- "Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline."
The study of how history is written, recorded, and analyzed.
Objectivity: The concept of objectivity in historical research and how historians attempt to remain objective in their interpretations of the past.
Historical Methodology: The various methods and approaches that historians use to study and interpret historical evidence, including primary and secondary sources, oral history, and quantitative analysis.
Historical Context: The broader social, economic, political, and cultural context within which historical events and processes occur and how this context shapes our understanding of the past.
Historical Periodization: The process of dividing historical periods into meaningful units for analysis and how historians develop periodization schemes based on different criteria.
Historiographic Debates: The ongoing debates among historians about the interpretation of specific historical events or processes, and the different perspectives that shape these debates.
Epistemology: The philosophical study of knowledge and its limits, including the ways in which historical knowledge is constructed and validated, and the relationship between historical truth and subjective interpretation.
Human Agency: The role of human agency in shaping historical narratives, including the impact of individual actors, movements, and ideas on historical events and processes.
Ideology and Bias: The ways in which historical narratives can be shaped by personal and ideological biases, and how historians aim to recognize and correct for these biases in their work.
Memory and Commemoration: The role of memory and commemoration in shaping historical narratives, including the ways in which collective memory and memorialization can be used to construct and perpetuate particular historical narratives.
The Role of Historians: The role of historians in shaping public discourse and policy, including debates about historical memory, and the ethical responsibilities of historians.
- "The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians have studied that topic by using particular sources, techniques, and theoretical approaches."
- "Scholars discuss historiography by topic—such as the historiography of the United Kingdom, that of WWII, the pre-Columbian Americas, early Islam, and China—and different approaches and genres, such as political history and social history."
- "Beginning in the nineteenth century, with the development of academic history, there developed a body of historiographic literature."
- "The extent to which historians are influenced by their own groups and loyalties—such as to their nation state—remains a debated question."
- "The Histories of Herodotus, the founder of historiography."
- "The Roman statesman Cato the Elder produced the first Roman historiography, the Origines, in the 2nd century BCE."
- "Sima Tan and Sima Qian in the Han Empire of China established Chinese historiography, compiling the Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian)."
- "Medieval historiography included the works of chronicles in medieval Europe, Islamic histories by Muslim historians, and the Korean and Japanese historical writings based on the existing Chinese model."
- "Figures such as Voltaire, David Hume, and Edward Gibbon, who among others set the foundations for the modern discipline."
- "There has been a shift away from traditional diplomatic, economic, and political history toward newer approaches, especially social and cultural studies."
- "From 1975 to 1995 the proportion of professors of history in American universities identifying with social history increased from 31 to 41 percent."
- "The proportion of political historians decreased from 40 to 30 percent."
- "Of 5,723 faculty in the departments of history at British universities, 1,644 (29 percent) identified themselves with social history and 1,425 (25 percent) identified themselves with political history."
- "Since the 1980s there has been a special interest in the memories and commemoration of past events—the histories as remembered and presented for popular celebration."