History: The account of the past, to help clarify and understand the present and future. History is the accurate re-telling of events otherwise forgotten.
First of all, it just hit me that HISTORY almost, almost spells HIS STORY. Obviously it does not spell that, but it is an interesting coincidence. I believe that Thucydides is the father of history and not Herodotus’. Herodotus’ The Histories, while being acknowledged as one of the first to truly attempt a whole overarching historical account, is too flawed in believability and reliability to be considered a true historical source. This does not brand Herodotus as the father of lies, but rather as a historian who got lost in the art of storytelling and fell victim to the temptation for the magnificent. There is a reason other earlier world writings such as The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Epic of Gilgamesh, are classified as literature and not history, and it is that they do not pass the test of reasonable doubt. There is no room for flying snakes or magical creatures in history not matter how many oracles or eye accounts there are. While Herodotus made a valiant attempt at writing the first history, he was unable to hold himself to a standard of factual and believable reporting that is a necessity of any true historian.
I understand where the pro Herodotus people are coming from because it is remarkable how he strung together the histories of so many different people and cultures throughout his travels, but above all else history needs to be accurate and there is no room for fantasy. It would be one thing if there was overlap from other historians of the time, but his tales were simply too wild to cement their place in history.
Like almost everybody has said, Herodotus deserves to be credited as "The Father of History". It's true that his way of telling history was altered by fantastical elements and was written in such a way that we are not used to reading now when we look at history, but despite this his way of thinking helped push history as something to shed light on. His influences were heavily story driven and that shows in his work, but like anyone who is trying something new he looked to what he knew. I'm not saying this was the best way to go about writing history but it was a great start.
The fact that he gained his knowledge by experiencing the world around him by traveling and speaking with people from around the world gives me a confidence in saying that he had some validity to his work. The mystical elements aside, I believe that now with what we know and what we are used to, Herodotus did a fine job of kicking off a new form of collecting facts and sharing them.
Last edited by Noah Bartel on Tue Apr 01, 2014 9:56 pm; edited 1 time in total
Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2014 9:54 pm Post subject: response to hope
"(this is not excluding the idea that there may in fact be more then 100 "histories" of the same five minutes, all of which are valid)."
This is a really accessible way of what I was trying to get at, that essentially although every history is valid, it can never be accessed by more than one person - or, on a larger scale, more than one collective group of people in different time periods. (The way you phrased it, Hope, reminds me of a choose your own adventure book, which is interesting in the context of history, because it makes me wonder how much of it is crafted by individual movement, and how much of it is the result of interactions or how much arises from group mentality/how much is inevitably concluded).
I agree with Tino that "the father of history" is a vague term. However, if I had to pick one on the spot, I'd say that Thucydides was the father of history--and Herodotus was the grandfather.
Borrowing a quote from Tino, "before Herodotus there were storytellers" (20), but we see Herodotus himself repeatedly being labeled as (or accused of being) a storyteller, possibly rather than a historian. Based on our collectively limited scope of knowledge offered by the reading, I am inclined to suggest that he was both. Thucydides, however, came along and further distilled the methodology of writing about history, straining out the "romance" (I lost the page number, sorry) from the facts. Thus, he is one step closer to what I might consider 'pure history,' a compilation of facts in chronological order. Of course, this is not what we see in modern history text books; generally, we are presented with an almost-narrative version of history that heavily favors the important and life-changing, and with good reason.
I suppose that the familial structure analogy breaks down here, but I maintain that Thucydides was well-aligned with our 'textbook' history standard, while Herodotus was one step away from history and towards storytelling. However, the class-guiding question of "what is history?" continues to evade
[And now I must interrupt myself mid-sentence, because it is 11:00. My apologies.]
I think my approach to this question began similar to Tino's. I wondered, what is a father? Surely, Herodotus wasn't the first to record events. And did he nurture history into a grown-up idea? Other historians, beyond his time, developed history past what he could have possibly imagined. But, Herodotus may have recorded a more in-depth and acknowledged piece of history than anyone else had previously. So, let's say that father means taking a huge step beyond what others had done in your field. Sort of like how Archimedes is mostly credited with being the father of Mathematics and people had done simple math before him but, he took a large step beyond anything previous.
Then comes my definition of history: History is the recording of events and may include the interpretation of these events.
Although Herodotus' History is entwined with fantasy, I believe his recording of history and the interpretations he uses within make him the father of history.
**I want to say "true events" in my definition but, I'd rather not get into the mess of describing the difference between "Truth" and "truth"**
Joined: 01 Apr 2014 Posts: 8 Location: United States
Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2014 10:05 pm Post subject:
I have not yet come up with a definition for history, but I would say history is what actually happened in the past. I do not think it needs to be recorded in order to be history. Similarly to Mark, I am struggling with whether history is what happened or the study of why, how, and when it happened. These are both key components of studying history. Is history the event that occurs, the record of that event, or the analysis of that record?
I believe Herodotus was the pioneer of History as a field of study. He was (apparently) the first to record events chronologically, similarly to how we do now. Although his research methods were not as objective and refined as Thucydides’ were, he was the one who thought to put together all these events and ideas and look for patterns. To attempt to explain the patterns was a very new way of learning and thinking. Herodotus did not have the advantage of learning from his predecessors’ mistakes, as Thucydides did. It seems to me that Herodotus invented a form of study and literature, and Thucydides invented a research process that suits that type of literature.
Andrea brings up a very interesting point about history being a public creation. In regard to your example of Io's kidnapping, I think rather than deciding which is the "true" perspective, it is more important to compare and contrast the two stories and examine why they told it differently. What do you mean by "History as a public creation cannot be interpreted"?
My question: I was very struck by the legend included among Herodotus' work. What role, if any, does legend play in history? How can legends be used to look at the societies that created them? How are legends helpful/unhelpful to historians?
Who do you consider the father of history? Why? How are you defining history? Post your own thoughts, but respond to other's ideas, too.
The title can be awarded very differently depending on the judge's personal definition of history, for it seems that each of these men was father of a different type of history. One must also take into consideration their motives for creating each account. Herodotus loosely documented the events of his present, but more importantly, he delved into what was already history at his point in time. I would argue that these so-called "digressions" actually contain the most groundbreaking information in his [i]Histories [/i], and are the very reason he can be considered the father at all. By considering the "geography, climate, flora and fauna, customs and history of particular regions (160)" and then returning back "at the end of a section to the subject announced at the beginning (160)" he would be able to show "patterns of growth and decline (158)" and "preserve the memory of the past (157)" the very ways in which he defined history and saw its use. By capturing the not-so-factual myths and legends he also allows us a glimpse into the common practice and belief systems of the times, information that may not be useful in terms of factuality of events but certainly useful when studying the people. By offering alternatives where there are conflicting accounts and asserting his opinion at times to which story is true, he allows the reader to assign their own truths to the information given, which to me is an essential piece of history. Though Thucydides scoffed at the notion that [i]Histories[/i] was "designed to please the ear (162)" this style of writing actually accounted for much of the book's longevity, fulfilling its purpose "preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done (24)." He was also dubbed the originator of some of the concepts of historical explanation, not to mention the fact that he was simply chronologically prior to Thucydides. If one believes that the most important aspect of history is the creation of the accurate record of events that are presently occurring, Thucydides is the patriarch. If the historians aim is simply to tell the truth, there is little arguing that would win over Herodotus. But I don't really think this makes him the father. The rigidity with which Thucydides writes and the assertion that his is the final word not only contradicts his writing, ["So little pains so the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand (34)"] but also leaves the reader with no room for thought, and something about this to me makes the entire account fall flat. He also seemingly questions the value of investigation of the past, "...time having robbed most of them of historical value by enthroning them in the region of legend. Turning from there was can rest satisfied with having arrived at conclusion as exact as can be expected in matters of such antiquity (34)." By so readily brushing away the entire scope of time before the present he is desecrating every form of history while claiming that this is the exact dish he is serving up.
My definition of history: Like Mark said, history can either be defined as the past itself or the study of the past. In this context, I think that it is more helpful to think of history as not only the study of the past, but also as the collective or public memory of the past, whether it is being recorded on paper or retold orally.
Who the father of history is depends on which definition you use. If history is simply the past, then the father of history is the first cell I guess? Or the big bang? If history is the memory of the past, then the first people who told stories were the parents of history. Because history is something that grows with time and with how people think of it, I don’t think that either Herodotus or Thucydides are the father of history. That being said, I’ll still answer the question:
Herodotus is more the father of history than Thucydides, mostly because he came first and Thucydides actually used him as a resource in his own writing. Although Thucydides was more narrow and specific in his writing than Herodotus, I don’t think that makes him a better historian. History is not only the truth, because there are always multiple versions of the truth, and it is usually impossible to assimilate them all into one True story. Thucydides’ focus on events as opposed to myths and people’s ideas and traditions actually means that we can learn less from him than we can from Herodotus about culture. Our culture often gives events in history a priority over culture and ideas, but I don’t think that events are actually more important. Since any historian is bound to be wrong about something, whether or not they intentionally lied, studying events without the context of the people involved in them can be pretty useless. Therefore, Herodotus was actually a better historian because he gave his future readers more context and a better lens through which to study the events he wrote about. So if he was both a better historian and first, then he was more the father of history than Thucydides. Nonetheless, Herodotus was undoubtedly not the first person to study history, or even to write it down. He is simply the oldest account we still have today that we consider history from our modern standpoint. But I would argue that writers like Homer were also historians in that they recorded ideas and traditions of people for future memory.
I think that gets into the difference between history and anthropology. Where do you draw the line? Can you?
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