Herodotus's] attempt to use evidence to distinguish a fictional story from a true, historical account makes him look much like a twentieth-century historian [than Homer]. I guess despite all the flaws in Herodotus's work, there is a difference. I'm open to replace the term "fantasy-inspired" with better expression if there are suggestions. The footnote is not that important, so we could also remove it if we can't find a compromise with a suitable expression. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:08, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

  How about we turn it on its head, since the criticism was levelled at the poets first and the credulous second: something like "early historians, such as Herodotus and Thucydides, criticised the accounts of Homer and other poets as fantastic and inaccurate"? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:51, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

  Sounds good. Implemented. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:15, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

• his aspect is also found to some degree in works of Greek historians, such as Polybius (c. 200–118 BCE): I would not put up Polybius as a counterpoint to Roman history, given that he lived under the Roman Empire spent most of his life either in Rome or in the camp of a Roman general.

  The hidden intention behind the footnote was not so much to contrast the two traditions but to have an excuse to mention Polybius somewhere. I added Herodotus as another example to have a more balanced selection. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:20, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

• They explore how the Ancient Greeks laid the foundations of Western culture, philosophy, and politics in the first millennium BCE, and how their cultural heritage continued within the Roman Empire and its continuation, the Byzantine Empire.: this is itself a (deeply controversial) historical narrative -- see Josephine Quinn's recent How the World Made the West. I'm really not comfortable with the idea of "the Greeks founded Western Civilization (tm)" in WikiVoice -- that's a retrospective and deeply distorting view first peddled in the modern period. In particular, the line of continuity between ancient Greece, ancient Rome and Byzantium is likewise a controversial and subjective one -- there were bitter fights on that question in the C19th, particularly in Greece, where at least one eminent scholar ended up in court over the question.

  I reformulated the passage to weaken the claim. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:39, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

  I'd be happier with some sort of formulation that says that the ideas of the Greeks were later made into a key part of the package retrospectively named "Western culture". For most of history (until at least the C19th), most "Westerners" didn't consider (living) Greeks part of the Western/European world, and there's a strong case for situating the classical Greek world as fundamentally a periphery of an Eastern Mediterranean cultural zone. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 08:55, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

  I found a formulation that says that these contributions are "associated with the Western world". That leaves it open whether they are rightly or wrongly associated this way. The intellectual history behind this association is probably complex, so this concise overview may not be the best place to elaborate it. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:16, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

  Oh, yes, absolutely -- a lot of my (now forthcoming) comments are of the form "I know this is complicated and we can't do a full explanation, but we also need to make sure that our short summary isn't simply wrong rather than just incomplete". There's a reason I don't tend to work on these "big" articles -- they're far harder than those where you can fit all of the sources onto one shelf! UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 11:22, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

  @UndercoverClassicist: Do you have more comments? Phlsph7 (talk) 08:42, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I'll try to be a bit more specific on the general points above, plus any others that I've remembered/come up with:

• Sometimes, I think the article unwittingly takes a positivist side in the debate on the philosophy of history (specifically, implicitly endorses the view that "objective" history is possible), or else slightly misunderstands the alternative positions.
  • The nature of the past itself, by contrast, is static and unchangeable: on a trivial level, this is obviously true (pace some of the weirder implications of quantum theory), but it's controversial if we try to do anything meaningful with it, as we do here. One very thorny question: is it possible to describe or narrate the past without introducing any subjectivity? After all, even the words we use are inevitably theory-laden: is it an eternal historical truth that the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was murdered by a nationalist terrorist in Bosnia?

    This is exactly the point the passage is trying to make: narratives about the past can change but the past itself doesn't. The point of the passage is to illuminate the difference between the two. Applied to this example: whatever happened to the Archduke in the past does not change tomorrow. But our beliefs about what happened can change tomorrow. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:11, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

    • Right, but the decision to call him an Archduke, the act a murder, the actor a nationalist, the place Bosnia, and so on -- these are all subjective, theory-laden decisions. We can debate, as many do, whether it's possible to tell historical stories without making such subjective decisions, but we shouldn't prejudge that debate by boldly proclaiming that it is. I don't think the underlying point is wrong, but we need to think about how to express it. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 13:27, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

      I agree with you that "we shouldn't prejudge that" objective history is possible. However, I don't think that the passage you quoted makes that claim. As I understand it, it primarily compares the concept "past" with the concept "narrative about the past". Just because they are different concepts does not mean that objectivity is possible. If you want, I can try to add a sentence on objectivity and theory-ladenness to counterbalance whatever is there, but I think the main discussion of historical objectivity should remain in the section "Historical objectivity". Phlsph7 (talk) 08:43, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

      I think this is a phrasing problem, fundamentally -- I agree with everything you've said in that little paragraph, but am not sure that The nature of the past itself, by contrast, is static and unchangeable really expresses , it primarily compares the concept "past" with the concept "narrative about the past".: I think the problem might be "the nature of the past" ("The 1970s were awful" is a comment about the nature of the 1970s: is that static and unchangeable?) How about "The past itself, by contrast, is static and unchangeable"? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 08:46, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

      Sounds good. Implemented. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:38, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

  • This is particularly apparent in the "Purpose" section, where our two paragraphs imply that the main schools of historical thought are a) history should be perfectly objective and b) history should be consciously distorted to suit ideological ends. Most historians go for c) -- no historian can be unbiased, because everyone is a creation of their context and all history-writing requires subjective, theory-laden choices (starting with what we choose to write about), but historians should strive to be aware of their biases and those of their sources -- very few academic historians would agree with the premise that the main value of history lies in the lessons it teaches for the present [and that] an understanding of the past can guide decision-making [and] foster social cohesion.

    I'm not sure that I can follow your interpretation of the section. Basically, the section is about the value of history or why people would study the past, maybe this is not clear enough. I don't think the section says anywhere that history should be consciously distorted. Your point c) is primarily about the problem of objectivity, not directly about the purpose of history. This is covered later in the section "Historical objectivity".

    Concerning the quote: from Arnold 2000 pp. 120–121:Why does history matter? It is sometimes suggested that we should study history to learn lessons for the present. Similar are points are mentioned in other sources. I can look them up if needed. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:11, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

    I'm not saying that nobody does say this, but the dichtomoy as presented isn't valid. We say that people either strive for absolute objectivity or strive to tell history in the way that will be the most instructive for the present. Most historians do neither. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 13:25, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

    It seems we interpret the passage differently. As I read it, it does not say that there is a dichotomy of two exclusive and exhaustive alternatives. According to my interpretation, it says that diverse and sometimes overlapping purposes have been proposed, such as finding the truth, learning practical lessons from the past, understanding the human condition, fostering social cohesion, and shaping the future. If a specific formulation in our text lends itself to the dichotomy interpretation, maybe we can tinker with it. Various overview sources have a section to discuss and compare the different purposes of history that have been proposed. Our text aims to be a summary of the most important points of these sources. If you know of another source that includes such an explicit discussion and comparison of the proposed purposes of history, I could take a look at it to see whether it presents suggestions not yet covered here. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:51, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

    I may need to come back to this one. To me, we've got a sentence like "some cars are pink; others are yellow" -- it's true, but it's also misleading, since it ignores the obvious fact that most cars are neither. Currently, we say that some historians seek absolute objectivity, and that others seek to tell history in a way that serves political/social aims. I'll try and track down a source for you that explicitly states the alternative. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 20:25, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

  • Later, It reflects the personal experiences, interpretations, and memories of common people, showcasing not only what objectively happened but also how people subjectively remember it: we're taking a view here that it's possible to showcase "what objectively happened", and that oral historians do so. Most historians who accept postmodern theory would have reservations here.

    I'm not sure how much of a problem this is since it's commonly accepted that at least some memories people have are true. I reformulated the passage to avoid introducing the problem of objectivity here.Phlsph7 (talk) 12:11, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  • Historical writing was transformed in the 19th century as it became more professional and scientific.: Hmm. Most historians in the early C19th at least were not professionals nor had any professional training, and "scientific" is a loaded term here -- what exactly do we mean by it? "Scientistic" might be a better word, given that many of the histories we're talking about were explicitly teleological, racist, misogynistic and so on.

    From Wright 2006 In the early 19th century ... Ranke ... transformed the writing of history ... Ranke set new standards of historical research based on primary evidence subjected to critical evaluation ... this “scientific history” led to systematic collection and cataloguing of sources ... and to more rigorous academic teaching From Woolf 2019 p. 173 the second half [of the 19th century] may be noted for a rapid growth in what may be loosely called ‘professionalization’ Do you think we should replaced "scientific" with "academic"? Phlsph7 (talk) 12:24, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

    I think we need, metaphorically, the quote marks around "scientific". Historians certainly thought and proclaimed that what they were doing was "scientific", "objective", "universal" and so on (and therefore that anyone who wanted to do it another way was "unscientific", "irrational", "barbaric" and so on). However, as is usually the way, this also involved taking as axiomatic certain ideas that were very much not scientific, objective or even true -- the Dorian invasion article gives a good case study of exactly how bizarre supposedly "scientific" history (helped along by plenty of "scientific" textual criticism, archaeology, skull-measuring and so on) could get, and how quickly it could go miles from any sensible interpretation of the evidence. I don't think we need a detailed critique of the ideology of scientific history here, but I do think we need to avoid uncritically parroting it. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 13:24, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

    I replaced "scientific" with "science-oriented". This leaves it open to what extent their orientation towards the sciences was rigorous enough to count as scientific. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:57, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

  • Building on the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx described one such general law: as stated, we imply that a) such laws exist and b) that Marx's theory of dialectic is indeed one such law. Both highly debateable, at least!

    I replaced "described" with "proposed". Phlsph7 (talk) 12:38, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

    Works nicely. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 08:47, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

  • Historicism contrasts with approaches that seek understanding based on timeless and universal principles.: likewise, I think we are coming too close here to saying that such timeless, universal principles actually exist.

    I don't think that "seek understanding" has this implication. If you try to understand something by following a specific principle, it does not mean that you will succeed or that the principle is true. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:38, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

    It's the "based on" that's the issue, I think. Consider "I decided whether to become a fishmonger based on my divinely-ordained mission to conquer Portugal": that expression presupposes that I do, indeed, have such a mission. We could rephrase as something like "that posit timeless and universal principles which should be used to seek historical understanding." UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 13:30, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

    I reformulated the sentence to avoid the expression "based on". Phlsph7 (talk) 09:12, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• I think we still misunderstand Herodotus and Thucydides on crucial points, which is important given their prominence in the meta-narrative here:

• Traditionally, history was primarily concerned with written documents: this is very much not true of Herodotus, who relies almost entirely on oral tradition and eyewitness reports, both his own and those of others.

  This passage talks about a general tendency in a tradition stretching several millenia. We could add a footnote explaining that it was different for Herodotus in particular, but is this piece of information really essential at this point? Phlsph7 (talk) 09:30, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• It might be better to make the word traditionally into something a bit more precise -- it's never a great term, to be perfectly honest, since it implies an antiquity which most "traditions" don't really have, and is slippy in meaning between age, esteem, conservatism etc. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 11:45, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

  I found a formulation that does not use the word "traditionally". Phlsph7 (talk) 11:18, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• Political history has been studied since antiquity by historians such as Herodotus and Thucydides, making it the oldest branch of history: we're hereby saying that H. and T. are political history as opposed to military, diplomatic or social history, and I need some major convincing on that point.

  I can look up a quote if you want, but I think that it's uncontroversial that they engaged in political history. We are not saying that they didn't engage in other things as well. As a sidenote: I would be careful about contrasting political history with these branches, see the quote I gave above saying that they all come under the rubric 'political history' as conventionally defined.

  • Right, but we go on to say that political history is older than military history (by saying that it's the oldest branch), which does imply that they did not engage in military history, or at least that their work is more political than military. This could be fixed by taking away the absolute claim: it's uncontroversial that political history is a part of the oldest known historical works; it's far more controversial that it is older than the other branches to which those works also belong. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 11:45, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

  I removed the absolute claim. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:21, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• Published in the 5th century BCE, the Histories by Herodotus was one of the foundational texts of the Western historical tradition, putting more emphasis on factual accounts and evidence-based inquiry than previous works: we don't have any previous works of the kind, so it's difficult to make a statement like this. Similarly, most Greeks would have considered the Homeric epics somewhere between broadly and absolutely factual. Now, their source of authority was "this is told to us in an unbroken tradition that ultimately traces back to the gods", rather than "I've gone and made a personal intellectual discrimination between multiple extant narratives on the basis of plausibility", but it's a bit scientistic/Eurocentric/modern-centric to say that only the second counts as "factual".

  I replaced "previous works" with "stories of Homer and other poets". The statement in our text is comparative: Herodotus put "more emphasis on factual accounts". We don't say how much more and we don't say whether it's enough to count as "factual" by our standards. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:55, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

  • I'm still not totally happy here -- see my comment about the Mahabharata elsewhere. What's actually different about Herodotus is that he weighs up different competing claims and asserts the primacy of one on the basis of rational enquiry -- the Homeric narrator never does this directly (though they do talk about the unreliability of inherited stories and, on rare occasions, say that an inherited tradition is incorrect). There's nothing in the Homeric poems that the narrator openly avows to be non-factual, so I don't see how we can say that a Homeric bard would have considered their work less factual than Herodotus's. We can, with retrospect, say that the Homeric poems include more things that we now consider untrue than Herodotus's history does, but that doesn't describe a difference in approach between the two, and has little value in explaining what made Herodutus different. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 11:45, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

    I removed the term "factual" and used the term "rational" instead. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:24, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• the scope of historical inquiry expanded [in the C18th] to include ... comparisons between different cultures.: this would have been news to Herodotus, who spends much of the Histories doing exactly this, as it would to (in particular) Caesar and Tacitus. Classical ethnography is a whole subfield.

  From Woolf 2019 p. 131: By the mid-eighteenth century, when comparison between cultures was especially in vogue, it was possible to generalize about the differences between Europe’s historiography and that of other peoples. The text before and after this passage lists various examples. Our text does not say that there was no comparison before the Enlightenment, it just describes a general historiographical development. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:09, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

  "X expanded to include Y at time Z" implies that X did not include Y before time Z -- as you say, that's not supported by the source. Similarly, Woolf is not (here) saying that historians began comparing cultures at this time -- he's saying that the concept was generally in vogue (cf. "in the 1980s, when mullets were especially in vogue, it was possible to fly across the Atlantic in three hours"). UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 11:45, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

  I reformulated the expression to talk of an "increased focus" instead. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:29, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• Our genealogy of subfields could do with some thought. Why does only political history get a story of its origins? We could definitely do with brief gestures towards the boom in military history circa the C19th, the development of economic history as a specific field, and the "social turn" of the C20th.

  I don't think this part on political philosophy is essential but it's interesting. I followed Tosh 2002 p. 110 here, who writes While political history has been written and read continuously since ancient times, other branches have developed as permanent additions to the repertory only during the past hundred years. I would keep it as it is, but if this a problem, the better alternative would be to remove that part from the discussion of political history than to add some historical titbits for all the other fields. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:39, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Smaller points:

• Thanks to technological advances, historians increasingly rely on online resources, which offer vast digital databases with efficient methods to search and access specific documents: this is rather optimistic: most of the online resources necessary for doing history have very inefficient methods to access many of their records.

  Accessing a source digitally on your PC is more efficient than having to go to a distant library. But this point is not essential so I removed the word "efficient". Phlsph7 (talk) 11:47, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• Additionally, the process involves distinguishing between original works, mere copies, and deceptive forgeries: I'm not sure I like "mere copies", particularly with my ancient-historian hat on: we don't have a manuscript in Thucydides's hands, but what makes our "good" manuscripts of his texts worthy of contempt?

  I removed the "mere". Phlsph7 (talk) 12:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• This involves disambiguating individual terms that could be misunderstood but may also require a general translation if the source is written in an ancient language: why "ancient" -- most historians working on relevant periods won't need a translation from Latin, for instance, but would need one from most modern languages.

  Changed. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• Feminist historians study the role of gender in history, with a particular interest in the experiences of women to challenge patriarchal perspectives: this is not quite grammatical: we need a participle after particular interest in ("using"?)

  Added. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• For topics with a broad scope, the amount of primary sources is often too extensive for an individual historian to review, forcing them to either narrow the scope of their topic or rely on secondary sources to arrive at a wide overview: is this quite true? Obviously, historians read each other's work, but if you pick up e.g. a book on the Late Roman Empire, the narrative and argumentation will be led by primary sources: naturally, the author has had to be very selective as to which primary sources they use, and has undoubtedly used secondary sources to help make that judgement, but it would be very rare to find such a book that explicitly uses modern historical works as sources of evidence and as the main explicit foundation of its argument.

  I adjusted our formulation to not give the impression that wide-scope works focus exclusively on secondary sources. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• In the later part of the ancient period, sometimes termed classical period: the classical period.

  Added. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• Ancient historians examine the emergence of the first major civilizations in regions such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, China, and Peru: I find this an odd phrasing, given that "ancient history" in most contexts is shorthand for "Greece and Rome".

  As far as I'm aware, the term is quite commonly used this way. For example, Bulliet et al. 2015 talk of "ancient Mediterranean and Chinese civilizations", "ancient Mesopotamia", "the ancient world", etc. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

  Right, but "the history of ancient X" is not the same as "ancient history" without qualifiers. You may well find those places in e.g. "The Oxford Companion to Ancient History", but if you look at e.g. a university course on Ancient History, it tends to be primarily or heavily based on classical (ie Greek and Roman) history. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:13, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  Stearn 2001 talks of "ancient history" in regard to the Eastern Hemisphere. Similarly, I find various passages in the "The Cambridge World History, Volume 3" talking about ancient history and ancient historians independent of the Greek/Roman context, for example, when discussing the general study of early cities in world history. Would replacing the term "Ancient historians" with "Historians studying the ancient period" solve your concern? As a sidenote: if you were correct then most of the content in our article Ancient history would need to be removed. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:11, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, that works nicely. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:19, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  Implemented. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:28, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

• marking a cultural shift as they gradually replaced local belief systems: I need some convincing that Greco-Roman religion, which is by far the dominant religious system we're talking about here, was any more "local" than Christianity or Islam.

  The text is not saying that they are more or less local. However, I think the point is not particularly important here, so I replaced "local" with "other". Phlsph7 (talk) 12:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• which started roughly 1500 CE: in roughly or similar ("roughly" is not a preposition, unlike "around").

  Added. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• As a result, the Americas were integrated into the global network, triggering a vast biological exchange of plants, animals, people, and diseases: link Columbian exchange here?

  Linked. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:27, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

• Among rising nationalism, African states gradually gained independence: idiom: I think Amid was intended.

  Changed. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:27, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

• with the emergence of some of the first ancient civilizations in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and China beginning in the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE. In the following millennia, these civilizations gave birth to all major world religions: I wouldn't say that Christianity, Islam or Judaism belong to any of those three places. We could say "civilisations on the Asian continent" or similar, but even then, Arabia and Palestine wouldn't always or perhaps usually be lumped into "Asian history".

  Changed. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:27, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

• Oceania was dragged into various conflicts during the world wars: not sure about the idiom of "dragged into": I don't think that's an accurate description of (in particular) Australia's participation in the Second World War, which was actively supported by both the PM and the Governor-General.

  As I understand it, alliances and geopolitical circumstances were among the main reasons for their participation. I guess this can be covered by the term "dragged into" but I'm also open for other suggestions. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:27, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  How about "became involved in"? WP:IDIOM applies here, I think, if nothing else: in general, we shouldn't use idiomatic language where a more literal alternative exists. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:18, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  Implemented. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:27, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

• If we're going to talk about moral judgements in Greek historiography, it's odd not to mention Plutarch, who makes that his whole thing. More generally, I'm unconvinced that Roman historiography is more interested in passing moral judgement than Greek historiography, so find this an odd point on which to differentiate the two traditions.

  We could include Plutarch in the footnote there. However, checking through some sources, they tend to characterize him more as a biographer and moral philosopher, with some explicitly rejecting that he was a historian. On the more, Woolf 2019 p. 30 writes: Persuasion had taken primacy over research, with the praise of the virtuous and successful, and condemnation of the corrupt, wicked or weak, a key motivation for any historian ... historians saw it as their duty to praise and blame. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:52, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  Comber 2006 p. 38 also makes this point, for example Ancient historiography, in particular Roman historiography, was certainly ethical. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:01, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

• One school used an annalistic style, arranging past events chronologically by year, while other historians preferred continuous prose.: the annalistic style didn't preclude continuous prose (or indeed poetry). We've slightly misunderstood the relationships here. The Annales were kept as public documents, but wouldn't really have been considered history-writing (as far as we know, they didn't have credited authors) -- in terms of what we would consider authored texts, "history" as we know it completely replaced "annals" at the beginning of the surviving tradition. We don't have annalistic texts that survive in any quantity.

  I'm not sure if you are proposing to remove this part or to reformulate how we present it. Comber 2006 pp. 38–40 discusses the annalistic tradition as part of Roman historiography. He presents a quote from Cicero on the early tradition, saying that History meant merely the compiling of annals. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:13, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  We need to reformulate:

  1. To be clear that "arranging past events chronologically year by year" and "continuous prose" were not mutually exclusive.
  2. To bring out an important chronological distinction: that Roman history generally (with the exception of certain public documents that don't really count as historiographical) transformed wholesale from annalistic to evaluative history around the time of our earliest preserved works.

  UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:18, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  I tried to implement your suggestions. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:11, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  Looks a bit better, but what does Later Roman historians preferred a narrative approach without chronological breaks? Most canonical Roman historians (Livy springs immediately to mind) tend to organise their work chronologically and to start a new "section" at the beginning of a calendar (consular) year. The real exception is in works of biography (e.g. Suetonius's imperial biographies), in which chronology is usually not the main organising principle, but we've said elsewhere that we're not considering Plutarch a historian, so we need to hold that same line here. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:32, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  We could change it to "non-annalistic narrative approach", but I'm also open to other suggestions. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:33, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

  Is "non-annalistic" essential? Many of the "big hitters" are really both: see Tacitus's Annals or Caesar's various commentaries, (such as On the Gallic War -- they adopt a basically year-by-year structure, but also do "historiographical" things like explaining their sources, discussing cause and consequence, making evaluative/moral judgements, and so on. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 09:01, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

  How would you formulate the sentence? Phlsph7 (talk) 08:56, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

  How about something like Early Roman historians used an annalistic style, arranging past events by year with little commentary, while later ones preferred a more narrative and analytical approach.? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 09:04, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

  Implemented. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:35, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

• In ancient India, historical writing was closely associated with religion. It often did not clearly distinguish between fact and myth, as seen in works like the Mahabharata: the Mahabharata was originally orally composed, so "writing" is not the right term. Would its composers have considered (say) the story of the death and rebirth of Amba to be untrue?

  I changed "writing" to "narratives". Phlsph7 (talk) 12:17, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  I'm going to keep pushing on It often did not clearly distinguish between fact and myth. For the people composing works like this, a myth (=a story with religious character told in a long-running oral tradition) generally was considered factual. Driving a wedge between the two is anachronistic. You may wish to do something similar to how you approached Herodotus, and point out that the texts/poems don't explicitly discriminate between different narratives or sources based on rational evaluation. Incidentally: how come the Mahabharata gets counted as a work of history, but the Iliad doesn't? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:21, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  I guess it's true that some aspects of myths are factual, but my impression was that the meaning was clear in the context. I reformulated the passage to clarify that non-factual mythological elements are meant. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:24, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  Oh, absolutely, but unless we think that some elements of the myths were considered non-factual, it's anachronistic (and unfair) to blame the composers of the poems for not discriminating between the two. It's a bit like writing "Newton didn't clearly identify the parts of his theory which were incompatible with General Relativity". On the other hand, we seem to be moving towards the idea that these poems contain supernatural or fantastical elements, which might be more defensible: something like They often mixed factual accounts with supernatural elements, as seen in works like the Mahabharata. (NB that Mahabharata is italicised.) However, then I come back to the question of why we're holding (some) religious poems to the standard of historical works, particularly when we explicitly split these two categories in the Greek context -- are we saying that there exist other historical texts which contain events/characters like those we see in the Mahabharata? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:29, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  I don't think we are applying different standards here. In the Greek context, we also say that "Early forms of historical writing mixed facts with mythological elements". I don't see the anachronism in the formulation (unless they generally lacked the concept "fact"), but I think your suggestion also works, so I implemented it. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:47, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

• In Europe starting in late antiquity and continuing through the medieval period, history was primarily documented by the clergy in the form of chronicles.: this is not true, especially given that monks (like Bede) are not clergy. Even then, for the Late Roman period, most historians were not monks, and most histories were not chronicles any more than earlier works were.

  I adjusted the text to focus only on the medieval period. From Wright 2006: In medieval Europe history was written by the literate clergy (Bede) and was mostly confined to chronicles (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Froissart). Phlsph7 (talk) 12:28, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  I'll have to defer to the medievalists on this (and correct myself -- as Wright source alludes, Bede did become a priest in addition to being a monk). UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:17, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

• Influential contributions shaping this tradition were made by ... Augustine of Hippo,: I don't think Augustine wrote anything we would consider a work of history, though his theological/philosophical works certainly commented on and interpreted historical events.

  Breisach 2005 discusses Augustine's influence on Christian historiography, such as his "age schemes" and how he conceptualized history. This is reflected in our text in the expression "Influential contributions shaping this tradition". Phlsph7 (talk) 12:39, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  Yes: it might be helpful to add something like "the theologian" so that people don't assume he's one of the many historians we discuss. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:55, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  Added. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:52, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

• During the 15th to 17th centuries, historians regarded history as a didactic tool: so did, as we've pointed out above, almost all historians who preceded them. Why does this come in here?

  I added a short phrase to clarify how it is different. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:49, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  During the 15th to 17th centuries, historians regarded history as a didactic tool that can serve as a preserver of tradition and as a catalyst for change: so what's the difference we're trying to get at here? More prosaically, sequence of tenses: should be regarded ... could. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:56, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  I guess there are several differences, one being that, during the medieval period, the focus was more on religious tradition than change. Woolf 2019 p. 89 has more on this, including a comparison of the educative function before and after and the discussion of how the place of history in the intellectual hierarchy changed. However, these details may overburden our discussion here. I adjusted the tense. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:12, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

  I find it quite difficult to unpick what the current framing is actually saying, especially given that we've already identified history's role as a teaching tool and a means of preserving traditional narratives as key aspects of ancient historiography. That leaves "history could serve ... as a catalyst for change", which I think is a bit too wooly: political change, for example? Happy to make suggestions if you could copy in some of the source material? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 09:27, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

  Historiographical differences from one period to the next are usually shifts in focus where the relative prominence of a theme or approach changes. I think saying "in period X, historians did Y" does not imply that historians did not do Y in any form before, so I don't see a problem in this regard. If we have trouble finding a formulation that makes both of us happy, we could also remove the sentence. The relevant paragraph from the source is European historians from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century believed that the primary purpose of history was didactic. While medieval writers considered history to have an educative function, its place in their hierarchy of learned culture was middling at best. The Renaissance promoted history several rungs up the intellectual ladder and made it in equal parts a stern enforcer of the status quo and a powerful weapon to brandish in pursuit of radical and often violent alterations to the accepted order of things. Knowledge of the past both exalted tradition and at the same time promoted change, not as today in the pursuit of ‘progress’ or ‘innovation’ but generally the opposite – recovering aspects of an idealized prior period. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:06, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

  OK -- I think that gives quite a different impression to what we've got. As you note, the writer acknowledges that this is a question of intensifying the educational/instructive role of history rather than creating it, so "placed greater emphasis on the didactic role of history" or similar would be better.

  It might be useful to split the two major ideas: perhaps starting a new sentence like "Ideologically, history was used variously to promote the established order [I don't think this is equivalent to being a "preserver of tradition"] and to advocate for radical change, though the latter generally consisted of appeals to return to an idealised vision of the past."

  Of course, there's many ways to express the idea well, but I do think we need to be careful of WP:TSI and to make sure that a reader of our article comes away with an impression not massively different to one who reads the original source. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 09:25, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

  I implemented a more concise version of your suggestion. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:42, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

• They began to target the general public: again, is this any more true here than it was in the classical period, given that most people could not read?

  The text says "began" because this was a process. Woolf 2019 p. 89 discusses how following the invention of the printing press, a public appetite for history well beyond the princely courts and noble households developed. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:26, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

  That seems quite different to what we have in the article, assuming there's not more in the source to the same effect. You could perhaps say that the reading of history became more widespread outside the nobility? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 09:28, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

  For another relevant passage, see Woolf 2019 p. 78: The expansion of readership into the laity was beginning to feed back into the writing of history, as readers’ interests guided authors’ choice of subject, a trend that would be significantly enhanced by the arrival of printing. I think we should mention the influence of the printing press in some form. Another option would be "As the invention of the printing press made written documents more accessible and affordable, public interest in history increased." Phlsph7 (talk) 09:37, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

  My issue here is that "the laity" means "people who aren't clergy", and "well beyond the princely courts and noble households" only covers people without aristocratic titles (in other words, it still counts most of the "elite") -- there's a big gulf between that and "the general public". Why not say this directly: "As the invention of the printing press made written documents more accessible and affordable, interest in history expanded outside the clergy and nobility"? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 09:43, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

  Sounds good. Implemented. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:31, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

• arguing that economic forces and class struggles are the fundamental drivers of historical change: I think the plural on class struggles misunderstands Marx: it's not that history is driven by a load of little arguments between rich and poor, but rather that class struggle is one big force running over the whole picture.

  I changed it to "class struggle", but I think either one works. From the article "Karl Marx" of the Standford Encyclopedia of philosophy: [Marx] saw the historical process as proceeding through a series of modes of production, characterised by (more or less explicit) class struggles, and driving humankind towards communism. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:32, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

• Authoritarian regimes, like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, manipulated historical narratives for ideological purposes.: not just authoritarian ones! It also seems odd not to mention China here, given that their programme was (is) bigger, longer-lasting, and more successful than either of the other two.

  Authoritarian regimes are particularly noteworthy in this respect. I added China to the list. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:51, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

• The italicisation of "Annales school" is inconsistent.

  I think it's italicized every time. Did I miss something? Phlsph7 (talk) 09:53, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

  No, looks good now. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:58, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

• A related topic concerns the nature of causal mechanisms connecting historic events with their causes and consequences. One view holds that there are general laws of history that determine the course of events, similar to the laws of nature studied in the natural sciences. According to another perspective, causal relations between historic events are unique and shaped by contingent factors: I would suggest that the terms "structure" and "agency" need a walk-on part here.

  I'm not sure I fully get your point. The topic seems to be kind-of covered by the sentence "Some approaches rely primarily on the beliefs and actions of individual humans, while others include collective and other general entities, such as civilizations, institutions, ideologies, and social forces." We could replace "actions" with "agency" to include that term. I'm sure there is also a way to include the term "structure" somehow, but this would probably be in a rather vague sense. Or are you referring to a more specific concept? Phlsph7 (talk) 10:04, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

  I was suggesting shoehorning the terms in, as they're widely used in historical scholarship: that second sentence you suggest is probably a better place. Could do "Some approaches rely primarily on the beliefs and actions ("agency") of individual humans, while others include collective and other general entities ("structure"), such as civilizations, institutions, ideologies, and social forces." On the other hand, the concept is already well explained, so the terms might not add too much value. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:57, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

  I'll keep it for the moment as it is since I'm not sure whether our current sources explicity mention this terminology. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:33, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

• Some philosophers suggest that the general direction of the course of history follows large patterns. According to one proposal, history is cyclic, meaning that on a sufficiently large scale, individual events or general trends repeat. Another theory asserts that history is a linear, teleological process moving towards a predetermined goal: I think it needs to be said that these are all very small minority positions among contemporary academic historians, and indeed come pretty close to conspiracy theories.

  I made a slight reformulation to frame the passage as a discussion about the past. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:49, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

  Looks good: I made a small edit here. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:45, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

• As a result, some historians, such as G. M. Trevelyan, assert that all history is biased, arguing that historical narratives are never free of subjective presuppositions and value judgments: Trevelyan is a good name to drop, but an odd one to make the last word, given that this is the overwhelming consensus of people in the field today.

  The expression "never free of" is already quite strong, especially when applied to historical statements that no one seriously doubts. We could try to make it even stronger to better reflect this particular view, but I'm not sure that this is necessary. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:58, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

  Sorry, that's not my point -- I'm suggesting adding the name of someone a little more contemporary (Trevelyan died more than 60 years ago), to avoid giving the impression that this view is no longer held. Dan Hicks has made this point often in print, though your mileage may vary as to whether to count him as a "historian". UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:34, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

  I added Keith Jenkins instead. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:14, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

• From this viewpoint, hindsight and modern theorising also allow historians to piece together evidence and put forward interpretations that "can only be seen in retrospect" and do so from a biased perspective, meaning that "the known past (history) is an artefact of ours": quotation needs to be attributed inline. Ditto E. H. Carr, whose What Is History? (1961) examined the "influence of the historical and social environment on the selection and interpretation of facts by the historian"

  Those specific quotes are not particularly important so I reformulated the passages to not add an additional layer of complexity through inline attribution. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:18, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

• recognising that there are benefits gained from engaging with subjectivities: what does engaging with subjectivities mean?

  I reformulated the sentence to make the explanation more explicit. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:44, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

• It can lead to a biased treatment of controversial topics in an attempt to present the national heritage in a favourable light: not sure the national heritage is idiomatic English.

  We could use "cultural heritage of the nation" instead but this sounds more clumsy. The term "national heritage" is used in other chapters of the Wiley International Handbook of History Teaching and Learning, as in ...Dutch students’ views of and argumentation about slavery as part of their national heritage. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:44, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

  Yes: I think their national heritage is better than the national heritage. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:41, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

  Changed. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:42, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

• Archaeologists study man-made historical artefacts and other forms of material evidence.: human-made is better: I would also swap "material evidence" for "material culture", which is the usual term in the field (and can be linked).

  Changed. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:44, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

• The interpretation of archaeological evidence presents unique challenges that differ from the standard historical work with written documents: cut the from the standard, and consider dropping unique: doesn't every field have unique challenges?

  Changed. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:44, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

• Before the advent of modern archaeology in the 19th century, antiquarianism laid the groundwork for this discipline and played a vital role in preserving historical artefacts: fine, but it also played a vital role in destroying them!

  Not sure that this is the most important fact to be mentioned at this point. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:44, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

• irredentist attempts by one state to annex territory of another state, such as Nazi Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938, often rely on historical theories claiming that the disputed territory belonged to the first state in the past.: I don't think this is quite right: these historical narratives more often claim some kind of kinship between the peoples of the two states, which is turned into a political argument that they should be ruled by the same state, which should be the bigger one that currently exists. I don't think many of the Nazi arguments for annexation hinged on the idea that a state called "Germany" used to rule the Sudetenland (OK, this gets complicated with the Holy Roman Empire, but the "Third Reich" title gives the game away that they didn't straightforwardly consider themselves the same state as that one: they did, however, hinge on the idea that Germany was the natural home of all Germans, and therefore that the Sudenten Germans should live in Germany, and therefore that Germany should grow to encompass their homeland.

  The Sudetenland example was already removed early in response to a review comment below. Generally speaking, ethnic and historical reasons are among the main irredentist motivations. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:44, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

• History is relevant to many fields by studying their past: not quite idiomatic: "through the study of..."?

  Changed. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:44, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Rollinginhisgrave

I've enjoyed reading the above, thanks for your work on this. I will not do a full review, but I have just written a comment at WP:NOTDICT (see here), and along those lines I have a few questions about the etymology section:

• If the subject is the field and not the word, why is a history of the word being detailed?
• If the purpose of describing the etymology is to demonstrate the evolution of the field, why is it broken off from that section? This tells me that material here would be UNDUE in a general description of the development.
• Why is only the etymology of the English term for the discipline given? This seems anglocentric. I can see the Chinese wiki has a translation of this article, and it's now giving an in depth etymology of the English term, which seems problematic.

Looking forward to your response, Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 03:52, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi Rollinginhisgrave, thanks for your thought-provoking comments. They are probably more about the general policy issue regarding etymological descriptions. I responded to you on the policy talk page you mentioned and I'll try to keep the general policy discussion there to not overburden this FA review. Just a short response on how this might apply to this article: I think whether and which etymological descriptions to include in an article is governed by WP:PROPORTION. In our case, overview sources like Ritter 1986 pp. 193–195 and Woolff 2019 pp. 21–22 mention the English etymology, which is why our article should cover it. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:58, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your response, it's a good idea to stick the policy discussion there. I have two more thoughts.

I tried to pose question two before in anticipation of PROPORTION being invoked. Why are the sources discussing the etymology? Are they doing it to illustrate the development of the field? If so, the "aspect" PROPORTION is talking about giving due weight to is the evolution of the discipline. If not, the "aspect" is etymology itself. Part of why I'm asking is because I don't know why else they would be doing this.

I understand that Ritter and Woolf are English-language sources. Have you consulted non-English texts to see if they put this emphasis on the English etymology? If only English-language sources are emphasizing this aspect of the subject, is covering it, especially in this level of detail, giving disproportionate weight? I know this question is annoying, but I am sincerely concerned that not engaging it may lead to bias.

Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 13:46, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I guess there are many reasons why one could be interested in the etymology of a term. For the sources I cited: Ritter discusses it in the context of the definition of history and Woolff discusses it in the context of the development of the field. Various words for "history" in other languages have similar etymological roots and also share other semantic features. This is mentioned in our article and covered in sources like Woolff 2019 p. 2 and Tosh 2002 p. 141. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:02, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I feel mixed, I'll leave the page alone and see if I feel strongly about it enough to raise explicit objections. Your answers have helped, thanks. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 09:33, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Borsoka

• The nature of the past itself, by contrast, is static and unchangeable. I would delete it. (In 2025, are you sure? :) )

  There was just a lengthy discussion above on this sentence, with a consensus on a slight reformulation. Have a look if the new version works for you. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:17, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• History is sometimes used... Why not present perfect? I would delete the adverb.

  I changed the tense. I kept the adverb to avoid overemphasizing this point. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:17, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• In section, "Sources and source criticism" I miss a reference to the use of other sources for the assessment of the reliability of a source.

  Added. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:17, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• I would mention damnatio memoriae in note "l".

  Added. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:17, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• Marxists interpret historical developments as expressions of economic forces and class struggles. ... Karl Marx proposed one such general law, arguing that economic forces and class struggles are the fundamental drivers of historical change. I would mention historical materialism in the second sentence to avoid repetition.

  Added. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:35, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• ...beginning as early as 3500 BCE in some regions... According to my memories, several of the civilisations listed began earlier.

  I changed it to "approximately 3500 BCE". While these dates are quite common, they may depend on how you define "civilization", so some authors may use different dates. From Stearns 2010 p. 24 The first civilization emerged in the Tigris-Euphrates river valley – the region often called Mesopotamia – around 3500 BCE and Bulliet et al. 2015 p. 5 We then trace the rise of complex societies in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus River Valley from approximately 3500 to 1500 B.C.E.. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:35, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• ..., which dominated the continent during the 13th and 14th centuries CE Repetition, so I would delete it.

  Removed. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:35, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• Among rising nationalism, African states gradually gained independence in the aftermath of World War II, a period that saw economic progress, rapid population growth, and struggles for political stability. .... The post-independence period was characterized by modernization, economic growth, and a steep increase in population. Why is nationalism mentioned only in connection with Africa? I think there is a sharp difference between economic growth in Africa and Asia in the post-colonial period (in Asia, new economic powers emerged).

  I included nationalism for Africa because I had the impression that the sources there gave more emphasis to it than the sources for Asia and with such limited space, one has to be very selective about what to include. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:25, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

  I do not like it, but I should provide a reference to highly relevant reliable source, and I am unable to find one. :) Borsoka (talk) 14:30, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

• Together with colonization and the massive influx of African slaves, it led to the collapse of major empires... Delete "and the massive influx of African slaves" because it has nothing to do with the collapse of the native empires in the Americas.

  Removed. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• ..., such as the scientific contributions of Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein. I would not name the two scholars but would mention "the scientific contributions of individual scientists/scholars".

  I personally tend to agree, but another reviewer thought it essential that they are mentioned and this is probably the most natural place to do so. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• Annales school or Annales school?

  The sources seem to be divided on this point. I went with italics. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• Why are not universities mentioned in section "Education"?
• ..., such as Nazi Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938,... I would delete it, because the annexation was not based on "historical rights" to a territory, but on demography.

  Removed. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• I miss a reference to the disciplines that are collectively known as "anxiliary sciences of history" in many countries ([2], [3]), such as genealogy, numismatics, etc.

  Added. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:38, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• Dublinks abound, and in most cases I think the terms should not be linked twice.

  I removed a few duplicate wikilinks. I usually try to have a maximum of one wikilink per main section following WP:DUPLINK. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Amazing work. Congratulations for it. Borsoka (talk) 08:48, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Hello Borsoka and thanks for your comments! Phlsph7 (talk) 12:17, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• An excellent article. I am happy to support its promotion. Thank you for your hard work. Borsoka (talk) 14:30, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Drive-by comments

• Cite 53, contains a p/pp error; cite 118 two.

  Fixed. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:17, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

• There are two works by Jenkins in 2003 in "Sources", they need disambiguating.

  Fixed. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:17, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

• You have several works with "HarperCollins" listed as both the author and the publisher. I suspect the first is incorrect.

  They both don't provide a separate author. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:17, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

• Tauger 2010 is not used.

I guessed not. So why give HarpurCollins as the author?

I removed HarperCollins as an author. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 16:46, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

• Removed. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:17, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

• "Historians integrate the perspectives of several individual sources". Does "individual" do anything here?

  Removed. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:17, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

• "Historians integrate the perspectives of several individual sources to develop a coherent narrative." Or, sometimes, to decide that they can't.

  Fixed. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:17, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Gog the Mild (talk) 15:14, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Hello Gog the Mild and thanks for your comments! Phlsph7 (talk) 16:17, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:31, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.