History

The study of the past, which largely focuses on human activity and aspects leading up to the present day is termed as history. Every document that records and preserves the past in a written, graphic or pictorial format and everything that is remembered by history is termed as historical record. History can be broadly classified into humanities and social sciences. Some historians, experts in history, study the entire span of history broadly touching on numerous topics and aspects, whereas some focus on certain methods like chronology, demography, historiography, genealogy, paleography, cliometrics or on fields like physics, computing, military, art, natural or on time periods like Ancient, Classical, Industrial. Besides, some study history based on regions like Asia, Asia-Minor or America. History was largely revolutionised by the 20th century French historian Fernand Braudel, who considered and studied effects “outside disciplines” as economics, anthropology and geography on global history. Before Fernand, historians would attempt to answer historical questions by means of written documents, though this was not strictly so.

Some of the various ways in which current and past happenings are now archived for future reference include books, internet, A/V & data formats like discs, cassettes, tapes, drives, etc. Of these history books and fictional books related to history are perhaps more popular largely due to the fact that books have been longer than perhaps any other information media.