HISTORY | SCOPE OF HISTORY

 What is history? Explain its scope.

Subject matter of History – The scope of a subject means the number of matter or things covered for a satisfactory knowledge of a chosen subject. Usually for any subject that we study the purpose is clearly defined. Thus, in various disciplines, university or boards of education determine the syllabus. This is a routine program for studying a subject. We cannot limit our alteration to educational practice alone. We must specify topics for discussion and have to allow discussion on matters related to the specified topics also. At higher levels we must consider the spectrum of views on that matter. The scope of the subject under study is not determined arbitrarily. History is a social science and like all social sciences research is being carried out. More and more areas of knowledge are being added. They in turn stimulate further inquiry. It would be instructive to look at history in this perspective.

Subject matter of history as envisaged by historians and philosophers of history is of a complex character. Historians want to reconstruct the past and put it in a form of a story. Philosophers of history want to detect the hidden plan behind the course of History. Now historians and philosophers cannot be segregated, we therefore have to take a comprehensive view of the subject matter of history that is the scope of history.

Main feature of the scope of history

The scope of historical study depends upon the subject matter of inquiry of the past events.

The scope of history is determined by the activities, experiences, and thoughts of men at different times in the past.

The scope depends upon the nature of inquiry of the past such as social, economic, political or other kinds of inquiry. Thus, if we want to know a single aspect of the Quit India Movement of 1942 say economic aspect, its scope is narrower than a general assessment of the movement from different angles.

If we intend to study universal history of the progress of mankind, it is greater in extent than a local or a national history.

Similarly, when we think about world history, the time factor makes it necessary to define what exactly we want to study. If we simply say human activities it would mean a never ending search as human activities from the beginning to our days implies scope beyond our human capacities.

Just as the present has innumerable matters for consideration, the past which for some generations in the past was a living present and as such they dealt with many known and unknown matters. The scope of our study in general matters would be both impossible and end in a cloud. We have therefore to fix our attention on some points.

Limitations of the scope

When we say history is a study of man’s activities in time, the scope of our inquiry is limited by the time factor. If we do not fix the time of what happened in the past it would be a fantasy. The scope of history is limited by our knowledge of chronological details. Man appeared on this planet several million years ago but the recorded history of his activities cannot be pushed back beyond five thousand years. Those records do not give us a clear idea of his activities in civilized societies.

Human activities – History in the real sense of the term began when the Greek Statesman – Warrior Herodotus wrote about Greco Persian War in the fifth century BC. This was the first history of its kind in the world and the beginning of ‘history’ is thus reckoned from that time. the scope of history of the world is thus limited to the history of mans social activities to a few thousand years. The activities of men before the historical period, that is before fifth century BC is enveloped in the mist of ignorance.

 

Geographical factor – When we talk about world history, we actually refer to few places on the earth. As everybody knows more than half the surface of the earth is covered by water. Out of the remaining part a sizable surface is occupied by hills, deserts, mountains and rivers, ice, etc. Thus, the habitable portion of the earth is limited. Further, mans civilizations grew in a few favorable lands. The scope of history is thus limited.

Time factor – The scope of history cannot be rigidly fixed at any time. suppose today we say history covers life of man and his activities in civilized societies, a few years later on centuries after our time, historians would say history is concerned with activities and experiences of men and women only in highly developed societies or they may say it is confined only to the societies which are now developing.

Prevailing conception of history – Just as the scope of history is limited by time, it is limited by the prevailing conception of history at a given time. in communist countries, the conception of history is different from those of democratic countries or countries under despotic rule. Thus, scope of historical inquiry responds to the necessity of knowing the truth about certain people at certain time.

Stages in the Expansion of Historical Vision

Herodotus ‘the father of Secular History’ wrote his account of the Greco-Persian War and provided very useful information of contemporary Greece. His book started writing of history in the Western world. His purpose in writing the narrative was to see that glorious deeds of the heroes of the war were not forgotten by the subsequent generations. The scope of history outlined by him was the heroic deeds of Greek warriors. The subsequent Greek and Roman writers slightly modified the pattern.

Livy, the Roman historian of the first century BC. Wrote the history of rome with a wider view of describing the lives of men who lived in the Roman Empire. The scope of history was thus expanded.

The noteworthy feature of Greco-Roman histories was the humanistic approach that the writers adopted. This was abandoned in the early medieval period under the influence of Christian theology.

The scope of history during the Middle Ages was undefined as the writers believed that man’s activities were directed by Divine Providence. The Christian doctrines however promoted periodization of history and also a universal approach. Renaissance of the fifteenth century once again brought man at the center of the world. The period of the Enlightenment limited the scope of history only to the recent past which they regarded as a period of rational activity. The Romanticists expanded their vision and began the study of the past ages.

The scope of history from the eighteenth century under the inspiration from Rousseau’s ‘Social Contract’ made great strides int eh production of historical literature. The researchers of the nineteenth century and the ambitious projects of the Annales and Subaltern historians have included many matters coved by other social sciences and total history of men. H. G. Wells ‘Outline of World History’ (1920) started the movement and Will Durant wrote about world civilizations.

Scope of Historical Methods and Limitations

The main task of a historian is to show what man is, as is revealed through the evidence of his activities and experiences in the past. He depends upon the surviving evidence of the past as it was. The first problem that determines the scope of this inquiry is the relics and traces of the past in some form or the other. Man’s written records of his activities and experiences are of recent origin but the unwritten records of the past represented by artifacts and folklore are incalculable. Our only sources of information are written records and archaeological remains. The methods of history thus have to be adjusted according to the availability of these sources which would lead to an adequate knowledge of the events.

The scope of historical knowledge is expanded by new forms of evidence or by new ways of utilizing the old sources. The main sources of information of the past ages were limited to texts and chronicles. The decoding of the Harappan script or such other hitherto unknown picture symbols of ancient records may throw much light on the unknown history of the most ancient civilization of Africa, Asia and South America.

A new way of looking at old literature in oral or written forms also expands our vision of history. Hindu Mythology was looked upon by educated as childish fantasies. They were examined by Pargiter and Winternitz and they showed that a true picture of real social life of the ancient Indian people could be reconstructed from the indirect and unintentional narratives of those myths.

Limitation on the method are many. Historical knowledge is an indirect and inferential knowledge from the fragments of surviving evidence. The famous libraries of Nalanda University and the Chinese libraries in Beijing and other places were destroyed by vandals. Some of the secret documents were either seized by the conquerors or disappeared mysteriously. There are political and other considerations which suppress the truth which cannot be discovered at least at present. However, new techniques to squeeze truth out of the available sources or new discoveries will expand the vision of history.

New Science and New History

The eighteenth century station philosopher, G. B. Vico, was the first thinker of his time who widened the scope of history and claimed validity for historical knowledge. He dismissed Rene Descartes view that historical knowledge was not possible. The past is dead and gone, how could one reconstruct it as it actually was? Vicos reasoning was that ‘Man can know what man has done’ and on this basis has knowledge of the past and would be valid if he possesses the facts of the past. From his principle of ‘Venum Factom’ (knowledge of thing made by the maker) he maintained that, the systems of language, customs, laws, government and other institutions that is though of history represent the genesis and development of human societies and their institutions. He showed how the science of language i.e., philosophy, could help not only to reconstruct the history of the past but also provide means of verification of the facts narrated orally or in writing. He wanted to instill a strict discipline in collection and interpretation of documents and make history an autonomous science a ‘New Science’.

Vico expanded the vision of history and ensured the validity of the narrative by an intelligent and imaginative use of language, customs, laws, and institutions of the time under study. The twentieth century thinkers Marc Bloch and Fernand Braudel put forward the concept of ‘New History’. This expanded the scope in every respect. They painted out that there exists at all times, elements which are not ‘conscious’ or visible in the social development and this is known as unconscious history. Historians have to look beyond the events that are ‘conscious’ or appear on the surface. A mass of unknown and formless elements like climate of opinion influence the thoughts and activities of man. These elements have to be understood. The historical situation is full of such unconscious or unseen elements and they spring on the surface or on the conscious suddenly. For e.g., the unrest among workers or peasants breaks out unexpectedly at times. The scope of new history is to know the total history of man. In the twentieth century another view of history that is the subaltern view adds one more dimension. It is the study of masses of people who are of little or no consequence in business, political and intellectual fields.