The History

Etymology historical

In terms of European languages, the history of the origin of the term used in Indonesian literature that there are some variations, however, many are recognizing that the term originated-origin history, in Greek historia. Known in English history, French historie storia Italian, German Geschichte, which means that the case, and the Dutch are known gescheiedenis. look at the linguistic meaning of the various languages in the above can be affirmed that the sense of history regarding the time and events. It is therefore a matter of time is important in understanding the events, historians tend to overcome this problem by making periodization.

Historical records

Historians information about the past from a variety of sources, such as written or printed records, currencies or other historical objects, buildings and monuments, as well as from interviews (which is often referred to as "the history of storytelling", or oral history in English). For modern history, the main sources of historical information are: photographs, moving images (eg, movies), audio, and video footage. Not all of these resources can be used for historical research, because it depends on periodeyang want investigated or studied. Historical research also relies on historiography, or historical perspective, which is different from one another.

There are many reasons why people save and preserve historical records, including: administrative reasons (eg, census purposes, tax records, and records of trade), political reasons (to give praise or criticism on the country's leaders, politicians, or important people), religious reasons, the arts, sports achievement (eg Olympic record), note descent (genealogy), personal records (eg correspondence), and entertainment.

But in the writing of history, these resources need to be sorted out. This method is called by critics the source. Source criticism divided into two kinds, namely external and internal. External criticism is criticism that the first time should be done by the historian when he wrote his work, especially if the source is a matter of history. Namely by looking validisasi physical form of the work, ranging from the shape, color and anything that can be seen physically. Moderate internal criticism is criticism that seen from the contents of the source, whether justifiable or not.

Methods of historical study

Leading historical experts who helped develop the historical study methods include: Leopold von Ranke, Lewis Bernstein Namier, Rudolf Geoffrey Elton, G. M. Trevelyan, and A. J. P. Taylor. In the 1960s, historians began to leave the historical narrative that is both epic nationalistic, and chose to use a more realistic chronological narrative.

The historian of the French introduced the method of quantitative history. This method uses a large amount of data and information to trace the lives of people in history. Historians of America, especially those inspired era and the civil rights movement, trying to better engage ethnic groups, ethnic, racial, and social and economic groups in the study of history.

Learning from history

History of science is a topic that is very interesting. Not only that, history also teaches things that are very important, especially regarding: the success and failure of our leaders, economic system ever, other forms of government, and other important things in human life throughout history. Of history, we can learn just about anything that affects the progress and fall of a nation or a civilization. We can also study the background of political activity reason, the influence of social philosophy, and cultural viewpoints and diverse technologies, throughout the ages.

One of the most famous quotes about the importance of our history and learn about the history written by a philosopher from Spain, George Santayana. He said: "Those who do not know his past, are condemned to repeat it." German philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel argues in his thinking about history: "It is taught by history and experience: that people and governments have never learned anything from history or principles derived from it." This sentence is repeated by the statesmen of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill, said: "The only thing we learn from history is that we do not really learn from him."

Another view states that the history is so large that the power may not be changed by human effort. Alternatively, although there may be able to change the course of history, the people in power are usually too bothered by the problem itself so fails to see the overall picture.

There is still another view which states that history is never repeated, because each is a unique event in history. In this case, there are many factors that cause the occurrence of an event history, not all of these factors may emerge and over again. Thus, existing knowledge about an event in the past can not be perfectly applied to events in the present. But many consider that this view is not entirely true, because the lessons of history remain and must be taken of every event in history. If a general conclusion can be drawn from this incident carefully, then this conclusion may be an important lesson. Eg: natural disaster emergency response performance can be improved constantly and although every natural disaster is, by itself, unique.