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Articles

History: The Study of the Subjective and Unimportant

Ben Adams wants to humanise history.

History as it is studied today begins with the earliest civilizations which left visual and literary evidence which historians can collect, analyse and interpret. By and large, Western historians begin with the Mesopotamians, the Ancient Egyptians, and especially the Ancient Greeks (earlier cultures are usually left to archaeologists and anthropologists). These were arguably the first civilizations to produce complex texts, art and architecture to which we in the twenty-first century still have some access. The study continues through the major historical epochs, with varying degrees of overlap, from the Classical world, to our Postmodern era today. Historians study the source evidence left by the people of these periods in order to understand who, how, why and what they were.

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