What is history and what does it study?
THE Historyit is one of the oldest known disciplines of human knowledge. It defines itself as the science that studies the actions of men and women in time and space.
According to this definition, the main object of study in History are men and women, as well as the changes made in their actions over time. Consequently, the established social relations, their forms of social organization, human creations, institutions, ideals, cultures and even their feelings are studied.
Reflections on History in Ancient Civilizations
In the Western European world, History as discipline of human knowledge developed from the first moments of the formation of the greek civilization. The poems attributed to homer, The Iliad and the Odyssey, they are expressions of a historical perspective of the Greek peoples.
Later, more elaborate ways of writing the history of the Greek people emerged, mainly with Thucydides and Herodotus. This historical perspective was also adopted by the Romans to understand the process of historical formation of their own civilization.
Several historians also consider that the Judaism, O christianity it's the Islam they are eminently historical religions, as they founded their precepts from various facts of the past and the passage of time, in addition to the relationship between man and his god in this process.
Western world historical perspective
Also in historical perspective of the western world, formulated mainly by Europeans, History was divided in some parts, having as dividing marks historical facts that occurred in that continent or very closely related to it. In this sense, the main division occurs between the Prehistoryand the History.
Prehistory is defined as the period of human history in which there was still no knowledge of writing, with History being the period from which man developed the ability to express himself in this form. Such perspective carries a way of understanding the world from the very conceptions of a people or peoples who share common social traits.
This perspective is called ethnocentrism and it would be that which would lead to considering the oral transmission of historical knowledge as a stage of development of civilizations prior to the stage in which the ability to communicate through the writing.
Divisions of History
Within what is considered as History, there are still other divisions, and if we follow them in Brazil, this is due to the fact that we have Europeans as one of the components of our social formation. The divisions of History are: AgeOld, or Antique; AgeAverage;AgeModern; and Agecontemporary.
Seeking to follow this way of dividing the History of humanity (and some others), the site Brazil School created a space dedicated to General history, where texts that enable knowledge of this discipline of human knowledge are offered to students and other readers.
Other spaces were created so that a more specific historical deepening could be carried out. These are the cases of the disciplines of history of Brazil it's from history of america, seeking to contemplate the need to know better the country and the continent in which we operate.
Good research!
By Me. Tales Pinto
