Historically, who was the best historian in the history of history?

[Dachs]

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.

 

[Lord Dom]

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

 

[Gangor]

anyone mentioned Bede yet?

 

[shortguy]

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.

 

[Plotinus]

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.

 

[soul_warrior]

my comment "pretty fly for a few white guys" was a joke
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.

 

[Muntzer]

Some historians I hold in high regard is:

Fernand Braudel, dominant Annales-historian and author of master pieces such as "The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II".

Perry Anderson, his works "Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism" and "Lineages of the Absolutist State" from 1974 are splendid!

Eric Hobsbawm is always great, especially on 19th century history.

E.P. Thompson, the third english marxist historian on my list, they tend to be the best historians.

Michael Parenti is not really among the greatest historians ever, but his "The Assassination of Julius Caesar" is a magnificent piece of history.

 

[LightSpectra]

The photograph is the best historian, due to its amount of detail and its severe lack of bias. So I suppose that makes Nicéphore Niépce the best historian by proxy.

 

[attackfighter]

the guy that said the persian army invading greece had 5,000,000 men

you've gotta have balls to say something like that

 

[Dreadnought]

Well, to give a name from my historical period of forte...

William C. Davis

 

[Kahotep]

my comment "pretty fly for a few white guys" was a joke

I was going to say that the Biblical authors were most likely of Southwest Asian rather than European extraction, but then I saw this and decided against it.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Looking back on this question, after it's been necrobumped, it astonishes me that Karl Marx hasn't been mentioned yet. Marx was a MUCH better Historian then he was philosopher or predictor of the future, and he gave Historians of all political leanings a host of new tools that hadn't been used before.

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.

Well obviously, but what historian prior to the 20th century HASN'T had their work roundly debunked?

Also I may put in a word for Mr. Geoffrey of Monmouth, who's historical account is incontrovertible in it's accurate depiction of events on every page of it's text.

 

[Phrossack]

My favorite is ibn Khaldun. Of course, I'm slightly biased towards him because he had an interview with Timur the Lame.

 

[Shekwan]

Herodotus because he started it all, and didn't get bogged down in facts too much. He liked to keep things entertaining at the same time.

 

[LightSpectra]

Herodotus because he started it all, and didn't get bogged down in facts too much. He liked to keep things entertaining at the same time.

I do respect Herodotus very much, but his appeal to "the gods did it" whenever he lacks information is rather annoying. Hence why I prefer Thucydides, who is considered the first scientific historian.

 

[Dreadnought]

Herodotus because he started it all, and didn't get bogged down in facts too much. He liked to keep things entertaining at the same time.

He writes a good story, but historically he tends to blend the mythology with events too much. I do like a good story, but I want to read history, not the will of the gods.

 

[Dachs]

Herodotus because he started it all, and didn't get bogged down in facts too much. He liked to keep things entertaining at the same time.

Don't forget that he introduced stuff like ethnography. Didn't just look at the events like mah boiiiii Thukydides did.

 

[Perfection]

Dan Brown

 

[Verbose]

I do respect Herodotus very much, but his appeal to "the gods did it" whenever he lacks information is rather annoying. Hence why I prefer Thucydides, who is considered the first scientific historian.

Iirc Herodotus sticks to about the same model Aristotle did. I.e. nature has its laws, phusis, men have theirs, nomos, but gods operate according to principles not just unknown to men, but trying to second guess them is actually hubrus, and leads to disaster.

So mostly it ain't the gods doing stuff in particular, but humans doing it, pushing beyond their "natural" constraints and ending up beyond the pale as far as divine affairs are concerned, i.e. acting "hubristic".

Very Greek, in other words.

 

[Hafezudine]

i guess Herodotus was my favorit, yet he didnt manage to see everything, only the ancient world, and it depends, since their are historians covering all civilizations, you cant really pick ONE... but can pick one for each history..