My first college history course the professor asked the class what is history? I in my freshman wisdom answered that it was a story! The professor wasn’t that impressed with that answer. Another student put forward the text book answer that “History was the study of the past.” The professor took a few more answers before settling into his lecture about the “conversation with the past.” Fast forward about 13 years, I have changed my answer History is more than a story, but I would also narrow the text book answer. We could define history as the study of the past but when we talk about the age of the earth we generally talk in terms of Geology, Theology or Philosophy. History is the study of the human past. When we refer to history we are mostly talking about people. That is why history seems to repeat itself because people tend to make similar choices. Human nature seems to not change much.
From this first history class I have become obsessed with peoples definition of history. The joke goes ask 100 historians what is history and you’ll get 112 answers. It’s true, do a google search for what is history quotes. I’m not sure why that is, I suspect it is because history has to do more with philosophy than many historians would care to admit. That discussion is for a future post.
This post is really just to state that I believe History is the study of the human past. This is of course assumed with the text book definition but stating that history is about human lives reminds us that the past was as complicated as the present.
