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History is often used as a generic term for information about the past, such as in "geologic history of the Earth". When used as the name of a field of study, history refers to the study and interpretation of the record of human societies. The term history comes from the Greek "ιστορία" historia, "an account of one's inquiries", and shares that etymology with the English word story.
Historians use many types of sources, including written or printed records, interviews (oral history), and archaeology. Different approaches may be more common in some periods than others, and the study of history has its fads and fashions (see historiography). The events that occurred prior to human records are known as prehistory.
Knowledge of history is often said to encompass both knowledge of past events and historical thinking skills.
A criticism of history as a field has been that it has too narrowly focused on political events or on individuals. Deeper more significant changes in terms of ideas, technology, family life and culture have received too little attention. Recent developments in history have sought to redress this.
See also: History of the world
Classifications
A very large amount of historical information is available in Wikipedia, and several different ways of classifying it are given below.
History classified by region
History classified by subregion
History classified by dates
Academic classification
History of Religions
Miscellaneous classifications
Ideological classifications
Although there is arguably some intrinsic bias in history studies (with national bias perhaps being the most significant), history can also be studied from narrow ideological perspectives, which practitioners feel are often ignored, such as:
A form of historical speculation known commonly as virtual history, or "counterfactual history", has also been adopted by some historians as a means of assessing and exploring the possible outcomes if certain events had not occurred or had occurred in a different way. This is somewhat similar to the alternative history genre in fiction.
Lists of false or dubious historical resources and historical myths that were once popular and widespread, or have becomes so, have also been prepared.
Guidelines for history on Wikipedia can be found at Wikipedia:History.
See also
External links
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