- "Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline."
The role of human agency in shaping historical narratives, including the impact of individual actors, movements, and ideas on historical events and processes.
Definition of Human Agency: This topic explores the concept of human agency and the various definitions of the term. Human agency is the capacity of human beings to act autonomously and make their own choices.
Historical Materialism: This is a theoretical framework that identifies the economic and social conditions that shape human agency, and how these conditions impact the development of human society.
Social Constructivism: This theory emphasizes the role of social norms, language, and culture in shaping human agency, and how these factors contribute to the creation of social reality.
Postmodernism: This philosophical movement challenges the notion of objective reality and emphasizes the importance of subjective interpretation and individual experience in shaping human agency.
Power and Control: This topic examines the various sources of power and control in society, and how these factors influence human agency. This includes exploring the relationship between power and social hierarchies, as well as how power is exercised through institutions such as government and the media.
Gender Studies: This field explores how gender affects human agency, and how gender-based power structures impact the choices and actions of individuals.
Cultural Studies: This area of study examines how cultural norms and practices influence human agency, and how cultural values shape social behavior and identity.
Psychology and Neuroscience: This topic considers the internal factors that impact human agency, including psychological traits such as personality, motivation, and emotion, as well as physical factors such as brain function.
Ethics and Moral Philosophy: This area of study explores the ethical dimensions of human agency, including questions of right and wrong, moral responsibility, and the impact of individual choices on society as a whole.
Anthropology and Sociology: These disciplines examine the cultural and social factors that shape human agency, including the impact of social norms, institutions, and collective action on individual behavior.
Intentional Agency: This type of agency involves deliberate actions or decisions made by individuals or groups.
Unintentional Agency: This type of agency involves unintended consequences of actions or decisions made by individuals or groups.
Structural Agency: This type of agency involves broader social or economic structures that shape the actions of individuals or groups.
Discursive Agency: This type of agency involves the power of language and discourse to shape ideas and beliefs.
Performative Agency: This type of agency involves actions that communicate or reinforce social norms or values.
Embodied Agency: This type of agency involves the ways in which physical bodies and emotions shape historical events.
Relational Agency: This type of agency involves the interplay between individuals and groups within social and political contexts.
Collective Agency: This type of agency involves the actions and decisions of groups or communities, rather than individual actors.
Moral Agency: This type of agency involves the ethical beliefs and values that shape human actions and decisions.
Ecological Agency: This type of agency involves the ways in which human actions interact with and shape the natural environment.
- "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."