title: Human taxonomy

text: The genus "Homo" has been taken to originate some two million years ago, since the discovery of stone tools in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, in the 1960s. "Homo habilis" (Leakey "et al.", 1964) would be the first "human" species (member of genus "Homo") by definition, its type specimen being the OH 7 fossils. However, the discovery of more fossils of this type has opened up the debate on the delineation of "H. habilis" from "Australopithecus". Especially, the LD 350-1 jawbone fossil discovered in 2013, dated to 2.8 Mya, has been argued as being transitional between the two. It is also disputed whether "H. habilis" was the first hominin to use stone tools, as "Australopithecus garhi", dated to c. 2.5 Mya, has been found along with stone tool implements. Fossil KNM-ER 1470 (discovered in 1972, designated "Pithecanthropus rudolfensis" by Alekseyev 1978) is now seen as either a third early species of "Homo" (alongside "H. habilis" and "H. erectus") at about 2 million years ago, or alternatively as transitional between "Australopithecus" and "Homo".


title: Human taxonomy

text: Wood and Richmond (2000) proposed that Gray's tribe Hominini ("hominins") be designated as comprising all species after the chimpanzee-human last common ancestor by definition, to the inclusion of Australopithecines and other possible pre-human or para-human species (such as "Ardipithecus" and "Sahelanthropus") not known in Gray's time. In this suggestion, the new subtribe of Hominina was to be designated as including the genus "Homo" exclusively, so that Hominini would have two subtribes, Australopithecina and Hominina, with the only known genus in Hominina being "Homo". "Orrorin" (2001) has been proposed as a possible ancestor of Hominina but not Australopithecina.


title: Human taxonomy

text: Designations alternative to Hominina have been proposed: Australopithecinae (Gregory & Hellman 1939) and Preanthropinae (Cela-Conde & Altaba 2002);


title: Human taxonomy

text: At least a dozen species of "Homo" other than "Homo sapiens" have been proposed, with varying degrees of consensus. "Homo erectus" is widely recognized as the species directly ancestral to "Homo sapiens". Most other proposed species are proposed as alternatively belonging to either "Homo erectus" or "Homo sapiens" as a subspecies. This concerns "Homo ergaster" in particular. One proposal divides "Homo erectus" into an African and an Asian variety; the African is "Homo ergaster," and the Asian is "Homo erectus sensu stricto." (Inclusion of "Homo ergaster" with Asian "Homo erectus" is "Homo erectus sensu lato.") There appears to be a recent trend, with the availability of ever more difficult-to-classify fossils such as the Dmanisi skulls (2013) or "Homo naledi" fossils (2015) to subsume all archaic varieties under "Homo erectus".


title: Human taxonomy

text: The recognition or nonrecognition of subspecies of "Homo sapiens" has a complicated history. The rank of subspecies in zoology is introduced for convenience, and not by objective criteria, based on pragmatic consideration of factors such as geographic isolation and sexual selection. The informal taxonomic rank of race is variously considered equivalent or subordinate to the rank of subspecies, and the division of anatomically modern humans ("H. sapiens") into subspecies is closely tied to the recognition of major racial groupings based on human genetic variation.


title: Human taxonomy

text: A subspecies cannot be recognized independently: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or at least two (including any that are extinct). Therefore, the designation of an extant subspecies "Homo sapiens sapiens" only makes sense if at least one other subspecies is recognized. "H. s. sapiens" is attributed to "Linnaeus (1758)" by the taxonomic Principle of Coordination. During the 19th to mid-20th century, it was common practice to classify the major divisions of extant "H. sapiens" as subspecies, following Linnaeus (1758), who had recognized "H. s. americanus", "H. s. europaeus", "H. s. asiaticus" and "H. s. afer" as grouping the native populations of the Americas, West Eurasia, East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, respectively. Linnaeus also included "H. s. ferus", for the "wild" form which he identified with feral children, and two other "wild" forms for reported specimens now considered very dubious (see cryptozoology), "H. s. monstrosus" and "H. s. troglodytes".


title: Human taxonomy

text: There were variations and additions to the categories of Linnaeus, such as "H. s. tasmanianus" for the native population of Australia. Bory de St. Vincent in his "Essai sur l'Homme" (1825) extended Linné's "racial" categories to as many as fifteen: "Leiotrichi" ("smooth-haired"): "japeticus" (with subraces), "arabicus", "iranicus", "indicus", "sinicus", "hyperboreus", "neptunianus", "australasicus", "columbicus", "americanus", "patagonicus"; "Oulotrichi" ("crisp-haired"): "aethiopicus", "cafer", "hottentotus", "melaninus". Similarly, Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1899) also had categories based on race, such as "priscus", "spelaeus" (etc.).


title: Human taxonomy

text: "Homo sapiens neanderthalensis" was proposed by King (1864) as an alternative to "Homo neanderthalensis". There have been "taxonomic wars" over whether Neanderthals were a separate species since their discovery in the 1860s. Pääbo (2014) frames this as a debate that is unresolvable in principle, "since there is no definition of species perfectly describing the case." Louis Lartet (1869) proposed "Homo sapiens fossilis" based on the Cro-Magnon fossils.


title: Human taxonomy

text: There are a number of proposals of extinct varieties of "Homo sapiens" made in the 20th century. Many of the original proposals were not using explicit trinomial nomenclature, even though they are still cited as valid synonyms of "H. sapiens" by Wilson & Reeder (2005). These include: "Homo grimaldii" (Lapouge, 1906),


title: Human taxonomy

text: By the 1980s, the practice of dividing extant populations of "Homo sapiens" into subspecies declined. An early authority explicitly avoiding the division of "H. sapiens" into subspecies was "Grzimeks Tierleben", published 1967–1972.


title: Human taxonomy

text: A late example of an academic authority proposing that the human racial groups should be considered taxonomical subspecies is John Baker (1974). The trinomial nomenclature "Homo sapiens sapiens" became popular for "modern humans" in the context of Neanderthals being considered a subspecies of "H. sapiens" in the second half of the 20th century. Derived from the convention, widespread in the 1980s, of considering two subspecies, "H. s. neanderthalensis" and "H. s. sapiens", the explicit claim that ""H. s. sapiens" is the only extant human subspecies" appears in the early 1990s.


title: Human taxonomy

text: Since the 2000s, the extinct "Homo sapiens idaltu" (White "et al.", 2003) has gained wide recognition as a subspecies of "Homo sapiens", but even in this case there is a dissenting view arguing that "the skulls may not be distinctive enough to warrant a new subspecies name". "H. s. neanderthalensis" and "H. s. rhodesiensis" continue to be considered separate species by some authorities, but the 2010s discovery of genetic evidence of archaic human admixture with modern humans has reopened the details of taxonomy of archaic humans.


title: Human taxonomy

text: "Homo erectus" since its introduction in 1892 has been divided into numerous subspecies, many of them formerly considered individual species of "Homo". None of these subspecies have universal consensus among paleontologists.


title: Historiography

text: Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians have studied that topic using particular sources, techniques, and theoretical approaches. Scholars discuss historiography by topic—such as the historiography of the United Kingdom, that of WWII, the British Empire, early Islam, and China—and different approaches and genres, such as political history and social history. Beginning in the nineteenth century, with the development of academic history, there developed a body of historiographic literature. The extent to which historians are influenced by their own groups and loyalties—such as to their nation state—remains a debated question.


title: Historiography

text: In the ancient world, chronological annals were produced in civilizations such as ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. However, the discipline of historiography was first established in the 5th century BC with the "Histories" of Herodotus, the founder of historiography. The Roman statesman Cato the Elder produced the first history in Latin, the "Origines", in the 2nd century BC. His near contemporaries Sima Tan and Sima Qian in the Han Empire of China established Chinese historiography with the compiling of the "Shiji" ("Records of the Grand Historian"). During the Middle Ages, medieval historiography included the works of chronicles in medieval Europe, Islamic histories by Muslim historians, and the Korean and Japanese historical writings based on the existing Chinese model. During the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment, historiography in the Western world was shaped and developed by figures such as Voltaire, David Hume, and Edward Gibbon, who among others set the foundations for the modern discipline.


title: Historiography

text: The research interests of historians change over time, and there has been a shift away from traditional diplomatic, economic, and political history toward newer approaches, especially social and cultural studies. From 1975 to 1995 the proportion of professors of history in American universities identifying with social history increased from 31 to 41 percent, while the proportion of political historians decreased from 40 to 30 percent. In 2007, of 5,723 faculty in the departments of history at British universities, 1,644 (29 percent) identified themselves with social history and 1,425 (25 percent) identified themselves with political history. Since the 1980s there has been a special interest in the memories and commemoration of past events—the histories as remembered and presented for popular celebration.


title: Historiography

text: In the early modern period, the term "historiography" meant "the writing of history", and "historiographer" meant "historian". In that sense certain official historians were given the title "Historiographer Royal" in Sweden (from 1618), England (from 1660), and Scotland (from 1681). The Scottish post is still in existence.


title: Historiography

text: Historiography was more recently defined as "the study of the way history has been and is written – the history of historical writing", which means that, "When you study 'historiography' you do not study the events of the past directly, but the changing interpretations of those events in the works of individual historians."


title: Historiography

text: Understanding the past appears to be a universal human need, and the "telling of history" has emerged independently in civilizations around the world.


title: Historiography

text: The earliest chronologies date back to Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, in the form of chronicles and annals. However, no historical writers in these early civilizations were known by name. By contrast, the term "historiography" is taken to refer to written history recorded in a narrative format for the purpose of informing future generations about events. In this limited sense, "ancient history" begins with the early historiography of Classical Antiquity, in about the 5th century BC.


title: Historiography

text: The earliest known systematic historical thought emerged in ancient Greece, a development which would be an important influence on the writing of history elsewhere around the Mediterranean region. Greek historians greatly contributed to the development of historical methodology. The earliest known critical historical works were "The Histories", composed by Herodotus of Halicarnassus (484–425 BC) who became known as the "father of history". Herodotus attempted to distinguish between more and less reliable accounts, and personally conducted research by travelling extensively, giving written accounts of various Mediterranean cultures. Although Herodotus' overall emphasis lay on the actions and characters of men, he also attributed an important role to divinity in the determination of historical events.


title: Historiography

text: The generation following Herodotus witnessed a spate of local histories of the individual city-states ("poleis"), written by the first of the local historians who employed the written archives of city and sanctuary. Dionysius of Halicarnassus characterized these historians as the forerunners of Thucydides, and these local histories continued to be written into Late Antiquity, as long as the city-states survived. Two early figures stand out: Hippias of Elis, who produced the lists of winners in the Olympic Games that provided the basic chronological framework as long as the pagan classical tradition lasted, and Hellanicus of Lesbos, who compiled more than two dozen histories from civic records, all of them now lost.


title: Historiography

text: Thucydides largely eliminated divine causality in his account of the war between Athens and Sparta, establishing a rationalistic element which set a precedent for subsequent Western historical writings. He was also the first to distinguish between cause and immediate origins of an event, while his successor Xenophon ( – 355 BC) introduced autobiographical elements and character studies in his "Anabasis".


title: Historiography

text: The proverbial Philippic attacks of the Athenian orator Demosthenes (384–322 BC) on Philip II of Macedon marked the height of ancient political agitation. The now lost history of Alexander's campaigns by the diadoch Ptolemy I (367–283 BC) may represent the first historical work composed by a ruler. Polybius ( – 120 BC) wrote on the rise of Rome to world prominence, and attempted to harmonize the Greek and Roman points of view.


title: Historiography

text: The Chaldean priest Berossus ( BC) composed a Greek-language "History of Babylonia" for the Seleucid king Antiochus I, combining Hellenistic methods of historiography and Mesopotamian accounts to form a unique composite. Reports exist of other near-eastern histories, such as that of the Phoenician historian Sanchuniathon; but he is considered semi-legendary and writings attributed to him are fragmentary, known only through the later historians Philo of Byblos and Eusebius, who asserted that he wrote before even the Trojan war.


title: Historiography

text: The Romans adopted the Greek tradition, writing at first in Greek, but eventually chronicling their history in a freshly non-Greek language. While early Roman works were still written in Greek, the "Origines", composed by the Roman statesman Cato the Elder (234–149 BC), was written in Latin, in a conscious effort to counteract Greek cultural influence. It marked the beginning of Latin historical writings. Hailed for its lucid style, Julius Caesar's (103–44 BC) "de Bello Gallico" exemplifies autobiographical war coverage. The politician and orator Cicero (106–43 BCE) introduced rhetorical elements in his political writings.


title: Historiography

text: Strabo (63 BC –  AD) was an important exponent of the Greco-Roman tradition of combining geography with history, presenting a descriptive history of peoples and places known to his era. Livy (59 BC – 17 AD) records the rise of Rome from city-state to empire. His speculation about what would have happened if Alexander the Great had marched against Rome represents the first known instance of alternate history.


title: Historiography

text: Biography, although popular throughout antiquity, was introduced as a branch of history by the works of Plutarch ( – 125 CE) and Suetonius ( – after 130 CE) who described the deeds and characters of ancient personalities, stressing their human side. Tacitus ( CE) denounces Roman immorality by praising German virtues, elaborating on the topos of the Noble savage.


title: Historiography

text: The Han dynasty eunuch Sima Qian (around 100 BCE) was the first in China to lay the groundwork for professional historical writing. His work superseded the older style of the "Spring and Autumn Annals", compiled in the 5th century BC, the "Bamboo Annals" and other court and dynastic annals that recorded history in a chronological form that abstained from analysis. Sima's "Shiji" ("Records of the Grand Historian") pioneered the "Annals-biography" format, which would become the standard for prestige history writing in China. In this genre a history opens with a chronological outline of court affairs, and then continues with detailed biographies of prominent people who lived during the period in question. The scope of his work extended as far back as the 16th century BC, and included many treatises on specific subjects and individual biographies of prominent people. He also explored the lives and deeds of commoners, both contemporary and those of previous eras.


title: Historiography

text: Whereas Sima's had been a universal history from the beginning of time down to the time of writing, his successor Ban Gu wrote an annals-biography history limiting its coverage to only the Western Han dynasty, the Book of Han (96 AD). This established the notion of using dynastic boundaries as start- and end-points, and most later Chinese histories would focus on a single dynasty or group of dynasties.


title: Historiography

text: The Records of the Grand Historian and Book of Han were eventually joined by the Book of the Later Han (488 CE) (replacing the earlier, and now only partially extant, Han Records from the Eastern Pavilion) and the Records of the Three Kingdoms (297 CE) to form the "Four Histories". These became mandatory reading for the Imperial Examinations and have therefore exerted an influence on Chinese culture comparable to the Confucian Classics. More annals-biography histories were written in subsequent dynasties, eventually bringing the number to between twenty-four and twenty-six, but none ever reached the popularity and impact of the first four.


title: Historiography

text: Traditional Chinese historiography describes history in terms of dynastic cycles. In this view, each new dynasty is founded by a morally righteous founder. Over time, the dynasty becomes morally corrupt and dissolute. Eventually, the dynasty becomes so weak as to allow its replacement by a new dynasty.


title: Historiography

text: In 281 AD the tomb of King Xiang of Wei (d. 296 BC) was opened, inside of which was found a historical text called the Bamboo Annals, after the writing material. It is similar in style to the Spring and Autumn Annals and covers the time from the Yellow Emperor to 299 BC. Opinions on the authenticity of the text has varied throughout the centuries, and in any event it was re-discovered too late to gain anything like the same status as the Spring and Autumn.


title: Historiography

text: Christian historical writing arguably begins with the narrative sections of the New Testament, particularly Luke-Acts, which is the primary source for the Apostolic Age, though its historical reliability is disputed. The first tentative beginnings of a specifically Christian historiography can be seen in Clement of Alexandria in the second century.


title: Historiography

text: The growth of Christianity and its enhanced status in the Roman Empire after Constantine I (see State church of the Roman Empire) led to the development of a distinct Christian historiography, influenced by both Christian theology and the nature of the Christian Bible, encompassing new areas of study and views of history. The central role of the Bible in Christianity is reflected in the preference of Christian historians for written sources, compared to the classical historians' preference for oral sources and is also reflected in the inclusion of politically unimportant people. Christian historians also focused on development of religion and society. This can be seen in the extensive inclusion of written sources in the "Ecclesiastical History" of Eusebius of Caesarea around 324 and in the subjects it covers. Christian theology considered time as linear, progressing according to divine plan. As God's plan encompassed everyone, Christian histories in this period had a universal approach. For example, Christian writers often included summaries of important historical events prior to the period covered by the work.


title: Historiography

text: Writing history was popular among Christian monks and clergy in the Middle Ages. They wrote about the history of Jesus Christ, that of the Church and that of their patrons, the dynastic history of the local rulers. In the Early Middle Ages historical writing often took the form of annals or chronicles recording events year by year, but this style tended to hamper the analysis of events and causes. An example of this type of writing is the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", which was the work of several different writers: it was started during the reign of Alfred the Great in the late 9th century, but one copy was still being updated in 1154. Some writers in the period did construct a more narrative form of history. These included Gregory of Tours and more successfully Bede, who wrote both secular and ecclesiastical history and who is known for writing the "Ecclesiastical History of the English People".


title: Historiography

text: During the Renaissance, history was written about states or nations. The study of history changed during the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Voltaire described the history of certain ages that he considered important, rather than describing events in chronological order. History became an independent discipline. It was not called "philosophia historiae" anymore, but merely history ("historia").


title: Historiography

text: Muslim historical writings first began to develop in the 7th century, with the reconstruction of the Prophet Muhammad's life in the centuries following his death. With numerous conflicting narratives regarding Muhammad and his companions from various sources, it was necessary to verify which sources were more reliable. In order to evaluate these sources, various methodologies were developed, such as the "science of biography", "science of hadith" and "Isnad" (chain of transmission). These methodologies were later applied to other historical figures in the Islamic civilization. Famous historians in this tradition include Urwah (d. 712), Wahb ibn Munabbih (d. 728), Ibn Ishaq (d. 761), al-Waqidi (745–822), Ibn Hisham (d. 834), Muhammad al-Bukhari (810–870) and Ibn Hajar (1372–1449). Historians of the medieval Islamic world also developed an interest in world history. Islamic historical writing eventually culminated in the works of the Arab Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), who published his historiographical studies in the "Muqaddimah" (translated as "Prolegomena") and "Kitab al-I'bar" ("Book of Advice"). His work was forgotten until it was rediscovered in the late 19th century.


title: Historiography

text: The earliest works of history produced in Japan were the "Rikkokushi" (Six National Histories), a corpus of six national histories covering the history of Japan from its mythological beginnings until the 9th century. The first of these works were the "Nihon Shoki", compiled by Prince Toneri in 720.


title: Historiography

text: The tradition of Korean historiography was established with the "Samguk Sagi", a history of Korea from its allegedly earliest times. It was compiled by Goryeo court historian Kim Busik after its commission by King Injong of Goryeo (r. 1122–1146). It was completed in 1145 and relied not only on earlier Chinese histories for source material, but also on the "Hwarang Segi" written by the Silla historian Kim Daemun in the 8th century. The latter work is now lost.


title: Historiography

text: In 1084 the Song dynasty official Sima Guang completed the "Zizhi Tongjian" (Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government), which laid out the entire history of China from the beginning of the Warring States period (403 BCE) to the end of the Five Dynasties period (959 CE) in chronological annals form, rather than in the traditional annals-biography form. This work is considered much more accessible than the "Official Histories" for the Six dynasties, Tang dynasty, and Five Dynasties, and in practice superseded those works in the mind of the general reader.


title: Historiography

text: The great Song Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi found the Mirror to be overly long for the average reader, as well as too morally nihilist, and therefore prepared a didactic summary of it called the "Zizhi Tongjian Gangmu" (Digest of the Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government), posthumously published in 1219. It reduced the original's 249 chapters to just 59, and for the rest of imperial Chinese history would be the first history book most people ever read.


title: Historiography

text: Historiography of the Philippines refers to the studies, sources, critical methods and interpretations used by scholars to study the history of the Philippines. It includes historical and archival research and writing on the history of the Philippine archipelago including the islands of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The Philippine archipelago was part of many empires before the Spanish Empire arrived in the 16th century.


title: Historiography

text: Before the arrival of Spanish colonial powers, the Philippines did not actually exist. Southeast Asia is classified as part of the Indosphere and the Sinosphere. The archipelago had direct contact with China during the Song dynasty (960-1279), and was a part of the Srivijaya and Majapahit empires.


title: Historiography

text: The pre-colonial Philippines widely used the Abugida system in writing and seals on documents, though it was for communication and no recorded writings of early literature or history. Ancient Filipinos usually wrote documents on bamboo, bark, and leaves, which did not survive, unlike inscriptions on clay, metal, and ivory did, such as the Laguna Copperplate Inscription and Butuan Ivory Seal. The discovery of the Butuan Ivory Seal also proves the use of paper documents in ancient Philippines.


title: Historiography

text: The arrival of the Spanish colonizers, pre-colonial Filipino manuscripts and documents were gathered and burned to eliminate pagan beliefs. This has been the burden of historians in the accumulation of data and the development of theories that gave historians many aspects of Philippine history that were left unexplained. The interplay of pre-colonial events and the use of secondary sources written by historians to evaluate the primary sources, do not provide a critical examination of the methodology of the early Philippine historical study.


title: Historiography

text: During the Age of Enlightenment, the modern development of historiography through the application of scrupulous methods began. Among the many Italians who contributed to this were Leonardo Bruni (c. 1370–1444), Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540), and Cesare Baronio (1538–1607).


title: Historiography

text: French "philosophe" Voltaire (1694–1778) had an enormous influence on the development of historiography during the Age of Enlightenment through his demonstration of fresh new ways to look at the past. Guillaume de Syon argues:


title: Historiography

text: Voltaire's best-known histories are "The Age of Louis XIV" (1751), and his "Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations" (1756). He broke from the tradition of narrating diplomatic and military events, and emphasized customs, social history and achievements in the arts and sciences. He was the first scholar to make a serious attempt to write the history of the world, eliminating theological frameworks, and emphasizing economics, culture and political history. Although he repeatedly warned against political bias on the part of the historian, he did not miss many opportunities to expose the intolerance and frauds of the church over the ages. Voltaire advised scholars that anything contradicting the normal course of nature was not to be believed. Although he found evil in the historical record, he fervently believed reason and educating the illiterate masses would lead to progress.


title: Historiography

text: Voltaire explains his view of historiography in his article on "History" in Diderot's "Encyclopédie": "One demands of modern historians more details, better ascertained facts, precise dates, more attention to customs, laws, mores, commerce, finance, agriculture, population." Already in 1739 he had written: "My chief object is not political or military history, it is the history of the arts, of commerce, of civilization – in a word, – of the human mind." Voltaire's histories used the values of the Enlightenment to evaluate the past. He helped free historiography from antiquarianism, Eurocentrism, religious intolerance and a concentration on great men, diplomacy, and warfare. Peter Gay says Voltaire wrote "very good history", citing his "scrupulous concern for truths", "careful sifting of evidence", "intelligent selection of what is important", "keen sense of drama", and "grasp of the fact that a whole civilization is a unit of study".


title: Historiography

text: At the same time, philosopher David Hume was having a similar effect on the study of history in Great Britain. In 1754 he published "The History of England", a 6-volume work which extended "From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688". Hume adopted a similar scope to Voltaire in his history; as well as the history of Kings, Parliaments, and armies, he examined the history of culture, including literature and science, as well. His short biographies of leading scientists explored the process of scientific change and he developed new ways of seeing scientists in the context of their times by looking at how they interacted with society and each other – he paid special attention to Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton and William Harvey.


title: Historiography

text: He also argued that the quest for liberty was the highest standard for judging the past, and concluded that after considerable fluctuation, England at the time of his writing had achieved "the most entire system of liberty, that was ever known amongst mankind".


title: Historiography

text: The apex of Enlightenment history was reached with Edward Gibbon's monumental six-volume work, "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", published on 17 February 1776. Because of its relative objectivity and heavy use of primary sources, its methodology became a model for later historians. This has led to Gibbon being called the first "modern historian". The book sold impressively, earning its author a total of about £9000. Biographer Leslie Stephen wrote that thereafter, "His fame was as rapid as it has been lasting."


title: Historiography

text: Gibbon's work has been praised for its style, its piquant epigrams and its effective irony. Winston Churchill memorably noted, "I set out upon ... Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" [and] was immediately dominated both by the story and the style. ... I devoured Gibbon. I rode triumphantly through it from end to end and enjoyed it all." Gibbon was pivotal in the secularizing and 'desanctifying' of history, remarking, for example, on the "want of truth and common sense" of biographies composed by Saint Jerome. Unusually for an 18th-century historian, Gibbon was never content with secondhand accounts when the primary sources were accessible (though most of these were drawn from well-known printed editions). He said, "I have always endeavoured to draw from the fountain-head; that my curiosity, as well as a sense of duty, has always urged me to study the originals; and that, if they have sometimes eluded my search, I have carefully marked the secondary evidence, on whose faith a passage or a fact were reduced to depend." In this insistence upon the importance of primary sources, Gibbon broke new ground in the methodical study of history:


title: Historiography

text: In accuracy, thoroughness, lucidity, and comprehensive grasp of a vast subject, the 'History' is unsurpassable. It is the one English history which may be regarded as definitive. ... Whatever its shortcomings the book is artistically imposing as well as historically unimpeachable as a vast panorama of a great period.


title: Historiography

text: The tumultuous events surrounding the French Revolution inspired much of the historiography and analysis of the early 19th century. Interest in the 1688 Glorious Revolution was also rekindled by the Great Reform Act of 1832 in England. Nineteenth century historiography, especially among American historians, featured conflicting viewpoints that represented the times. According to 20th-century historian Richard Hofstadter:


title: Historiography

text: Thomas Carlyle published his three-volume "", in 1837. The first volume was accidentally burned by John Stuart Mill's maid. Carlyle rewrote it from scratch. Carlyle's style of historical writing stressed the immediacy of action, often using the present tense. He emphasised the role of forces of the spirit in history and thought that chaotic events demanded what he called 'heroes' to take control over the competing forces erupting within society. He considered the dynamic forces of history as being the hopes and aspirations of people that took the form of ideas, and were often ossified into ideologies. Carlyle's "The French Revolution" was written in a highly unorthodox style, far removed from the neutral and detached tone of the tradition of Gibbon. Carlyle presented the history as dramatic events unfolding in the present as though he and the reader were participants on the streets of Paris at the famous events. Carlyle's invented style was epic poetry combined with philosophical treatise. It is rarely read or cited in the last century.


title: Historiography

text: In his main work "Histoire de France" (1855), French historian Jules Michelet (1798–1874) coined the term Renaissance (meaning "rebirth" in French), as a period in Europe's cultural history that represented a break from the Middle Ages, creating a modern understanding of humanity and its place in the world. The 19-volume work covered French history from Charlemagne to the outbreak of the French Revolution. His inquiry into manuscript and printed authorities was most laborious, but his lively imagination, and his strong religious and political prejudices, made him regard all things from a singularly personal point of view.


title: Historiography

text: Michelet was one of the first historians to shift the emphasis of history to the common people, rather than the leaders and institutions of the country. He had a decisive impact on scholars. Gayana Jurkevich argues that led by Michelet:


title: Historiography

text: Hippolyte Taine (1828–1893), although unable to secure an academic position, was the chief theoretical influence of French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism, and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism. He pioneered the idea of "the milieu" as an active historical force which amalgamated geographical, psychological, and social factors. Historical writing for him was a search for general laws. His brilliant style kept his writing in circulation long after his theoretical approaches were passé.


title: Historiography

text: One of the major progenitors of the history of culture and art, was the Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt. Siegfried Giedion described Burckhardt's achievement in the following terms: "The great discoverer of the age of the Renaissance, he first showed how a period should be treated in its entirety, with regard not only for its painting, sculpture and architecture, but for the social institutions of its daily life as well."


title: Historiography

text: His most famous work was "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy", published in 1860; it was the most influential interpretation of the Italian Renaissance in the nineteenth century and is still widely read. According to John Lukacs, he was the first master of cultural history, which seeks to describe the spirit and the forms of expression of a particular age, a particular people, or a particular place. His innovative approach to historical research stressed the importance of art and its inestimable value as a primary source for the study of history. He was one of the first historians to rise above the narrow nineteenth-century notion that "history is past politics and politics current history.


title: Historiography

text: By the mid-19th century, scholars were beginning to analyse the history of institutional change, particularly the development of constitutional government. William Stubbs's "Constitutional History of England" (3 vols., 1874–1878) was an important influence on this developing field. The work traced the development of the English constitution from the Teutonic invasions of Britain until 1485, and marked a distinct step in the advance of English historical learning. He argued that the theory of the unity and continuity of history should not remove distinctions between ancient and modern history. He believed that, though work on ancient history is a useful preparation for the study of modern history, either may advantageously be studied apart. He was a good palaeographer, and excelled in textual criticism, in examination of authorship, and other such matters, while his vast erudition and retentive memory made him second to none in interpretation and exposition.


title: Historiography

text: The modern academic study of history and methods of historiography were pioneered in 19th-century German universities, especially the University of Göttingen. Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886) at Berlin was a pivotal influence in this regard, and was the founder of modern source-based history. According to Caroline Hoefferle, "Ranke was probably the most important historian to shape historical profession as it emerged in Europe and the United States in the late 19th century."


title: Historiography

text: Specifically, he implemented the seminar teaching method in his classroom, and focused on archival research and analysis of historical documents. Beginning with his first book in 1824, the "History of the Latin and Teutonic Peoples from 1494 to 1514", Ranke used an unusually wide variety of sources for a historian of the age, including "memoirs, diaries, personal and formal missives, government documents, diplomatic dispatches and first-hand accounts of eye-witnesses". Over a career that spanned much of the century, Ranke set the standards for much of later historical writing, introducing such ideas as reliance on primary sources, an emphasis on narrative history and especially international politics (). Sources had to be solid, not speculations and rationalizations. His credo was to write history the way it was. He insisted on primary sources with proven authenticity.


title: Historiography

text: Ranke also rejected the 'teleological approach' to history, which traditionally viewed each period as inferior to the period which follows. In Ranke's view, the historian had to understand a period on its own terms, and seek to find only the general ideas which animated every period of history. In 1831 and at the behest of the Prussian government, Ranke founded and edited the first historical journal in the world, called .


title: Historiography

text: Another important German thinker was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, whose theory of historical progress ran counter to Ranke's approach. In Hegel's own words, his philosophical theory of "World history ... represents the development of the spirit's consciousness of its own freedom and of the consequent realization of this freedom." This realization is seen by studying the various cultures that have developed over the millennia, and trying to understand the way that freedom has worked itself out through them:


title: Historiography

text: World history is the record of the spirit's efforts to attain knowledge of what it is in itself. The Orientals do not know that the spirit or man as such are free in themselves. And because they do not know that, they are not themselves free. They only know that One is free. ... The consciousness of freedom first awoke among the Greeks, and they were accordingly free; but, like the Romans, they only knew that Some, and not all men as such, are free. ... The Germanic nations, with the rise of Christianity, were the first to realize that All men are by nature free, and that freedom of spirit is his very essence.


title: Historiography

text: Karl Marx introduced the concept of historical materialism into the study of world historical development. In his conception, the economic conditions and dominant modes of production determined the structure of society at that point. In his view five successive stages in the development of material conditions would occur in Western Europe. The first stage was primitive communism where property was shared and there was no concept of "leadership". This progressed to a slave society where the idea of class emerged and the State developed. Feudalism was characterized by an aristocracy working in partnership with a theocracy and the emergence of the nation-state. Capitalism appeared after the bourgeois revolution when the capitalists (or their merchant predecessors) overthrew the feudal system and established a market economy, with


title: Historiography

text: private property and parliamentary democracy. Marx then predicted the eventual proletarian revolution that would result in the attainment of socialism, followed by communism, where property would be communally owned.


title: Historiography

text: Previous historians had focused on cyclical events of the rise and decline of rulers and nations. Process of nationalization of history, as part of national revivals in the 19th century, resulted with separation of "one's own" history from common universal history by such way of perceiving, understanding and treating the past that constructed history as history of a nation. A new discipline, sociology, emerged in the late 19th century and analyzed and compared these perspectives on a larger scale.


title: Historiography

text: The term "Whig history", coined by Herbert Butterfield in his short book "The Whig Interpretation of History" in 1931, means the approach to historiography which presents the past as an inevitable progression towards ever greater liberty and enlightenment, culminating in modern forms of liberal democracy and constitutional monarchy. In general, Whig historians emphasized the rise of constitutional government, personal freedoms and scientific progress. The term has been also applied widely in historical disciplines outside of British history (the history of science, for example) to criticize any teleological (or goal-directed), hero-based, and transhistorical narrative.


title: Historiography

text: Paul Rapin de Thoyras's history of England, published in 1723, became "the classic Whig history" for the first half of the 18th century. It was later supplanted by the immensely popular "The History of England" by David Hume. Whig historians emphasized the achievements of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. This included James Mackintosh's "History of the Revolution in England in 1688", William Blackstone's "Commentaries on the Laws of England", and Henry Hallam's "Constitutional History of England".


title: Historiography

text: The most famous exponent of 'Whiggery' was Thomas Babington Macaulay. His writings are famous for their ringing prose and for their confident, sometimes dogmatic, emphasis on a progressive model of British history, according to which the country threw off superstition, autocracy and confusion to create a balanced constitution and a forward-looking culture combined with freedom of belief and expression. This model of human progress has been called the Whig interpretation of history. He published the first volumes of his most famous work of history, "The History of England from the Accession of James II", in 1848. It proved an immediate success and replaced Hume's history to become the new orthodoxy. His 'Whiggish convictions' are spelled out in his first chapter:


title: Historiography

text: His legacy continues to be controversial; Gertrude Himmelfarb wrote that "most professional historians have long since given up reading Macaulay, as they have given up writing the kind of history he wrote and thinking about history as he did." However, J. R. Western wrote that: "Despite its age and blemishes, Macaulay's "History of England" has still to be superseded by a full-scale modern history of the period".


title: Historiography

text: The Whig consensus was steadily undermined during the post-World War I re-evaluation of European history, and Butterfield's critique exemplified this trend. Intellectuals no longer believed the world was automatically getting better and better. Subsequent generations of academic historians have similarly rejected Whig history because of its presentist and teleological assumption that history is driving toward some sort of goal. Other criticized 'Whig' assumptions included viewing the British system as the apex of human political development, assuming that political figures in the past held current political beliefs (anachronism), considering British history as a march of progress with inevitable outcomes and presenting political figures of the past as heroes, who advanced the cause of this political progress, or villains, who sought to hinder its inevitable triumph. J. Hart says "a Whig interpretation requires human heroes and villains in the story."


title: Historiography

text: 20th-century historiography in major countries is characterized by a move to universities and academic research centers. Popular history continued to be written by self-educated amateurs, but scholarly history increasingly became the province of PhD's trained in research seminars at a university. The training emphasized working with primary sources in archives. Seminars taught graduate students how to review the historiography of the topics, so that they could understand the conceptual frameworks currently in use, and the criticisms regarding their strengths and weaknesses. Western Europe and the United States took leading roles in this development. The emergence of area studies of other regions also developed historiographical practices.


title: Historiography

text: The French "Annales" school radically changed the focus of historical research in France during the 20th century by stressing long-term social history, rather than political or diplomatic themes. The school emphasized the use of quantification and the paying of special attention to geography.


title: Historiography

text: The "Annales d'histoire économique et sociale" journal was founded in 1929 in Strasbourg by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre. These authors, the former a medieval historian and the latter an early modernist, quickly became associated with the distinctive "Annales" approach, which combined geography, history, and the sociological approaches of the Année Sociologique (many members of which were their colleagues at Strasbourg) to produce an approach which rejected the predominant emphasis on politics, diplomacy and war of many 19th and early 20th-century historians as spearheaded by historians whom Febvre called Les Sorbonnistes. Instead, they pioneered an approach to a study of long-term historical structures ("la longue durée") over events and political transformations. Geography, material culture, and what later Annalistes called "mentalités", or the psychology of the epoch, are also characteristic areas of study. The goal of the "Annales" was to undo the work of the "Sorbonnistes", to turn French historians away from the narrowly political and diplomatic toward the new vistas in social and economic history. For early modern Mexican history, the work of Marc Bloch's student François Chevalier on the formation of landed estates (haciendas) from the sixteenth century to the seventeenth had a major impact on Mexican history and historiography, setting off an important debate about whether landed estates were basically feudal or capitalistic.


title: Historiography

text: An eminent member of this school, Georges Duby, described his approach to history as one that relegated the sensational to the sidelines and was reluctant to give a simple accounting of events, but strived on the contrary to pose and solve problems and, neglecting surface disturbances, to observe the long and medium-term evolution of economy, society and civilisation. The Annalistes, especially Lucien Febvre, advocated a "histoire totale", or "histoire tout court", a complete study of a historical problem.


title: Historiography

text: The second era of the school was led by Fernand Braudel and was very influential throughout the 1960s and 1970s, especially for his work on the Mediterranean region in the era of Philip II of Spain. Braudel developed the idea, often associated with Annalistes, of different modes of historical time: "l'histoire quasi immobile" (motionless history) of historical geography, the history of social, political and economic structures ("la longue durée"), and the history of men and events, in the context of their structures. His 'longue durée' approach stressed slow, and often imperceptible effects of space, climate and technology on the actions of human beings in the past. The "Annales" historians, after living through two world wars and major political upheavals in France, were deeply uncomfortable with the notion that multiple ruptures and discontinuities created history. They preferred to stress slow change and the longue durée. They paid special attention to geography, climate, and demography as long-term factors. They considered the continuities of the deepest structures were central to history, beside which upheavals in institutions or the superstructure of social life were of little significance, for history lies beyond the reach of conscious actors, especially the will of revolutionaries.


title: Historiography

text: Noting the political upheavals in Europe and especially in France in 1968, Eric Hobsbawm argued that "in France the virtual hegemony of Braudelian history and the "Annales" came to an end after 1968, and the international influence of the journal dropped steeply." Multiple responses were attempted by the school. Scholars moved in multiple directions, covering in disconnected fashion the social, economic, and cultural history of different eras and different parts of the globe. By the time of crisis the school was building a vast publishing and research network reaching across France, Europe, and the rest of the world. Influence indeed spread out from Paris, but few new ideas came in. Much emphasis was given to quantitative data, seen as the key to unlocking all of social history. However, the "Annales" ignored the developments in quantitative studies underway in the U.S. and Britain, which reshaped economic, political and demographic research.


title: Historiography

text: Marxist historiography developed as a school of historiography influenced by the chief tenets of Marxism, including the centrality of social class and economic constraints in determining historical outcomes (historical materialism). Friedrich Engels wrote "The Peasant War in Germany", which analysed social warfare in early Protestant Germany in terms of emerging capitalist classes. Although it lacked a rigorous engagement with archival sources, it indicated an early interest in history from below and class analysis, and it attempts a dialectical analysis. Another treatise of Engels, "The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844", was salient in creating the socialist impetus in British politics from then on, e.g. the Fabian Society.


title: Historiography

text: R. H. Tawney was an early historian working in this tradition. "The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century" (1912) and "Religion and the Rise of Capitalism" (1926), reflected his ethical concerns and preoccupations in economic history. He was profoundly interested in the issue of the enclosure of land in the English countryside in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and in Max Weber's thesis on the connection between the appearance of Protestantism and the rise of capitalism. His belief in the rise of the gentry in the century before the outbreak of the Civil War in England provoked the 'Storm over the Gentry' in which his methods were subjected to severe criticisms by Hugh Trevor-Roper and John Cooper.


title: Historiography

text: Historiography in the Soviet Union was greatly influenced by Marxist historiography, as historical materialism was extended into the Soviet version of dialectical materialism.


title: Historiography

text: A circle of historians inside the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) formed in 1946 and became a highly influential cluster of British Marxist historians, who contributed to history from below and class structure in early capitalist society. While some members of the group (most notably Christopher Hill and E. P. Thompson) left the CPGB after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the common points of British Marxist historiography continued in their works. They placed a great emphasis on the subjective determination of history.


title: Historiography

text: Christopher Hill's studies on 17th-century English history were widely acknowledged and recognised as representative of this school. His books include "Puritanism and Revolution" (1958), "Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution" (1965 and revised in 1996), "The Century of Revolution" (1961), "AntiChrist in 17th-century England" (1971), "The World Turned Upside Down" (1972) and many others.


title: Historiography

text: E. P. Thompson pioneered the study of history from below in his work, "The Making of the English Working Class", published in 1963. It focused on the forgotten history of the first working-class political left in the world in the late-18th and early-19th centuries. In his preface to this book, Thompson set out his approach to writing history from below:


title: Historiography

text: Thompson's work was also significant because of the way he defined "class". He argued that class was not a structure, but a relationship that changed over time. He opened the gates for a generation of labor historians, such as David Montgomery and Herbert Gutman, who made similar studies of the American working classes.


title: Historiography

text: Other important Marxist historians included Eric Hobsbawm, C. L. R. James, Raphael Samuel, A. L. Morton and Brian Pearce.


title: Historiography

text: Biography has been a major form of historiography since the days when Plutarch wrote the parallel lives of great Roman and Greek leaders. It is a field especially attractive to nonacademic historians, and often to the spouses or children of famous people, who have access to the trove of letters and documents. Academic historians tend to downplay biography because it pays too little attention to broad social, cultural, political and economic forces, and perhaps too much attention to popular psychology. The "Great Man" tradition in Britain originated in the multi-volume "Dictionary of National Biography" (which originated in 1882 and issued updates into the 1970s); it continues to this day in the new "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". In the United States, the "Dictionary of American Biography" was planned in the late 1920s and appeared with numerous supplements into the 1980s. It has now been displaced by the "American National Biography" as well as numerous smaller historical encyclopedias that give thorough coverage to Great Persons. Bookstores do a thriving business in biographies, which sell far more copies than the esoteric monographs based on post-structuralism, cultural, racial or gender history. Michael Holroyd says the last forty years "may be seen as a golden age of biography", but nevertheless calls it the "shallow end of history". Nicolas Barker argues that "more and more biographies command an ever larger readership", as he speculates that biography has come "to express the spirit of our age".


title: Historiography

text: Marxist historian E. H. Carr developed a controversial theory of history in his 1961 book "What Is History?", which proved to be one of the most influential books ever written on the subject. He presented a middle-of-the-road position between the empirical or (Rankean) view of history and R. G. Collingwood's idealism, and rejected the empirical view of the historian's work being an accretion of "facts" that they have at their disposal as nonsense. He maintained that there is such a vast quantity of information that the historian always chooses the "facts" they decide to make use of. In Carr's famous example, he claimed that millions had crossed the Rubicon, but only Julius Caesar's crossing in 49 BC is declared noteworthy by historians. For this reason, Carr argued that Leopold von Ranke's famous dictum "wie es eigentlich gewesen" (show what actually happened) was wrong because it presumed that the "facts" influenced what the historian wrote, rather than the historian choosing what "facts of the past" they intended to turn into "historical facts". At the same time, Carr argued that the study of the facts may lead the historian to change his or her views. In this way, Carr argued that history was "an unending dialogue between the past and present".


title: Historiography

text: Carr is held by some critics to have had a deterministic outlook in history. Others have modified or rejected this use of the label "determinist". He took a hostile view of those historians who stress the workings of chance and contingency in the workings of history. In Carr's view, no individual is truly free of the social environment in which they live, but contended that within those limitations, there was room, albeit very narrow room for people to make decisions that affect history. Carr emphatically contended that history was a social science, not an art, because historians like scientists seek generalizations that helped to broaden the understanding of one's subject.


title: Historiography

text: One of Carr's most forthright critics was Hugh Trevor-Roper, who argued that Carr's dismissal of the "might-have-beens of history" reflected a fundamental lack of interest in examining historical causation. Trevor-Roper asserted that examining possible alternative outcomes of history was far from being a "parlour-game" was rather an essential part of the historians' work, as only by considering all possible outcomes of a given situation could a historian properly understand the period.


title: Historiography

text: The controversy inspired Sir Geoffrey Elton to write his 1967 book "The Practice of History". Elton criticized Carr for his "whimsical" distinction between the "historical facts" and the "facts of the past", arguing that it reflected "...an extraordinarily arrogant attitude both to the past and to the place of the historian studying it". Elton, instead, strongly defended the traditional methods of history and was also appalled by the inroads made by postmodernism. Elton saw the duty of historians as empirically gathering evidence and objectively analyzing what the evidence has to say. As a traditionalist, he placed great emphasis on the role of individuals in history instead of abstract, impersonal forces. Elton saw political history as the highest kind of history. Elton had no use for those who seek history to make myths, to create laws to explain the past, or to produce theories such as Marxism.


title: Historiography

text: Classical and European history was part of the 19th-century grammar curriculum. American history became a topic later in the 19th century.


title: Historiography

text: In the historiography of the United States, there were a series of major approaches in the 20th century. In 2009–2012, there were an average of 16,000 new academic history books published in the U.S. every year.


title: Historiography

text: From 1910 to the 1940s, "Progressive" historiography was dominant, especially in political studies. It stressed the central importance of class conflict in American history. Important leaders included Vernon L. Parrington, Carl L. Becker, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr., John Hicks, and C. Vann Woodward. The movement established a strong base at the History Department at the University of Wisconsin with Curtis Nettels, William Hesseltine, Merle Curti, Howard K. Beale, Merrill Jensen, Fred Harvey Harrington (who became the university president), William Appleman Williams, and a host of graduate students. Charles A. Beard was the most prominent representative with his "Beardian" approach that reached both scholars and the general public.


title: Historiography

text: In covering the Civil War, Charles and Mary Beard did not find it useful to examine nationalism, unionism, states' rights, slavery, abolition or the motivations of soldiers in battle. Instead, they proclaimed it was a:


title: Historiography

text: Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. wrote the "Age of Jackson" (1945), one of the last major books from this viewpoint. Schlesinger made Jackson a hero for his successful attacks on the Second Bank of the United States. His own views were clear enough: "Moved typically by personal and class, rarely by public, considerations, the business community has invariably brought national affairs to a state of crisis and exasperated the rest of society into dissatisfaction bordering on revolt."


title: Historiography

text: Consensus history emphasizes the basic unity of American values and downplays conflict as superficial. It was especially attractive in the 1950s and 1960s. Prominent leaders included Richard Hofstadter, Louis Hartz, Daniel Boorstin, Allan Nevins, Clinton Rossiter, Edmund Morgan, and David M. Potter. In 1948 Hofstadter made a compelling statement of the consensus model of the U.S. political tradition:


title: Historiography

text: Consensus history was rejected by New Left viewpoints that attracted a younger generation of radical historians in the 1960s. These viewpoints stress conflict and emphasize the central roles of class, race and gender. The history of dissent, and the experiences of racial minorities and disadvantaged classes was central to the narratives produced by New Left historians.


title: Historiography

text: Social history, sometimes called the "new social history", is a broad branch that studies the experiences of ordinary people in the past. It had major growth as a field in the 1960s and 1970s, and still is well represented in history departments. However, after 1980 the "cultural turn" directed the next generation to new topics. In the two decades from 1975 to 1995, the proportion of professors of history in U.S. universities identifying with social history rose from 31 to 41 percent, while the proportion of political historians fell from 40 to 30 percent.


title: Historiography

text: The growth was enabled by the social sciences, computers, statistics, new data sources such as individual census information, and summer training programs at the Newberry Library and the University of Michigan. The New Political History saw the application of social history methods to politics, as the focus shifted from politicians and legislation to voters and elections.


title: Historiography

text: The Social Science History Association was formed in 1976 as an interdisciplinary group with a journal "Social Science History" and an annual convention. The goal was to incorporate in historical studies perspectives from all the social sciences, especially political science, sociology and economics. The pioneers shared a commitment to quantification. However, by the 1980s the first blush of quantification had worn off, as traditional historians counterattacked. Harvey J. Graff says:


title: Historiography

text: Meanwhile, quantitative history became well-established in other disciplines, especially economics (where they called it "cliometrics"), as well as in political science. In history, however, quantification remained central to demographic studies, but slipped behind in political and social history as traditional narrative approaches made a comeback.


title: Historiography

text: Latin America is the former Spanish American empire in the Western Hemisphere plus Portuguese Brazil. Professional historians pioneered the creation of this field, starting in the late nineteenth century. The term “Latin America” did not come into general usage until the twentieth century and in some cases it was rejected. The historiography of the field has been more fragmented than unified, with historians of Spanish America and Brazil generally remaining in separate spheres. Another standard division within the historiography is the temporal factor, with works falling into either the early modern period (or “colonial era”) or the post-independence (or “national”) period, from the early nineteenth onward. Relatively few works span the two eras and few works except textbooks unite Spanish America and Brazil. There is a tendency to focus on histories of particular countries or regions (the Andes, the Southern Cone, the Caribbean) with relatively little comparative work.


title: Historiography

text: Historians of Latin America have contributed to various types of historical writing, but one major, innovative development in Spanish American history is the emergence of ethnohistory, the history of indigenous peoples, especially in Mexico based on alphabetic sources in Spanish or in indigenous languages.


title: Historiography

text: For the early modern period, the emergence of Atlantic history, based on comparisons and linkages of Europe, the Americas, and Africa from 1450 to 1850 that developed as a field in its own right has integrated early modern Latin American history into a larger framework. For all periods, global or world history have focused on the connections between areas, likewise integrating Latin America into a larger perspective. Latin America's importance to world history is notable but often overlooked. "Latin America’s central, and sometimes pioneering, role in the development of globalization and modernity did not cease with the end of colonial rule and the early modern period. Indeed, the region’s political independence places it at the forefront of two trends that are regularly considered thresholds of the modern world. The first is the so-called liberal revolution, the shift from monarchies of the ancien régime, where inheritance legitimated political power, to constitutional republics... The second, and related, trend consistently considered a threshold of modern history that saw Latin America in the forefront is the development of nation-states."


title: Historiography

text: Historical research appears in a number of specialized journals. These include "Hispanic American Historical Review" (est. 1918), published by the Conference on Latin American History; "The Americas", (est. 1944); "Journal of Latin American Studies" (1969); "Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies",(est.1976) "Bulletin of Latin American Research", (est. 1981); "Colonial Latin American Review" (1992); and "Colonial Latin American Historical Review" (est. 1992). "Latin American Research Review" (est. 1969), published by the Latin American Studies Association, does not focus primarily on history, but it has often published historiographical essays on particular topics.


title: Historiography

text: General works on Latin American history have appeared since the 1950s, when the teaching of Latin American history expanded in U.S. universities and colleges. Most attempt full coverage of Spanish America and Brazil from the conquest to the modern era, focusing on institutional, political, social and economic history. An important, eleven volume treatment of Latin American history is "The Cambridge History of Latin America", with separate volumes on the colonial era, nineteenth century, and the twentieth century. There is a small number of general works that have gone through multiple editions. Major trade publishers have also issued edited volumes on Latin American history and historiography. Reference works include the Handbook of Latin American Studies, which publishes articles by area experts, with annotated bibliographic entries, and the "Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture".


title: Historiography

text: World history, as a distinct field of historical study, emerged as an independent academic field in the 1980s. It focused on the examination of history from a global perspective and looked for common patterns that emerged across all cultures. The basic thematic approach of this field was to analyse two major focal points: integration – (how processes of world history have drawn people of the world together), and difference – (how patterns of world history reveal the diversity of the human experience).


title: Historiography

text: Arnold J. Toynbee's ten-volume "A Study of History", took an approach that was widely discussed in the 1930s and 1940s. By the 1960s his work was virtually ignored by scholars and the general public. He compared 26 independent civilizations and argued that they displayed striking parallels in their origin, growth, and decay. He proposed a universal model to each of these civilizations, detailing the stages through which they all pass: genesis, growth, time of troubles, universal state, and disintegration. The later volumes gave too much emphasis on spirituality to satisfy critics.


title: Historiography

text: Chicago historian William H. McNeill wrote "The Rise of the West" (1965) to show how the separate civilizations of Eurasia interacted from the very beginning of their history, borrowing critical skills from one another, and thus precipitating still further change as adjustment between traditional old and borrowed new knowledge and practice became necessary. He then discusses the dramatic effect of Western civilization on others in the past 500 years of history. McNeill took a broad approach organized around the interactions of peoples across the globe. Such interactions have become both more numerous and more continual and substantial in recent times. Before about 1500, the network of communication between cultures was that of Eurasia. The term for these areas of interaction differ from one world historian to another and include "world-system" and "ecumene." His emphasis on cultural fusions influenced historical theory significantly.


title: Historiography

text: The "cultural turn" of the 1980s and 1990s affected scholars in most areas of history. Inspired largely by anthropology, it turned away from leaders, ordinary people and famous events to look at the use of language and cultural symbols to represent the changing values of society.


title: Historiography

text: The British historian Peter Burke finds that cultural studies has numerous spinoffs, or topical themes it has strongly influenced. The most important include gender studies and postcolonial studies, as well as memory studies, and film studies.


title: Historiography

text: Diplomatic historian Melvyn P. Leffler finds that the problem with the "cultural turn" is that the culture concept is imprecise, and may produce excessively broad interpretations, because it:


title: Historiography

text: Memory studies is a new field, focused on how nations and groups (and historians) construct and select their memories of the past in order to celebrate (or denounce) key features, thus making a statement of their current values and beliefs. Historians have played a central role in shaping the memories of the past as their work is diffused through popular history books and school textbooks. French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs, opened the field with "La mémoire collective" (Paris: 1950).


title: Historiography

text: Many historians examine how the memory of the past has been constructed, memorialized or distorted. Historians examine how legends are invented. For example, there are numerous studies of the memory of atrocities from World War II, notably the Holocaust in Europe and Japanese war crimes in Asia. British historian Heather Jones argues that the historiography of the First World War in recent years has been reinvigorated by the cultural turn. Scholars have raised entirely new questions regarding military occupation, radicalization of politics, race, and the male body.


title: Historiography

text: Representative of recent scholarship is a collection of studies on the "Dynamics of Memory and Identity in Contemporary Europe". SAGE has published the scholarly journal "Memory Studies" since 2008, and the book series "Memory Studies" was launched by Palgrave Macmillan in 2010 with 5–10 titles a year.


title: Historiography

text: The historical journal, a forum where academic historians could exchange ideas and publish newly discovered information, came into being in the 19th century. The early journals were similar to those for the physical sciences, and were seen as a means for history to become more professional. Journals also helped historians to establish various historiographical approaches, the most notable example of which was "Annales. Économies, sociétés, civilisations", a publication of the "Annales" school in France. Journals now typically have one or more editors and associate editors, an editorial board, and a pool of scholars to whom articles that are submitted are sent for confidential evaluation. The editors will send out new books to recognized scholars for reviews that usually run 500 to 1000 words. The vetting and publication process often takes months or longer. Publication in a prestigious journal (which accept 10 percent or fewer of the articles submitted) is an asset in the academic hiring and promotion process. Publication demonstrates that the author is conversant with the scholarly field. Page charges and fees for publication are uncommon in history. Journals are subsidized by universities or historical societies, scholarly associations, and subscription fees from libraries and scholars. Increasingly they are available through library pools that allow many academic institutions to pool subscriptions to online versions. Most libraries have a system for obtaining specific articles through inter-library loan.


title: Historiography

text: According to Lawrence Stone, narrative has traditionally been the main rhetorical device used by historians. In 1979, at a time when the new Social History was demanding a social-science model of analysis, Stone detected a move back toward the narrative. Stone defined narrative as follows: it is organized chronologically; it is focused on a single coherent story; it is descriptive rather than analytical; it is concerned with people not abstract circumstances; and it deals with the particular and specific rather than the collective and statistical. He reported that, "More and more of the 'new historians' are now trying to discover what was going on inside people's heads in the past, and what it was like to live in the past, questions which inevitably lead back to the use of narrative."


title: Historiography

text: Historians committed to a social science approach, however, have criticized the narrowness of narrative and its preference for anecdote over analysis, and its use of clever examples rather than statistically verified empirical regularities.


title: Historiography

text: How a historian approaches historical events is one of the most important decisions within historiography. Historians commonly recognise that individual historical facts - dealing with names, dates and places - are not particularly meaningful in themselves. Such facts only become useful/informative when assembled with other historical evidence, and the process of assembling this evidence is understood as a particular historiographical approach.


title: Cyclopes

text: In Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, the Cyclopes ( ; , "Kýklōpes", "Circle-eyes" or "Round-eyes"; singular Cyclops ; , "Kýklōps") are giant one-eyed creatures. Three groups of Cyclopes can be distinguished. In Hesiod's "Theogony", the Cyclopes are the three brothers Brontes, Steropes, and Arges, who made for Zeus his weapon the thunderbolt. In Homer's "Odyssey", they are an uncivilized group of shepherds, the brethren of Polyphemus encountered by Odysseus. Cyclopes were also famous as the builders of the Cyclopean walls of Mycenae and Tiryns.


title: Cyclopes

text: In "Cyclops", the fifth-century BC play by Euripides, a chorus of satyrs offers comic relief based on the encounter of Odysseus and Polyphemus. The third-century BC poet Callimachus makes the Hesiodic Cyclopes the assistants of smith-god Hephaestus; as does Virgil in the Latin epic "Aeneid", where he seems to equate the Hesiodic and Homeric Cyclopes.


title: Cyclopes

text: From at least the fifth century BC, Cyclopes have been associated with the island of Sicily and the volcanic Aeolian Islands.


title: Cyclopes

text: Three groups of Cyclopes can be distinguished: the Hesiodic, the Homeric and the wall-builders. In Hesiod's "Theogony", the Cyclopes are the three brothers: Brontes, Steropes, and Arges, sons of Uranus and Gaia, who made for Zeus his characteristic weapon, the thunderbolt. In Homer's "Odyssey", the Cyclopes are an uncivilized group of shepherds, one of whom, Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon, is encountered by Odysseus. Cyclopes were also said to have been the builders of the Cyclopean walls of Mycenae and Tiryns. A scholiast, quoting the fifth-century BC historian Hellanicus, tells us that, in addition to the Hesiodic Cyclopes (whom the scholiast describes as "the gods themselves"), and the Homeric Cyclopes, there was a third group of Cyclopes: the builders of the walls of Mycenae.


title: Cyclopes

text: Hesiod, in the "Theogony" (c. 700 BC), described three Cyclopes: Brontes, Steropes, and Arges, who were the sons of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth), and the brothers of the Titans and Hundred-Handers, and who had a single eye set in the middle of their foreheads. They made for Zeus his all-powerful thunderbolt, and in so doing, the Cyclopes played a key role in the Greek succession myth, which told how the Titan Cronus overthrew his father Uranus, and how in turn Zeus overthrew Cronus and his fellow Titans, and how Zeus was eventually established as the final and permanent ruler of the cosmos. The names that Hesiod gives them: Arges (Bright), Brontes (Thunder), and Steropes (Lightning), reflect their fundamental role as thunderbolt makers. As early as the late seventh-century BC, the Cyclopes could be used by the Spartan poet Tyrtaeus to epitomize extraordinary size and strength.


title: Cyclopes

text: According to the accounts of Hesiod and mythographer Apollodorus, the Cyclopes had been imprisoned by their father Uranus. Zeus later freed the Cyclopes, and they repaid him by giving him the thunderbolt. The Cyclopes provided for Hesiod, and other theogony-writers, a convenient source of heavenly weaponry, since the smith-god Hephaestus—who would eventually take over that role—had not yet been born. According to Apollodorus, the Cyclopes also provided Poseidon with his trident and Hades with his cap of invisibility, and the gods used these weapons to defeat the Titans.


title: Cyclopes

text: Although the primordial Cyclopes of the "Theogony" were presumably immortal (as were their brothers the Titans), the sixth-century BC Hesiodic "Catalogue of Women", has them being killed by Apollo. Later sources tell us why: Apollo's son Asclepius had been killed by Zeus' thunderbolt, and Apollo killed the Cyclopes, the makers of the thunderbolt, in revenge. According to a scholiast on Euripides' "Alcestis", the fifth-century BC mythographer Pherecydes supplied the same motive, but said that Apollo, rather than killing the Cyclopes, killed their "sons" (one of whom he named Aortes) instead. No other source mentions any offspring of the Cyclopes. A Pindar fragment suggests that Zeus himself killed the Cyclopes to prevent them from making thunderbolts for anyone else.


title: Cyclopes

text: The Cyclopes' prowess as craftsmen is stressed by Hesiod who says "strength and force and contrivances were in their works." Being such skilled craftsmen of great size and strength, later poets, beginning with the third-century BC poet Callimachus, imagine these Cyclopes, the primordial makers of Zeus' thunderbolt, becoming the assistants of the smith-god Hephaestus, at his forge in Sicily, underneath Mount Etna, or perhaps the nearby Aeolian Islands. In his "Hymn to Artemis", Callimachus has the Cyclopes on the Aeolian island of Lipari, working "at the anvils of Hephaestus", make the bows and arrows used by Apollo and Artemis. The first-century BC Latin poet Virgil, in his epic "Aeneid", has the Cyclopes: "Brontes and Steropes and bare-limbed Pyracmon" toil under the direction of Vulcan (Hephaestus), in caves underneath Mount Etna and the Aeolian islands. Virgil describes the Cyclopes, in Vulcan's smithy forging iron, making a thunderbolt, a chariot for Mars, and Pallas's Aegis, with Vulcan interrupting their work to command the Cyclopes to fashion arms for Aeneas. The later Latin poet Ovid also has the Hesiodic Cyclopes Brontes and Steropes (along with a third Cyclops named Acmonides), work at forges in Sicilian caves.


title: Cyclopes

text: According to a Hellenistic astral myth, the Cyclopes were the builders of the first altar. The myth was a catasterism, which explained how the constellation the Altar (Ara) came to be in the heavens. According to the myth, the Cyclopes built an altar upon which Zeus and the other gods swore alliance before their war with the Titans. After their victory, "the gods placed the altar in the sky in commemoration", and thus began the practice, according to the myth, of men swearing oaths upon altars "as a guarantee of their good faith".


title: Cyclopes

text: According to the second-century geographer Pausanias, there was a sanctuary called the "altar of the Cyclopes" on the Isthmus of Corinth at a place sacred to Poseidon, where sacrifices were offered to the Cyclopes. There is no evidence for any other cult associated with the Cyclopes. According to a version of the story in the "Iliad" scholia (found nowhere else), when Zeus swallowed Metis, she was pregnant with Athena by the Cyclops Brontes.


title: Cyclopes

text: Although described by Hesiod as "having very violent hearts" ("ὑπέρβιον ἦτορ ἔχοντας"), and while their extraordinary size and strength would have made them capable of great violence, there is no indication of the Hesiodic Cyclopes having behaved in any other way than as dutiful servants of the gods.


title: Cyclopes

text: Walter Burkert suggests that groups or societies of lesser gods, like the Hesiodic Cyclopes, "mirror real cult associations ("thiasoi") ... It may be surmised that smith guilds lie behind Cabeiri, Idaian Dactyloi, Telchines, and Cyclopes."


title: Cyclopes

text: In an episode of Homer's "Odyssey" (c. 700 BC), the hero Odysseus encounters the Cyclops Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon, a one-eyed man-eating giant who lives with his fellow Cyclopes in a distant land. The relationship between these Cyclopes and Hesiod's Cyclopes is unclear. Homer described a very different group of Cyclopes, than the skilled and subservient craftsman of Hesiod. Homer's Cyclopes live in the "world of men" rather than among the gods, as they presumably do in the "Theogony". The Homeric Cyclopes are presented as uncivilized shepherds, who live in caves, savages with no regard for Zeus. They have no knowledge of agriculture, ships or craft. They live apart and lack any laws.


title: Cyclopes

text: The fifth-century BC playwright Euripides also told the story of Odysseus' encounter with Polyphemus in his satyr play "Cyclops". Euripides' Cyclopes, like Homer's, are uncultured cave-dwelling shepherds. They have no agriculture, no wine, and live on milk, cheese and the meat of sheep. They live solitary lives, and have no government. They are inhospitable to strangers, slaughtering and eating all who come to their land. While Homer does not say if the other Cyclopes are like Polyphemus in their appearance and parentage, Euripides makes it explicit, calling the Cyclopes "Poseidon's one-eyed sons". And while Homer is vague as to their location, Euripides locates the land of the Cyclopes on the island of Sicily near Mount Etna.


title: Cyclopes

text: Like Euripides, Virgil has the Cyclopes of Polyphemus live on Sicily near Etna. For Virgil apparently, these Homeric Cyclopes are members of the same race of Cyclopes as Hesiod's Brontes and Steropes, who live nearby.


title: Cyclopes

text: Cyclopes were also said to have been the builders of the so-called 'Cyclopean' walls of Mycenae, Tiryns, and Argos. Although they can be seen as being distinct, the Cyclopean wall-builders share several features with the Hesiodic Cyclopes: both groups are craftsmen of supernatural skill, possessing enormous strength, who lived in primordial times. These builder Cyclopes were apparently used to explain the construction of the stupendous walls at Mycenae and Tiryns, composed of massive stones that seemed too large and heavy to have been moved by ordinary men.


title: Cyclopes

text: These master builders were famous in antiquity from at least the fifth century BC onwards. The poet Pindar has Heracles driving the cattle of Geryon through the "Cyclopean portal" of the Tirynian king Eurystheus. The mythographer Pherecydes says that Perseus brought the Cyclopes with him from Seriphos to Argos, presumably to build the walls of Mycenae. Proetus, the mythical king of ancient Argos, was said to have brought a group of seven Cyclopes from Lycia to build the walls of Tiryns.


title: Cyclopes

text: The late fifth and early fourth-century BC comic poet Nicophon wrote a play called either "Cheirogastores" or "Encheirogastores" ("Hands-to-Mouth"), which is thought to have been about these Cyclopean wall-builders. Ancient lexicographers explained the title as meaning "those who feed themselves by manual labour", and, according to Eustathius of Thessalonica, the word was used to describe the Cyclopean wall-builders, while "hands-to-mouth" was one of the three kinds of Cyclopes distinguished by scholia to Aelius Aristides. Similarly, possibly deriving from Nicophon's comedy, the first-century Greek geographer Strabo says these Cyclopes were called "Bellyhands" ("gasterocheiras") because they earned their food by working with their hands.


title: Cyclopes

text: The first-century natural philosopher Pliny the Elder, in his "Natural History", reported a tradition, attributed to Aristotle, that the Cyclopes were the inventors of masonry towers. In the same work Pliny also mentions the Cyclopes, as being among those credited with being the first to work with iron, as well as bronze. In addition to walls, other monuments were attributed to the Cyclopes. For example, Pausanias says that at Argos there was "a head of Medusa made of stone, which is said to be another of the works of the Cyclopes".


title: Cyclopes

text: According to the "Theogony" of Hesiod, Uranus (Sky) mated with Gaia (Earth) and produced eighteen children. First came the twelve Titans, next came the three one-eyed Cyclopes:


title: Cyclopes

text: Following the Cyclopes, Gaia next gave birth to three more monstrous brothers, the Hecatoncheires, or Hundred-Handed Giants. Uranus hated his monstrous children, and as soon as each was born, he imprisoned them underground, somewhere deep inside Gaia. Eventually Uranus' son, the Titan Cronus, castrated Uranus, becoming the new ruler of the cosmos, but he did not release his brothers, the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires, from their imprisonment in Tartarus.


title: Cyclopes

text: For this failing, Gaia foretold that Cronus would eventually be overthrown by one of his children, as he had overthrown his own father. To prevent this, as each of his children were born, Cronus swallowed them whole; as gods they were not killed, but imprisoned within his belly. His wife, Rhea, sought her mother's advice to avoid losing all of her children in this way, and Gaia advised her to give Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. In this way, Zeus was spared the fate of his elder siblings, and was hidden away by his mother. When he was grown, Zeus forced his father to vomit up his siblings, who rebelled against the Titans. Zeus released the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires, who became his allies. While the Hundred-Handed Giants fought alongside Zeus and his siblings, the Cyclopes gave Zeus his great weapon, the thunderbolt, with the aid of which he was eventually able to overthrow the Titans, establishing himself as the ruler of the cosmos.


title: Cyclopes

text: In Book 9 of the "Odyssey", Odysseus describes to his hosts the Phaeacians his encounter with the Cyclops Polyphemus. Having just left the land of the Lotus-eaters, Odysseus says "Thence we sailed on, grieved at heart, and we came to the land of the Cyclopes".


title: Cyclopes

text: Homer had already (Book 6) described the Cyclopes as "men overweening in pride who plundered [their neighbors the Phaeacians] continually", driving the Phaeacians from their home. In Book 9, Homer gives a more detailed description of the Cyclopes as:


title: Cyclopes

text: According to Homer, the Cyclopes have no ships, nor ship-wrights, nor other craftsman, and know nothing of agriculture. They have no regard for Zeus or the other gods, for the Cyclopes hold themselves to be "better far than they".


title: Cyclopes

text: Homer says that "godlike" Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon and the nymph Thoosa, the daughter of Phorcys, is the "greatest among all the Cyclopes". Homer describes Polyphemus as a shepherd who:


title: Cyclopes

text: Although Homer does not say explicitly that Polyphemus is one-eyed, for the account of his blinding to make sense he must be. If Homer meant for the other Cyclopes to be assumed (as they usually are) to be like Polyphemus, then they too will be one-eyed sons of Poseidon; however Homer says nothing explicit about either the parentage or appearance of the other Cyclopes.


title: Cyclopes

text: The Hesiodic Cyclopes: makers of Zeus' thunderbolts, the Homeric Cyclopes: brothers of Polyphemus, and the Cyclopean wall-builders, all figure in the plays of the fifth-century BC playwright Euripides. In his play "Alcestis", where we are told that the Cyclopes who forged Zeus' thunderbolts, were killed by Apollo. The prologue of that play has Apollo explain:


title: Cyclopes

text: Euripides' satyr play "Cyclops" tells the story of Odysseus' encounter with the Cyclops Polyphemus, famously told in Homer's "Odyssey". It takes place on the island of Sicily near the volcano Mount Etna where, according to the play, "Poseidon’s one-eyed sons, the man-slaying Cyclopes, dwell in their remote caves." Euripides describes the land where Polyphemus' brothers live, as having no "walls and city battlements", and a place where "no men dwell". The Cyclopes have no rulers and no government, "they are solitaries: no one is anyone’s subject." They grow no crops, living only "on milk and cheese and the flesh of sheep." They have no wine, "hence the land they dwell in knows no dancing". They show no respect for the important Greek value of Xenia ("guest friendship). When Odysseus asks if they are pious and hospitable toward strangers ("φιλόξενοι δὲ χὤσιοι περὶ ξένους"), he is told: "most delicious, they maintain, is the flesh of strangers ... everyone who has come here has been slaughtered."


title: Cyclopes

text: Several of Euripides' plays also make reference to the Cyclopean wall-builders. Euripides calls their walls "heaven-high" ("οὐράνια"), describes "the Cyclopean foundations" of Mycenae as "fitted snug with red plumbline and mason’s hammer", and calls Mycenae "O hearth built by the Cyclopes". He calls Argos "the city built by the Cyclopes", refers to "the temples the Cyclopes built" and describes the "fortress of Perseus" as "the work of Cyclopean hands".


title: Cyclopes

text: For the third-century BC poet Callimachus, the Hesiodic Cyclopes Brontes, Steropes and Arges, become assistants at the forge of the smith-god Hephaestus. Callimachus has the Cyclopes make Artemis' bow, arrows and quiver, just as they had (apparently) made those of Apollo. Callimachus locates the Cyclopes on the island of Lipari, the largest of the Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the northern coast of Sicily, where Artemis finds them "at the anvils of Hephaestus" making a horse-trough for Poseidon:


title: Cyclopes

text: The first-century BC Roman poet Virgil seems to combine the Cyclopes of Hesiod with those of Homer, having them live alongside each other in the same part of Sicily. In his Latin epic "Aeneid", Virgil has the hero Aeneas follow in the footsteps of Odysseus, the hero of Homer's "Odyssey". Approaching Sicily and Mount Etna, in Book 3 of the "Aeneid", Aeneas manages to survive the dangerous Charybdis, and at sundown comes to the land of the Cyclopes, while "near at hand Aetna thunders". The Cyclopes are described as being "in shape and size like Polyphemus ... a hundred other monstrous Cyclopes [who] dwell all along these curved shores and roam the high mountains." After narrowly escaping from Polyphemus, Aeneas tells how, responding to the Cyclops' "mighty roar":


title: Cyclopes

text: Later, in Book 8 of the same poem, Virgil has the Hesiodic Cyclopes Brontes and Steropes, along with a third Cyclopes which he names Pyracmon, work in an extensive network of caverns stretching from Mount Etna to the Aeolian Islands. As the assistants of the smith-god Vulcan, they forge various items for the gods: thunderbolts for Jupiter, a chariot for Mars, and armor for Minerva:


title: Cyclopes

text: The mythographer Apollodorus, gives an account of the Hesiodic Cyclopes similar to that of Hesiod's, but with some differences, and additional details. According to Apollodorus, the Cyclopes were born after the Hundred-Handers, but before the Titans (unlike Hesiod who makes the Titans the eldest and the Hundred-Handers the youngest).


title: Cyclopes

text: Uranus bound the Hundred-Handers and the Cyclopes, and cast them all into Tartarus, "a gloomy place in Hades as far distant from earth as earth is distant from the sky." But the Titans are, apparently, allowed to remain free (unlike in Hesiod). When the Titans overthrew Uranus, they freed the Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes (unlike in Hesiod, where they apparently remained imprisoned), and made Cronus their sovereign. But Cronus once again bound the six brothers, and reimprisoned them in Tartarus.


title: Cyclopes

text: As in Hesiod's account, Rhea saved Zeus from being swallowed by Cronus, and Zeus was eventually able to free his siblings, and together they waged war against the Titans. According to Apollodorus, in the tenth year of that war, Zeus learned from Gaia, that he would be victorious if he had the Hundred-Handers and the Cyclopes as allies. So Zeus slew their warder Campe (a detail not found in Hesiod) and released them, and in addition to giving Zeus his thunderbolt (as in Hesiod), the Cyclopes also gave Poseidon his trident, and Hades a helmet (presumably the same cap of invisibility which Athena borrowed in the "Iliad"), and "with these weapons the gods overcame the Titans".


title: Cyclopes

text: Apollodorus also mentions a tomb of Geraestus, "the Cyclops" at Athens upon which, in the time of king Aegeus, the Athenians sacrificed the daughters of Hyacinth.


title: Cyclopes

text: "Dionysiaca", composed in the 4th or 5th century BC, is the longest surviving poem from antiquity – 20,426 lines. It is written by the poet Nonnus in the Homeric dialect, and its main subject is the life of Dionysus. It describes a war that occurred between Dionysus' troops and those of the Indian king Deriades. In book 28 of the "Dionysiaca" the Cyclopes join with Dionysian troops, and they prove to be great warriors and crush most of the Indian king's troops.


title: Cyclopes

text: Depictions of the Cyclops Polyphemus have differed radically, depending on the literary genres in which he has appeared, and have given him an individual existence independent of the Homeric herdsman encountered by Odysseus. In the epic he was a man-eating monster dwelling in an unspecified land. Some centuries later, a dithyramb by Philoxenus of Cythera, followed by several episodes by the Greek pastoral poets, created of him a comedic and generally unsuccessful lover of the water nymph Galatea. In the course of these he woos his love to the accompaniment of either a cithara or the pan-pipes. Such episodes take place on the island of Sicily, and it was here that the Latin poet Ovid also set the tragic love story of Polyphemus and Galatea recounted in the Metamorphoses. Still later tradition made him the eventually successful husband of Galatea and the ancestor of the Celtic and Illyrian races.


title: Cyclopes

text: From at least the fifth-century BC onwards, Cyclopes have been associated with the island of Sicily, or the volcanic Aeolian islands just off Sicily's north coast. The fifth-century BC historian Thucydides says that the "earliest inhabitants" of Sicily were reputed to be the Cyclopes and Laestrygones (another group of man-eating giants encountered by Odysseus in Homer's "Odyssey"). Thucydides also reports the local belief that Hephaestus (along with his Cyclopean assistants?) had his forge on the Aeolian island of Vulcano.


title: Cyclopes

text: Euripides locates Odysseus' Cyclopes on the island of Sicily, near the volcano Mount Etna, and in the same play addresses Hephaestus as "lord of Aetna". The poet Callimachus locates the Cyclopes' forge on the island of Lipari, the largest of the Aeolians. Virgil associates both the Hesiodic and the Homeric Cyclopes with Sicily. He has the thunderbolt makers: "Brontes and Steropes and bare-limbed Pyracmon", work in vast caverns extending underground from Mount Etna to the island of Vulcano, while the Cyclops brethren of Polyphemus live on Sicily where "near at hand Aetna thunders".


title: Cyclopes

text: As Thucydides notes, in the case of Hephaestus' forge on Vulcano, locating the Cyclopes' forge underneath active volcanoes provided an explanation for the fire and smoke often seen rising from them.