TOP 10 SUBJECTS OF HISTORY (SPECIAL MENTION)

 

But wait – there’s more!

Yes – I’ve done my shallow dip into the Top 10 Subjects of History but there’s yet more subjects for my usual twenty special mentions, of course with my usual wilder entries the further I go.

 

(1) HISTORIOGRAPHY

 

The history of history!

No, seriously – historiography has been called that, as “the study of how history is written, interpreted, and constructed over time…it analyzes the methods, sources, biases, and evolving interpretations historians use to study the past, rather than the events themselves”.

As such, almost all things in history also have their historiography. For example, the decline and fall of the Roman Empire has its history – the historical events that comprise that decline and fall – and its historiography, the latter predominated by the debate among historians over whether it was decline or fall.

Of particular interest to me within historiography are historical schools of thought – historical works or historians “grouped together by common, often ideological approaches” or coalescing about theories or theses of history (which rival the subjects of history for their own top ten list and special mentions).

Historical schools of thought can be for history in general – the Whig or Marxist schools of history for example – or for particular topics of history. As I said, the historiography of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire is predominated by schools of thought that argue it as fall or decline respectively, such as the so-called Movers or Shakers with respect to the barbarian invasions.

A more contemporary example is the historiography of the Cold War – usually classified as orthodox (the Soviet evil empire did it), revisionist (the American evil empire did it), and post-revisionist (the Soviets and Americans both kinda did it or it was bound to happen between them)

 

(2) PREHISTORY

 

The vast majority of human history is actually prehistory – largely synonymous with the Stone Age, overlapping with the origins of recorded history in the Bronze Age or Iron Age.

Setting aside hominin history extending back over 3 million years ago, anatomically modern humans or homo sapiens go back about 300,000 years – so prehistory is all but one or two percentage points of that, only overlapping with recorded history at earliest in the Bronze Age about the fourth millennium BC or so, coinciding with the invention of writing.

Prehistory doesn’t end there either. The origins of recorded history vary by place from Bronze Age to Iron Age. Even after recorded history began in those places, the majority of places – if not also peoples – around the world remained outside recorded history or at least did not record their own history and hence prehistoric in that sense (although the term often used for the latter is protohistory).

 

(3) MODERN HISTORY

 

From prehistory to its polar opposite – the pointy end of the history in the present, modern history.

Well, I suppose you could argue against the first proposition. Prehistory is the opposite of modern history in many ways but it is ultimately outside history altogether by definition so ancient history may be a better fit. Certainly that is the view of school curricula (at least where I am), which tends to divide history as a subject into ancient and modern history – the intervening medieval history tending to be reserved for more specialized college or university curricula.

And I suppose you could argue modern history tends to have an event horizon in the present, with modern historians preferring to give some space of time – say, five years or so – for the dust to settle on current events before including them in modern history.

Modern history is somewhat elastic from the present. Sure, the present marks its ending point but when does it begin? Some propose the subject of contemporary history from the end of the Second World War onward, but usually as a subset of modern history. The usual demarcation is from about the French, American or Industrial Revolutions onwards – with early modern history from the fall of the eastern Roman Empire or the discovery of the Americas by Columbus.

As much as I love ancient history, modern history is my favorite – because of its pointy end in the present. To me, that pointy end in the present – ultimately identifying how the events or themes of history manifest in the present – is what history is all about.

 

(4) MILITARY

 

Yeah – this is the big one.

Military history is obviously a subset of history in general, but one that outranks the others in popularity – perhaps not so much among professional historians but particularly among amateur historians, history buffs, and hobbyists (including myself).

After all, you don’t get other branches of history with the same obsession over factual minutiae of battles, uniforms, weapons, or you name it – or sheer enthusiasm for re-enactment or models. Social history? I think not.

It also is the subject within history of most interest to people serving in actual military forces or indeed military commanders, historical and contemporary, typically to apply the lessons of the past to the present and future.

 

(5) ALTERNATE & COUNTERFACTUAL HISTORY

 

Yeah – this is the other big one, albeit one that is more fully developed and popular in science fiction rather than academic or professional history.

Strictly speaking, alternate history is the fictional one while counterfactual history is the, well, factual one, but both are concerned with identifying pivotal events and turning points where history might have turned out differently.

 

(6) THEMATIC HISTORY

 

In a sense, I prefer all my history to be thematic history, looking beyond a chronology of events or people to the themes of history – cycles and pattern, plot and rhythm, cause and effect.

However, this special mention is for history with a particular thematic focus for its subject. We’ve already looked at one so far with military history and my entries from seventh to tenth place are effectively different variants of thematic history.

 

(7) SOCIAL HISTORY

 

“Social history, often called history from below, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past”- typically of society in general beyond the ruling class and political or military history

 

(8) RELIGIOUS HISTORY

 

Pretty much what it says on the tin – religious history or the history of religion, whether as social or political history.

 

(9) CULTURAL & INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

 

Again, pretty much what it says on the tin – history through the lens of culture in the case of cultural history, and the history of ideas or intellectuals in the case of intellectual history.

 

(10) ART & SCIENCE

 

Yes, there is actually art history and the history of science for those subjects, which tend to fall into the wider subject of cultural or intellectual history. Art history is the more distinctive and prevalent academic study of visual arts, usually at universities, albeit more for the study of art rather than history – typically as a field of study for artists or management of art galleries and museums.

However, there is also the more metaphorical level of the recurring debate over whether history is more an art or a science – with the evidentiary focus of the latter, particularly when coupled with archaeology or forensics, but also the aesthetic vibes of the former.

 

(11) BIOGRAPHY

 

“Biographical writings were regarded merely as a subsection of history with a focus on a particular individual of historical importance.”

I always find it surprising how much of history tends to be biography, even from the Greek or Roman historians onwards, albeit not always in the same way as modern biography.

 

(12) ORAL HISTORY

 

Most history, if not all history, originated from oral history in the broader sense as personal testimony (or hearsay). However, oral history in the strict sense is “the systematic collection of living people’s testimonies, memories, and experiences through recorded audio or video interviews.”

 

(13) FAMILY HISTORY

 

Again it’s surprising how much of history tends to be genealogy or family history – as it does biography, not coincidentally.

 

(14) COURT HISTORY

 

Yet again, much of history, at least prior to modern history, tends to be court history, in the broader sense of being written by the ruling class (as well as for and of them), and in the narrower sense of being written by or for members of the actual government or royal court, including its courtiers or officials, for the purposes of governance or official record.

 

(15) MICROHISTORY & MACROHISTORY

 

Microhistory focuses on single events or “small units of research” – asking “large questions in small places” and closely associated with social and cultural history.

“Macrohistory seeks out large, long-term trends in world history in search of ultimate patterns.”

 

(16) HISTORICAL MATERIALISM

 

It’s surprising just how much of Marxism is, or at least is framed as, historical analysis, albeit borrowing from Hegelian philosophy.

Of course, I’m not saying that it’s accurate historical analysis, although I have a soft spot for Marx’s adage that history repeats itself – the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. That might explain how Marx’s predictions from historical analysis were somewhat farcical themselves – and how Marxists have consistently shown a farcical ability to be surprised by historical events.

It was Marx’s collaborator Friedrich Engels who coined the term for this underlying historical analysis as historical materialism – “that view of the course of history which seeks the ultimate cause and the great moving power of all important historic events in the economic development of society, in the changes in the modes of production and exchange, in the consequent division of society into distinct classes, and in the struggles of these classes against one another”.

 

 

(17) HISTORY WRITTEN BY THE VICTORS

 

I couldn’t resist special mention for this popular maxim as a subject of history – a maxim often used to dismiss “mainstream” historical narratives as those “written by the victors” and assert alternative ones, sometimes leaning into the historical revisionism or outright pseudohistory of the next entries.

It is however an oversimplification worthy of its own top ten list.

There is of course truth to the maxim (otherwise it wouldn’t be one), particularly when states with their own literary history conquered other states or peoples without any of their own. The classic example is of the Roman Empire but even here there were Roman historians who wrote from the perspective of its opponents or against the empire – most famously Tacitus and the speech he attributed to the Caledonian chieftain Calgacus.

However, there are numerous counter-examples, some quite strident indeed such as the Lost Cause of the Confederacy from the American Civil War or the memoirs of German generals for history of the Eastern Front in WW2.

The maxim is weakened even further by other factors, such as when states are defeated rather than conquered and otherwise remain intact with their own literary history – or with the increasing number of historical sources in modern or contemporary history beyond any sort of “victorious” narrative control.

 

(18) HISTORICAL REVISIONISM

 

A term that can be misleading as it can be co-opted, particularly by those in my next entry seeking to legitimize themselves, but is more properly “the reinterpretation of established historical narratives, often driven by new evidence, perspectives or analytic tools”.

 

(19) PSEUDOHISTORY (HISTORICAL DENIALISM & NEGATIONISM)

 

We’re in the weirdest and wildest parts of “history” now – indeed, I’ve a feeling we’re not in history anymore.

Historians distinguish legitimate historical revisionism from historical denialism or negationism – the wholesale rejection of historical events or foundations of historical evidence. You know the usual suspects.

Historical denialism or negationism in turn is only part of pseudohistory (often overlapping with pseudoarchaeology or even pseudoscience) that “attempts to distort or misrepresent the historical record”. An intriguing variant of pseudohistory is cryptohistory which is derived from “the superstitions intrinsic to occultism”.

 

(20) S€XUAL HISTORY

 

I like to reserve my final special mention for my kinkier or kinkiest entry – hence this entry for s€xual history.

Typically the usage of this term tends to be for contemporary individuals – often styled as body count in slang, particularly on social media – but it is also a subject within historical biography and social history, the former for historical figures or individuals and the latter for historical societies or peoples.

And when it comes to the latter, s€xual history seems to be something of a paradox. On the one hand, there is a certain general consistency for human s€xuality throughout history for procreation, but on the other hand, you can find virtually every permutation of s€x somewhere in history, kind of like a rule 34 of the internet but for kink and history.

If it’s a kink, there’s history of it.

 

 

TOP 10 SUBJECTS OF HISTORY

 

 

It’s another top ten on the spot, a shorter shallow dip as opposed to a longer deep dive – and in this case intentionally reminiscent of my Top 10 Subjects of Mythology.

And like that top ten, it prompts the obvious retort that’ll be a shallow dip indeed – it’s history, innit? Historical events, people, and places. Historical wars and empires.

 

Or historical babes in the excellent words of Bill and Ted –

“Bill: We gotta go, this is a history report, not a babe report!

Ted: But Bill, those are historical babes!”

 

Setting aside that I do indeed have a historical babe report, history has more permutations than that. I’m not just talking subjects within history, such as the Roman Empire or the Second World War, but getting meta with subjects of history – as history meaningfully overlaps with or includes many other subjects that are interesting of themselves.

The subject of history in its broadest sense is perhaps straightforward enough – “the systematic study and documentation” of the human past or past events. Beyond that, it gets a little tricky with all the permutations of the various subjects of history or even the concept of history itself – so many permutations that, well, you get this top ten.

 

History repeats itself – the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

History does not repeat but sometimes it rhymes.

History is just one damned thing after another.

 

I was tempted to add repetition or rhyme, tragedy or farce, and one damned thing after another to the subjects of history from these three of my favorite quotes about it – although I kind of do for one thing after another in my first entry. Speaking of which…

 

 

(1) CHRONOLOGY (TIME)

 

 

It may be basic but chronology – placing events, people, and places in time – is the foundation of history, its skeleton or bare bones.

It can lapse into, as Toynbee quipped, just one damned thing after another – rote repetition of dates, or as Toynbee intended it as criticism, historians who simply seek to chronicle history rather than analyze it.

But it’s hard to analyze history if you don’t chronicle it first – that is, place it in time or in chronological sequence. It’s hard to identify the themes of history – cycles and pattern, plot and rhythm, cause and effect, or in the famous phrase of Toynbee, challenge and response – if you don’t have it in chronological sequence first.

 

 

(2) GEOGRAPHY (SPACE)

 

 

History is as much a matter of placing things in space as it is in time – geography as much as chronology.

I’m not just talking physical geography, the geography of “natural features such as landforms, climates, soils, water, and ecosystems” – although that is surprisingly significant as a recurring factor in history.

I’m talking human geography, the interaction of physical geography with humanity – “human societies, cultures, economies, and political systems, and how they interact with the environment”. You can write whole global histories essentially of human geography, as Felipe Fernandez-Armesto did in “Civilizations: Culture, Ambition and the Transformation of Nature”.

Just to illustrate geography as a subject of history, one need only think of the prevalence of maps in history, extending to entire historical narratives depicted through the medium of a historical atlas or map animation.

 

 

(3) PHILOSOPHY (MIND)

 

 

“History is philosophy teaching by examples.”

The third dimension of history – after placing things in space and time, history is a matter of placing them…in mind.

That is, placing them in thematic narrative – history for which the central theme is identifying, well, the themes of history, its cycles and patterns, its plot and rhythm. History never repeats but sometimes it rhymes.

“History is an academic discipline which uses a narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect. Historians debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effect. Historians debate the nature of history as an end in itself, and its usefulness in giving perspective on the problems of the present.”

Ultimately thematic narratives involve philosophy, particularly political philosophy or ideology, as a subject of history – or history as a subject of philosophy.

When it comes to philosophy and history, I have a soft spot for one of the big three classical philosophers, Aristotle, in his “Poetics” proposing “the superiority of poetry over history because poetry speaks of what ought or must be true rather than merely what is true.”

 

 

(4) DEMOGRAPHICS (PEOPLE)

 

“Birth, and copulation, and death

That’s all the facts when you come down to brass tacks”

 

Well that along with numbers and movement of people and populations. Historical nations or states mostly seem fleeting crystallizations among amorphous tribal migrations until overwhelmed by one invasion or another. History also seems to flow to tides of fertility and mortality.

Of course, actually doing demographics for historical periods or populations tends to be highly approximate estimates – indeed, even for our own with all our censuses and other instruments of demographics.

 

 

(5) ECONOMICS (MONEY)

 

“Some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship God… but they all worship money.”

You could say that history is basically just economics with the first states based on grain agriculture and writing originating as their ledgers or records, ultimately giving rise to written history.

That is only more so with the development of money – indeed, it’s striking how often money in the form of coins is literally an important historical source – and even more so with modern industrialization, coinciding with economics itself as a field of study.

Of course, most pre-modern historical states seem to have only the most rudimentary grasp of economics, such as the Roman Empire and the constant debasement of its currency, and achieving economic growth only through higher population or sacking other states.

Historian Arnold Toynbee “made the case for combining economics and history in his study of the Industrial Revolution” – “I believe economics today is much too dissociated from history…We see abstract propositions in a new light when studying them in relation to historical facts. Propositions become more vivid and truthful…The habits of mind it instils are even more valuable than the knowledge of principles it gives. Without these habits, the mass of their materials can overwhelm students of historical facts.”

Like demographics, however, actually doing economics for historical periods or states tends to be highly approximate estimates.

 

 

(6) ARCHAEOLOGY

 

“You call this archaeology?”

Arguably the archetypal subject of history, although sadly almost entirely unlike its most famous cinematic version, Indiana Jones – fewer Arks of the Covenant or Holy Grails and more painstakingly putting together pieces of pottery. Also, it is as much the province of prehistory as well as history – or even more so since by definition prehistory precedes written records, extending all the way back to the origin of homins.

Where history tends towards the study of written records, archaeology is the study of physical remains or ruins, recovered from or in the locations that preserved them, typically subterranean or underground.

“Archaeology…is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes”.

As such, archaeology supplements history nicely, confirming historical records, or even supplants it altogether, where historical records are deficient or entirely absent.

In looking up archaeology for this entry, I was amused to find out that the first archaeology and archaeologist are now themselves archaeological – Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, discovering and analyzing in 550 BC the foundation deposit of Naram-Sin, ruler of the Akkadian Empire, from 2200 BC.

 

 

(7) ANTHROPOLOGY

 

“Anthropology is a very important field of study.”

“(Laughs) I’m pretty sure someone’s named all the different spiders…”

“That’s arachnology!”

“(Laughs even more) I know – equally huge waste of time.”

 

The cruel jibes of Archer at anthropology aside, you can argue for it as a subject of history to rival archaeology – or vice versa, history as a specialized subset of anthropology.

“Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity…concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past”. The overlap with history is obvious, particularly when it comes to the past.

 

 

(8) SOCIOLOGY

 

From anthropology to sociology – the latter seems as much a subject of history to rival the former, or vice versa, history seems as much a specialized subset of sociology as of anthropology.

After all, a description of sociology is almost identical to that of anthropology, except with social used as recurring adjective – “Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, huma social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life”.

 

(9) PSYCHOLOGY

 

History is just psychology writ large, isn’t it?

The only question is whether it is Freudian or Jungian…

I mean, some of Freud’s books read not so much as individual psychology but collective or historical psychology, most notably Civilization and Its Discontents. Einstein even corresponded with Freud as to the psychological explanation for war. Jung’s concepts are arguably even more so for collective rather than individual psychology – he even coined the collective unconscious as one of his central concepts.

You can take that further by proposing the “psychology” of nations and states, as some historians seem to lapse into doing, or even of entire cultures and civilizations as Oswald Spengler did.

And then there’s historical movements and periods as psychological states. I’ve always had a fascination for mass hysteria in history – and they don’t call it the Great Depression for nothing!

It prompts to mind the (science) fictional psychohistory of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, capable of predicting future events down to their precise timing, through mathematics and statistical analysis applied to collective human psychology on a social scale.

Interesting, psychohistory is proposed as a real life field of study – “blending psychology and history to analyze unconscious motives in historical events”.

On the other hand, in the absence of any clinical or formal assessment, psychoanalysis of historical figures can only be estimations or projections, even for those figures with extensive biographical documentation.

 

 

(10) ECOLOGY

 

Arguably a permutation of geography as a subject of history (and vice versa) or placing things in space as well as time – history as a matter of placing things in nature or the natural world.

Alternatively styled as environmental history – “the study of human interaction with the natural world over time, emphasising the active role nature plays in influencing human affairs and vice versa”.

For me, the most interesting aspect of ecology as a subject in history is “the environment as an active agent in history, not just a passive stage, studying phenomena like natural disasters, climate change, and resource depletion”.

And the environment can be an active agent in history, indeed – for example, Kyle Harper’s The Fate of Rome proposes that Rome fell from climate and pandemic, adversaries entirely different and far more destructive than Rome’s human adversaries to which the fall is usually attributed.

“The subject matter of environmental history can be divided into three main components” – the first as nature itself and its change over time or impact on humans, the second as the human use of and impact on nature, and the third as how people think about nature over time, “the way attitudes, beliefs and values influence interaction with nature, especially in the form of myths, religion and science”.