Well?

Who was the best historian ever and why?

Love always,

Fifty Q Fiftyson

PS: I don't care if "best" is ambiguous. DEAL WITH IT!!!

It's way to hard to pick the best. I've always liked Herodotus & Xenon.

I'm unhappy with "best". Too subjective a call, and it depends entirely on what how you decide to measure success, which can be done in any number of ways.
The best microhistorian? The best philosopher of history? Best general tall-tale yarn-spinner? It's like the bloody Oscars!;)

"Most influential" would at least narrow it down.

I'm unhappy with "best". Too subjective a call, and it depends entirely on what how you decide to measure success, which can be done in any number of ways.
The best microhistorian? The best philosopher of history? Best general tall-tale yarn-spinner? It's like the bloody Oscars!;)

"Most influential" would at least narrow it down.

use whatever critieria you think best captures the notion of "best".

My history teacher at school. ;) He is the closest thing to a history god upon the earth!

Top three.

1. Ibn Khaldun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Khaldun)
2. Herodotus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus)
3. Sima Qian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sima_Qian)

@Tboy, don't get me started on history teachers! ;)

Anyone but AJP Taylor

he gets on my nerves

Anyone but AJP Taylor

he gets on my nerves


Why? He's my favourite. He states the other side of the argument, and doesn't get hung up on loads of stuff other historians do. He's only unpopular because he didn't always fit and wasn't afraid to be hetrodoxical.

I'd say Ryszard Kapuściński ranks pretty high up on a list. He is my favorite.

Why? He's my favourite. He states the other side of the argument, and doesn't get hung up on loads of stuff other historians do. He's only unpopular because he didn't always fit and wasn't afraid to be hetrodoxical.

It just seems he always argues contrary to my personal opinions, even on things where he is vastly disproven by countless other historians

I do have to give him props for never backing down, however...

I can't remember verse and chapter, but I like these ideas of his:

We usually draw the wrong lessons from history: I think he was talking about Anthony Eden and Suez crisis, and how he acted on the belief that Nasser was 'the new Hitler'.

I think that is so relevant given the way the neo-cons imagined that Iraq would be like Germany 1945 all over again.

I also think he felt on one level that history was simply storytelling. He said in some languages the words 'history' and 'story' are the same, though I dont know which languages this applies to, perhaps someone on CFC can enlighten me.

You mean, you had different opinions to him, don't forget he lived through the times he wrote about.

His book Origins of the Second World War was semantic, though I have not yet read it, in portraying Hitler as an opportunist, rather than a schemer who had everything worked out from the start. At the time this view was hetrodoxical and controversial as most people belived the latter view, a kind of victors account. Personally I think his view is more reasonable and logical on the face of it. AJP Taylor recognised that there was no such thing as objectivity in history and was prepared to recognise his own values when formulating his ideas. I wish more academics in the arts would drop their pretence of objectivity when approaching history.

I think there is alot of truth in the idea that history is shaped by the politics of the present. For example, after the war he was asked to write a booklet explaining the rise of Hitler for the benefit of Allied servicemen. The idea was to portray the rise of the Nazis as an abboration or anomally of German history. This was an is an important concept because it serves to reinforce Germanys integration into Europe as a modern and progressive state. However, as he looked into the subject hed found that far from being an anomally the Nazis were a confluence of many different strands of German history. The booklet was rejected, but he expanded it into The Course of German History a very thought provoking book. Remember also that Taylor was initially a scholar of the Hapsburgs, so I don't think we should just dismiss his opinions out of hand as mere polemic.

Spanish, for one - "historia".

I can't remember verse and chapter, but I like these ideas of his:

We usually draw the wrong lessons from history: I think he was talking about Anthony Eden and Suez crisis, and how he acted on the belief that Nasser was 'the new Hitler'.

I think that is so relevant given the way the neo-cons imagined that Iraq would be like Germany 1945 all over again.

I also think he felt on one level that history was simply storytelling. He said in some languages the words 'history' and 'story' are the same, though I dont know which languages this applies to, perhaps someone on CFC can enlighten me.

You mean, you had different opinions to him, don't forget he lived through the times he wrote about.

His book Origins of the Second World War was semantic, though I have not yet read it, in portraying Hitler as an opportunist, rather than a schemer who had everything worked out from the start. At the time this view was hetrodoxical and controversial as most people belived the latter view, a kind of victors account. Personally I think his view is more reasonable and logical on the face of it. AJP Taylor recognised that there was no such thing as objectivity in history and was prepared to recognise his own values when formulating his ideas. I wish more academics in the arts would drop their pretence of objectivity when approaching history.

I think there is alot of truth in the idea that history is shaped by the politics of the present. For example, after the war he was asked to write a booklet explaining the rise of Hitler for the benefit of Allied servicemen. The idea was to portray the rise of the Nazis as an abboration or anomally of German history. This was an is an important concept because it serves to reinforce Germanys integration into Europe as a modern and progressive state. However, as he looked into the subject hed found that far from being an anomally the Nazis were a confluence of many different strands of German history. The booklet was rejected, but he expanded it into The Course of German History a very thought provoking book. Remember also that Taylor was initially a scholar of the Hapsburgs, so I don't think we should just dismiss his opinions out of hand as mere polemic.

My disagreement stems mostly from his views on WWI, but I do see your point

Aspects of European History (I forget which years, but late 1700s to 1980s) has a large number of quotes from him, and had I read them online I would have been forced to use the dreaded rolleyes :rolleyes:

And indeed French - l'histoire.

I like Taylor, because he went to the same college that I did, and he loathed it - something they don't mention when listing him among famous alumni...

For lasting influence I'd put Thucydides as the most influential.:king:

He is very much part of the reason that so much of our recorded history myopically focuses on war and a fairly limited view of diplomacy and politics. That, and the fact he formulated "acribeia", acriby, his "painful thoroughness" in sifting and comparing sources.

The guy who defined what modern historians are professionally more than anyone might be old Leopold von Ranke and his Berlin school of history back in the 19th c.

Turgot and Schlöser might share credit for formulating the concept of (universal) "world history" also back in the late 18th c.

As the most influential natural historian, i.e. the guy who on balance made the most crucial contribution to our historical understanding of the non-human natural world, I would consider Georges Cuvier, early 19th c., as the inventor of palaeontology.
There is such a thing as "anti-humanist" history. If Ernst Mayr is to be believed biology should quite horsing around and admit that it is above all a historical science. (I don't think he's really though the implications through, much as he is a Nobel Prize laureate.);)

And looking at the present state of "historiography", i.e. the history of history, I think the cake might go to Reinhardt Koselleck (dead a year and a day ago today) and his "Begriffsgeschichte".
His book "Vergangene Zukunft" (Eng. transl. Futures Past) pretty much singlehandedly redefined the entire field of study some 25 years ago.:goodjob:

I'll give the philosophers of history a miss here I think.;)

No body here seems to have read anything by Kapuściński... :sad:

No body here seems to have read anything by Kapu?ci?ski... :sad:
I've read "One more day to live" and "The Footboll War" a looong time ago, if that helps.:)

He certainly is one of those writers I deeply espect for showing people why history is absolutely crucial for understanding the present and humnaity in general.
Dunno' if I would consider him an historian really, but a damn fine writer and reporter.:goodjob:

Herodotus and Xenophon I've always liked to read. If I had to name more modern historian, I have to say I've liked John Toland very much. I mean the guy who died couple years ago, not the 17th-18th century John Toland.

Kapuscinski was as much a historian as Herodotus, especially now when he is dead and a part of history.

And I really recommend the below...

OK Kapuscinski was a bit less of a historian then Herodotus. But Herodotus also reported current events and observations, interviews etc. and in that way they are equal at the least.

Here is a nice litle oratory performance by Kapuscinski on Herodotus that I was lucky enough to film myself in Stockholm:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIG6D5yLosM

Sima Qian. Recording 2000 years of Chinese history is very difficult.

Sima Qian. Recording 2000 years of Chinese history is very difficult.
I think you may be right. He's also one of the few Chinese historians read in the west, unless you count semi-fictionalized history like The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

There was another Chinese historian who wrote The Book of Strategems (as in methods of outwitting your enemy). Our library here had a copy of a translation of the first half that was excellent reading. The volume has unfortunately disappeared and I don't know if the second half was ever trans;ated.

marcellinius at least that's how i think you spell it...

because he not only wrote of the winss of rome he put the bloody defeats. But then agin their was the huns having coats made of mice thing.....

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Gibbon yet. In the very least he is our greatest historian named after an ape.

No, the great Roman Orangutanius was greater . . .

True that, an Orangutan is a great ape, Gibbons are just mediocre apes.

For lasting influence I'd put Thucydides as the most influential.:king:

He is very much part of the reason that so much of our recorded history myopically focuses on war and a fairly limited view of diplomacy and politics. That, and the fact he formulated "acribeia", acriby, his "painful thoroughness" in sifting and comparing sources.

My thoughts exactly.

The Gibbon is a "lesser ape".:D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbon

Thucydides was greatest.

The Gibbon is a "lesser ape".:D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbon
Bah, I would consider them "barely adequet apes" :lol:

Not the greatest, but Martin Gilbert is a very good modern historian.

Especially the 20th century.

One thing that needs to be clarified is the definition of historian. We know of many ancient writers as historians who were writing about contemporary things. Examples are:

-Herodotus wrote about his travels from Greece to Egypt. The name Palestine dates to him because he named the Levant after the Phillistines he encountered.
-Josephus wrote about a Jewish revolt against Roman rule that he participated in.

Both are thought of today as historians, but their works were mostly contemporary. Modern historians are people who study & write about the past.

If ancients like Herodotus & Josephus are considered historians here, then Josephus has to be on the list. He is the earliest, non Biblical reference to Jesus that I know of & much of what we know about the Jewish revolt of 66-70 CE comes from him.

I also really like Cornelius Ryan's account of D-Day, The Longest Day.

Modern historians are people who study & write about the past.

If ancients like Herodotus & Josephus are considered historians here, then Josephus has to be on the list. He is the earliest, non Biblical reference to Jesus that I know of & much of what we know about the Jewish revolt of 66-70 CE comes from him.
There's contemporary history written by historians as well.

Herodotus wrote about things happening about a generation ago. Already he had trouble with the documentation. All ancient historians struggled with lack of sources. That was why Tucydided decied to write about this war he had been a part of, but sidelined from (no fault of his own), as events unfolded.

One of the things that was so novel about him was that he explicitly wrote his history not for the consumption of his contemporaries, but for posterity. That's also something modern historians have picked up from him; trying to write works that might actually have some staying power. (Though rifling through stacks of modern PhD dissertations gives the impression that ambition might have been lost.)

Turgot and Schlöser might share credit for formulating the concept of (universal) "world history" also back in the late 18th c.


This, of course, is complete nonsense. The formulation of universal world history predates the ancient Greek storytellers the West likes to regard as its first "historians". If you doubt that, read genesis and you'll see universal world history fully formulated! Obviously you are referring to something else, but I can't find any twisted way to give either of these guys any version of this honour. You'll need to elaborate on this one. ;)

Well?

Who was the best historian ever and why?

Love always,

Fifty Q Fiftyson

PS: I don't care if "best" is ambiguous. DEAL WITH IT!!!

I'm afraid the answer you seek is nowhere. There is no-one on this planet who has or ever will read even a large proportion of all the historians who've ever written. Therefore, even ignoring the inherent subjectivity of the question, no-one will ever be able to give you a reasonable "why". The only way most people can and will answer will be to select one historian from the small section of the small historical body of historians they've been brought up to believe are canonical; i.e. a small range of Greek, Latin and modern western historians, with the more culturally sensitive bringing into consideration a few Islamic or Far Eastern historians prominent in the West.

A much more reasonable way to ask your question would be either "which historian that you have read have you enjoyed the most" or "which historian do you judge to best that you've read as a historian", in either a time relative perspective (i.e. the older the less rigorous the judgment) or absolutely.

For the first one, Peter Brown is very much one of the best academic historians as a writer; but for instance, I'd include among the other of the most fun "historians" I've ever read Bernal Diaz, William of Rubruck or Xenophon (his Anabasis); their funness derives here very much from the story and the way they recount it. For modern academic historians, the funness I find generally derives from their skill as a writer and their originality (blown if the historian is obviously incompetent). Peter Brown is a very skilled writer, and can be highly original sometimes.

For actual historical skill; my answer would be to list a few of those people called "microhistorians"; writings about subjects where the historian really has mastered all or virtually all of the material available to him. The problem with the kind of history most people read is that the more general the history is, the more incompetent the historian is likely to be on specific points. And indeed, it is highly impossible to write great general histories without this. The best that the writers of the latter can do is trust the best more specific sytheses of even more specific microhistories, and go on from there. Some more general historians do this well, e.g. Norman Davies, but even the best are always going to be crap sources for more specific information.

As for general historical theorists who many here are likely to identify as the best historian: there are a bunch every generation. Each one has moved historiography forward in his own way, or been more or less original. Quite impossible to pick one as "the best". Since virtually all of these guys over-generalize and haven't learned to shut the f*** up about topics they are not competent to talk about, each one is highly imperfect. :goodjob:

This, of course, is complete nonsense. The formulation of universal world history predates the ancient Greek storytellers the West likes to regard as its first "historians". If you doubt that, read genesis and you'll see universal world history fully formulated! Obviously you are referring to something else, but I can't find any twisted way to give either of these guys any version of this honour. You'll need to elaborate on this one. ;)
You get a Christian linear universal history which serves the West quite well, until about the 16th c. Hard to pin it on a single historian though. (Even if I find Gioacchino da Fiore interesting; his 12th c. world history based on the successive ages of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost was deemed heretical by the Papacy.) Then it starts to work less well when presented with the task of explaining things like the New World etc.

What one then gets with enlightenment historians like Turgot, or Condorcet, or Schlözer, are formulations of a project of a secular world history now encompassing all those parts of the world that the ancient never knew about. And I mean it pretty literally as in Turgot consciously talking about trying to write a "histoire universelle" and Schlözer about "Universalgeschichte". And it's a matter of impact as well, getting others o carry on in the same vein. (Otherwise I'd include Vico as well, but his impact was a bit more delayed iirc.)
I also rate Schlözer higher than for instance Ranke not just because he predated him, but had a conception of how to write world history including ethnography and statistics, while Ranke worked very hard to define history in such a fashion as to be able to exclude most non-Europeans and pretty much base it on official diplomatic records and the doings of statesmen. Schlözer's stuff was continued in German "Göttingen-statistics" and by the German "Kulturgeschichte" movement in the 1840's instead.

So it was that kind of modern project of world history (universal but secular) I was after, and makes for a bit of difference when compared to the older versions, to elaborate a bit.:)

Of course I'm no historian in the vein of political history started by Ranke. That might have something to do with my predelictions here.;)

thank you all for not including Barbara Tuchman.
she writes a great story, and even makes a nice argument, but no historian is she!

i think that the best historians over all are the ones to write the bible.
they cover a large portion of time,
they deal with a limited area,
they are not partial, but none are.
they tell a darn good story, and people still read it and swear by it.

pretty fly for a few white guys, no?

thank you all for not including Barbara Tuchman.
she writes a great story, and even makes a nice argument, but no historian is she!

Can't include someone I've never heard of.

i think that the best historians over all are the ones to write the bible.
they cover a large portion of time,
they deal with a limited area,
they are not partial, but none are.
they tell a darn good story, and people still read it and swear by it.

It's definitely hugely influential & an interesting read, but it's hard to call history in many cases. Some of the events & names are corroborated by archaeology & other sources, but lots of it requires faith which is why it's thought of as a religious work, not a historical one.

pretty fly for a few white guys, no?

They were definitely not "white."

i do not believe in anyone as a great historian, i believe the only great historian in the world is the person who records the time, and has a simple description with no bias. unfortunatley we and all historians are bias just from picking what event to record and what point to support. howard zinn said that people are bias just from the imformation they share. even if we "think" a historians recording is obsurde we still are bias in not listening to his recording, and he's bias for not listening to ours. so i have to say in my book to qualify for greatest you must totally be unbiased, and to me such a thing does not exist.

i do not believe in anyone as a great historian, i believe the only great historian in the world is the person who records the time, and has a simple description with no bias. unfortunatley we and all historians are bias just from picking what event to record and what point to support. howard zinn said that people are bias just from the imformation they share. even if we "think" a historians recording is obsurde we still are bias in not listening to his recording, and he's bias for not listening to ours. so i have to say in my book to qualify for greatest you must totally be unbiased, and to me such a thing does not exist.
that was the longest unBIASED sentence i have ever read :D

I\'m surprised no one has mentioned Gibbon yet. In the very least he is our greatest historian named after an ape.
That last sentence is right at least; Gibbon\'s interpretation of the later Roman Empire - especially the Eastern Romans (i.e. Byzantines) - has fallen out of disfavor with basically everyone save some high school history teachers who are too lazy to spend time on the Light of the World during its darkest times.

He was also very overweight. ;)

i did not say that i wasn't biased, evryone is

anyone mentioned Bede yet?

That last sentence is right at least; Gibbon\'s interpretation of the later Roman Empire - especially the Eastern Romans (i.e. Byzantines) - has fallen out of disfavor with basically everyone save some high school history teachers who are too lazy to spend time on the Light of the World during its darkest times.

Most theories about most things from 250 years ago have fallen out of favor. That doesn't mean he wasn't a great historian.

You get a Christian linear universal history which serves the West quite well, until about the 16th c. Hard to pin it on a single historian though. (Even if I find Gioacchino da Fiore interesting; his 12th c. world history based on the successive ages of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost was deemed heretical by the Papacy.) Then it starts to work less well when presented with the task of explaining things like the New World etc.

I suppose Luke is the person to point the finger at when trying to find the origins of Christian history - by which I mean history told as theology, or possibly theology told as history. Luke distinguishes between the age of the Son (Jesus' time) and the age of the Spirit (the church), and this would be enormously influential. We find it in Eusebius, Tyconius, Augustine, and Orosius of Braga. Augustine and Orosius are really the sources for the view of history you mention in connection with Joachim of Fiore. Joachim's originality was not to distinguish between the ages of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (you also find this in Gregory of Nazianzus), but to say that the age of the Spirit is yet to come. Augustine had argued that we are living in the age of the Spirit right now. I don't believe that Joachim's understanding of history was ever condemned by the papacy; it was condemned at a council in Arles in 1263, but it continued to be highly influential, primarily among the Franciscans (notably Peter John Olivi). His doctrine of the Trinity was examined at the Fourth Lateran Council and found to be orthodox, though Thomas Aquinas considered him highly suspect, which I suppose reduced his later influence, at least among Dominicans.

Note, by the way, that "linear" history was not the only one even among Christians. Origen propounded a cyclical view of history which was quite different.


i think that the best historians over all are the ones to write the bible.
they cover a large portion of time,
they deal with a limited area,
they are not partial, but none are.
they tell a darn good story, and people still read it and swear by it.

pretty fly for a few white guys, no?

I hope you don't think that the biblical authors were all white. Besides, which ones are you talking about? Only some of the books in the Bible are histories, and they vary considerably in quality. Personally I like 2 Maccabees, which is an abridgement of a now-lost longer work. The preface and conclusion are written in a hilariously overwrought rhetorical style.

That last sentence is right at least; Gibbon\'s interpretation of the later Roman Empire - especially the Eastern Romans (i.e. Byzantines) - has fallen out of disfavor with basically everyone save some high school history teachers who are too lazy to spend time on the Light of the World during its darkest times.

Being wrong doesn't, in itself, make someone a bad historian, any more than it makes someone a bad scientist.

my comment "pretty fly for a few white guys" was a joke :D
a reference to that song by offspring?

as a jew and living in Israel and having studied history for quite a while i "know" the early people here were not white.

i also know that they did not write "histories" as we now think of them.
eg - accounts of facts and events.

what MY view is that they, being the victors, wrote the current histories that served them best.
that tome of knowledge has, so far, been the most effective history so far.

mind you, i think most of it is rubbish with regards to facts, but deep down, there IS a history hidden.

it may not be accurate, it may be downright decietful, but that is what many peoples believe to be truth.

history is not always a collection of facts.
there is a place for story telling there too.