Summary
Samenvatting 'A Concise History of History'
- Course
- Institution
- Book
Summary with the main points of the book “A Concise History of History”. A few paragraphs have been left out that we did not have to learn before the exam.
[Show more]
Connected book
Book Title:
Author(s):
- Edition:
- ISBN:
- Edition:
Seller
Follow
clrmontague
Content preview
1: The Earliest Forms of Historical Writing1.1: THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST
❖ Within the Ancient Near East dwelled various long-lived civilizations, which did not
preserve their pasts in the same ways or consistently in the same types of record. Still, it
would be unwise to leap from the dearth of linguistic terms or the absence of a literary
genre that there was no such thing as ‘history’.
❖ In ancient Egypt, efforts were made to memorialize the successive dynasties of the Old,
Middle and New Kingdoms, but very few of the ‘annals’ remain extant.
❖ In Mesopotamia, the first unmistakable evidence of a human intention to write about the
past is found–especially among the Babylonians and Assyrians.
❖ Many stories captured in historical writing had previously been preserved orally → the
‘epic’ (eg. Gilgamesh of Uruk, the Iliad & the Odyssey) was the oldest form of historical
narrative. That many episodes and heroes of the epics were legendary and exaggerated
is not in itself evidence of a lack of history or historical thinking: people probably
believed either in their literary truth, or at least in the moral principles they embodied.
❖ ‘Chronographic’ texts (ascribing particular events to a specific date within a sequence–
which include sub-genres such as king lists, annals and chronicles) are closer to
recognizable historical documents. There is evidence that, while some simply recorded
events progressively as they happened, others sought to write about past occurrences,
including those from before their own time → since there is little evidence of a
continuous tradition of record-keeping, many of the works must have been the result of
research.
1.2: JEWISH HISTORICAL THOUGHT
❖ Like most Near Eastern cultures, the ancient Israelites had a term for neither ‘history’
nor ‘myth’, and appear not to have held any strong belief of a distinction between them.
❖ Some viewed the Hebrews as the ‘inventors of history’ in its post-Enlightenment sense:
that is a cumulative flow of events towards a divinely ordained conclusion.
❖ People once believed that the monotheistic religion of the Hebrews–and their belief in
a covenant with a single God–gave them a distinctive sense of past, present and future,
and of a linear direction to time that differed sharply form the cyclical vision evident
elsewhere → this has been discredited since one finds both a linear and cyclical sense of
time in Greek and Roman writers, but also because there is evidence of historical cycles
in Hebrew writings.
❖ It is also difficult to see how a distinctive Jewish sense of history could have emerged in
isolation, given the early contacts with other peoples of the region.
❖ Recent scholarship has challenged the historicity of the Tanakh (the basis, in fact) without
necessarily jettisoning the idea one can find historiography within it (the effort to
represent the past), albeit a historiography never intended to capture literal truth: moral
and religious truth deemed more important.
❖ The Jew Josephus has given us the closest thing to a history in the classical sense. He
became a Roman citizen, meaning that he had a foot in both the Jewish and the Roman-
Hellenistic worlds → he is an early example of a historian from one culture writing in the
milieu and style of another.
1.3: EARLY GREEK HISTORIOGRAPHY
❖ The word ‘history’ was first used in connection with the study of the past–though
unintentionally–by Herodotus of Halicarnassus (5th century BC).
❖ It is with the Greeks that Europe began to associate histories with named authors.
❖ The Greeks were the first to experiment with different historical forms. They
transcended the confining structure of annals and chronicles without abandoning
chronological writing.
,❖ The origins of Greek historical thinking lay–as with Mesopotamia–in epic poetry. The
Homeric epics, previously transmitted orally, were written down after several centuries
as a result of the mastery of alphabetic writing, acquired through contact with the
Phoenicians.
❖ The works of ‘logographers’ (oldest prose historical writers) were often a combination of
the mythical and historical, drawing on epic as well as annals.
❖ Greeks explored genealogy/mythography, ethnography (study of foreign lands and their
customs), contemporary history, chronography and horography (the year-by-year
history of a city).
❖ Herodotus’ predecessors remain obscure figures, but with him, we have the first, real
example of a historian self-identifying, sometimes giving personal details and thoughts
and judgements on particular events. This trend would continue, and eventually it would
become an obligation of the historian to declare up-front his preferences, methods and
biases. Like Hecataeus, Herodotus did not limit his scope to events themselves: he paid
attention to ethnographic issues, recording customs and tradition of non-Greek people.
Herodotus travelled widely, spoke to many witnesses or those who had their information,
and set down the truth as he believed it → this resulted in him being referred to as the
‘father of lies’.
❖ Thucydides (5th century BC), like Herodotus, relied on the spoken much more than on
the written word, though in a different way. Herodotus had built much of his Histories
on the foundation of oral tradition rather than written authority, and Thucydides relied
on written sources only where he could not find a living witness. However, Thucydides
was reluctant to look very far back for the causes of events, and he implied that only
‘insiders’ to events could recount them. Under him, privileged knowledge displaced an
inferior form of hearsay–women and persons of low birth were excluded from his work.
In Thucydides’ works, there is also scant evidence to the marvellous and unusual,
something that was important for Herodotus. Thucydides was also perhaps the first
Western historian to state clearly the target audience for his work.
His reputation for accuracy and truthfulness has not passed unchallenged: many
preferred the more broad-based, inclusive accounts in Herodotus to the narrow political
account in Thucydides. Thucydides often included supposedly genuine speeches in his
narratives, which he did not all hear: they were intended to represented the essence of
what may have been said, not the literal words.
1.4: GREEK HISTORIOGRAPHY FROM THE 4 TH TO THE 2ND CENTURY
❖ Historical writers reoriented their attention towards individuals and their achieve-
ments, and made more direct authorial commentary on their character → influenced by
the declining autonomy and power of the independent Greek city-state and the failure
of Athenian democracy, which led to the rise of tyrants, warlords and monarchs.
❖ The role of the historian was not only the reporter, but also the judge of past misdeeds.
❖ Polybius (2nd century BC)–a Greek historian who was a wartime captive and eventually
a guest of the Roman world–was not very popular until the Renaissance, when people
started to admire his sober tone, his keen attention to identifying the causes of events
and his emphasis on the practical lessons of the past. The quality of his writing was rather
dull compared to his precursors: he wrote a ‘pragmatic history’. Polybius provided the
reader with explicit statements on methodology, discussing the need for historians to
weigh different accounts and criticizing his predecessors by name. He paid greater
attention than Thucydides to sources like archives and inscriptions. His Histories
recounted a cumulative process of history, leading to a particular destiny, the hegemony
of the Roman republic. His stress on the process of history towards the single goal of
Roman supremacy–driven by a Tyche/Fortuna–provided a model for later Roman
history.
, ❖ Historians had traditionally dated events by years officials: attention to precise
chronology was of little interest to the vast majority. Polybius borrowed from earlier
writers in organizing his material around the Olympiads.
1.5: ROMAN HISTORICAL WRITING FROM REPUBLIC TO EMPIRE
❖ Historiography started slowly: where it had followed the epic in Greece, the greatest
Latin epic, the Aeneid, was a late arrival composed in the 1st century BC – at the time that
Livy, the greatest historian of the Republic, was writing his prose history.
❖ Apart from early efforts of a narrative of the city’s history, two major groups of history-
writing survive from early Rome, both of which had Greek influences. The first, which
may have derived from Greek horography, consisted of records maintained by a civic
and religious official, the pontifex maximus. These Annales maximi were records of the
sequence of annually appointed major officials–consuls, praetors, etc. apart from the
pontifical records, funeral orations, public inscriptions, family records and accounts by
other magistrates (commentarii) would also provide material for historians. The second
group includes Roman writers who may have written continuous prose and, at least at
first, composed their works in Greek.
❖ Non-annalistic prose history remained for some time largely in the hands of Romanized
Greeks → Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC) and Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1st century
BC). Diodorus wrote a universal history in the manner of Polybius. Dionysius, in
contrast, focused more exclusively on Rome, and his main point was to defend Roman
influence over the Greek world.
❖ Where Herodotus had intended the word ‘history’ to mean ‘inquiry’ and had not linked
it specifically with the past, and Thucydides had defined it as the recounting of recent
contemporary events, ‘history’ had by the late second century become firmly associated
with a narrative of the past, remote or recent, with an increasing focus on the political
and military. It was now a branch of literature, and specifically of rhetoric → praise of the
virtuous and successful, condemnation of the corrupt, wicked or weak.
❖ The Romans were even less interested than the Greeks in acquiring knowledge of the
past for its own sake, so they produced very little ‘antiquarian’ erudition. They also cared
little about how to write the past, and how to define it in sub-genres.
❖ The first clear theorizing about history by a Roman was by a powerful politician and
orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero (1st century BC). He articulated principles that would
become important, such as the obligation of the historian to tell nothing but the truth,
without partiality, and he emphasized its connection with rhetoric.
❖ A major Roman innovation was the shaping of history into the cumulative story of world
events (though Polybius deserves some credit).
❖ The Romans injected a teleological and progressive element that was absent in Greek
historians before Polybius: where cycles of rise and fall and the random hand of Tyche
appear in many of the Greek historians, Roman history becomes more purposeful.
❖ The 1st century BC produced two great Latin historians – three if we count Caesar. Livy’s
history, Ab Urbe Condita, was a definitive account of the Roman republic. It combined the
annalistic approach, with its recording of the year’s officers, and a continuous prose
narrative. In a way, it turned the genre of local history almost by accident into a variant
of universal history, since at its peak, Rome controlled most of the Mediterranean world.
The other historian was the politician and soldier Sallust, who became a pessimistic critic
of contemporary politics and values in the late Roman Republic. He saw himself as a
disciple of Thucydides: he articulated the thesis that republican decline could be traced
directly to the destruction of Carthage. He also took Polybius’ Tyche → Fortuna.
❖ Publius/Gaius Cornelius Tacitus (1st-2nd century AD) was the most highly regarded
historian of imperial Rome. Where Livy had written in a flowy rhetorical style, Tacitus
seemed closer to Sallust. Where Livy’s work had been written with oral recitation in
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller clrmontague. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $5.39. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
67866 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now
Recently viewed by you
