charles brough

It seems to me that this question is seldom directly answered by historians. More often, the answer is only inferred. In some cases, however, it is never clear at all.

For example, is it a history of the Persian civilization, Persian culture, or Persian Empire, and if so, which one? Is the history of the Nubian city of Kush part of the history of Ancient Egypt or not? Is the history of Timbuktu to be part of the history of Islam? And if the history of our secular civilization is linked to that of the Medieval Catholic culture because both are part of Christendom, then should the Mogul Islamic era of India be regarded as a continuation of the history of (Hindu) India and thus make it a history of a region?

But if history is to be that of regions, wouldn't that mean that the history of the US should begin with what we know about the Clove culture, then the Chaco and other native American cultures, then the invasion and subsequent history of the occupation?

KGB

Hah, what a question!

History of all of that you say. History is nothing but human life in the past - and human life has a lot of aspects - personal, cultural, legal, economical, political, scientific (or pre-scientific, crafts, knowledge) religious, military, etc. etc... psychological if you like.

The matter of history is not only to study all this, but to study it adequatе. What that means, IMHO?

It means to consider every matter`s exact position in the system of consequent phenomenons. For example, you cannot explain a war with a military matters only, or social psychology without wide cultural observation.

On the other hand, if you observe some private, separate matter, details, you must not forget the main historical stream\s specifics of the consequent period.

One more thing - history has a lot of explanations on a certain matter - this is like any other science, but here we have a lot of politics, national centrism, if not chauvinism, political and international policy matter. I think a historian should never forget good old Mrs.Rosenbaum, a.c.a. Ayn Rand and her objective world. Because, yes, there are a lot of point of views, but one and only one matter.

And it can be found from the clear and objective point if view.

Godd question, indeed!

Tuthmosis III

Actually, a reasonable argument could be made for any of the approaches outlined here. It is already difficult to nail down the concepts of 'society' or 'culture' or 'civilization'. When you add the continuities of history - as important to understand as the changes - you quickly realize that the dividing lines are arbitrary.
And necessary. It is impossible to deal with the whole of reality. I suspect that historians who imply with their choice of subject matter where the lines are do so to avoid the metaphysical morass and cut to the chase, so to speak.

PragmaticStatistic

That is like saying there can only be one truth. One right, or one wrong.

Take for example, a city puts up a ball park with those tall stadium-type lights along the harbor in a isolated part of the city. Everyone loves it because they get to play, or watch, a ball game at night. Everyone except for a few dozen families who live a mile away across the harbor who complain about the bright lights shining in their bedroom windows into the late hours of the night, and, on certain nights, when the acoustics are just right, the cheering and roar of the fans carries across the harbor.

So, here is a situation where both sides have a valid point. However, addressing the needs of one group, or the other, impacts on the rights of the other. Thus, in this case there are two rights and no wrongs. And, there are two clear and objective views. This was a real situation I and others faced as common councilmen. So, which one is the only one that matters? We determined that both mattered, and had to find a compromise by adjusting the lights with baffles and lenses to restrict the lights, and limiting the very late hour games to weekends only. No one had figured the lights would be a problem so far from the park.

Or, an employer and employee have a disagreement and the employee resigns. When a future employer calls the last employer he gets a different understanding as to why the employee left. The disgruntled employer, who is mad that his employee left, has his view and the disgruntled employee who left has hers. Who is right? Can both be correct according to how each experienced and perceived the situation. Of course they can unless one, or the other, has physical evidence to prove otherwise! Even then, the evidence maybe misleading.

The same can be said of history. In WWII, the Germans saw the war from their own perspective, the English from their own, Russians from their own, and the American's from their own. Thus, to get at the truth of the situation, one must study them all.

charles brough

Yes, it is impossible to deal with the whole of reality (or the world). But suppose there is a valid way of defining 'culture,' 'society' and 'civilization'? If they were properly defined, you could take away the arbitrariness. Isn't it rather unscientific for scientists to be using words they cannot define? They surely don't in other, non-social science, fields. . Wasn't it Trobler who in the 1950s discovered social scientists were using the world "culture" in over sixty different ways?

charles brough

Thanks! but I wonder if Ann Rand's Objectivism is really objective. It seems to me it is only an extreme expression of our secular system's subjective ideal of 'individualism' and 'free will." In its extreme form, it becomes anarchistic and Libertarian, both of which are only types of secular doctrine.

DreamWeaver

Global History

Tuthmosis III

Some would say this is precisely what prevents history and other social "studies" from being properly considered "sciences".

Gudenrath

Historians write history based on the question(s) they want answered from the past. So if they ask a question concerning the history of an individual it is a history of individuals, if they ask a question concerning the history of a civilisation it is a history of civilisations and so on.

Gudenrath

Yes. Historians would do best to forget the ideology of Ayn Rand as quickly as possible, because it certainly isn't going to help them in their task of writing history, quite the opposite in fact.