Historian glossary
Historian glossary
20 terms
The career of a historian consists of studying, writing, interpreting and teaching about events of the past. The historian will use historical documents to do his research and exercise authority on them. This research will be used to understand why and how past events affect today's world. This glossary can help new and future historians by reminding them of the meaning of certain words frequently used by historians but not commonly used by people in different fields of study. The glossary will help them to start their career in a good way and help them in their research.
- anachronism
- The act of appropriating something to a specific date or time period to which it's not a part.
- archive
- A large collection of documents giving information about a specific historical element.
- artifact
- A man-made object related to a past culture which has a historical interest.
- bias
- When the source of information is strongly influenced by the creator's opinion and subjectivity and thus becomes less reliable.
- causation
- The specific cause of one or more events and consequences.
- chronological systems
- A way to classify events in order of their happening depending on whether it's after or before the year 0.
- contemporary concerns
- A significant subject that affects today's history and society.
- epistemologically
- Something that the study of it is restricted to the human logic and knowledge.
- historiography
- The study of history and historical writing as a discipline.
- interdisciplinary
- An object, an event or any other entity that is related to many branches of knowledge.
- lacuna
- A missing part in any historical document such as a manuscript, making it more difficult to study.
- manuscript
- Any type of documents which were written by hand rather than by other writing methods.
- paradigm
- A group of theories, postulates, thoughts and concepts about the world or an event according to a specific group of people.
- periodisation
- Dividing a long period of time into shorter ones, usually to classify events more easily.
- postmodernism
- The cultural period of events that occurred at the beginning and at the middle of the twentieth century.
- primary source
- The most direct evidence of information about an event because the creator of the source lived the event or attended it.
- revisionism
- A review of old historical theories, thoughts and information using new evidence and information.
- secondary source
- A source of information whose creator of it did not live or assist the specific event.
- traceability
- The ability to trace the history and provenance of an object or an event in the time when doing research about it.
- unsubstantiated
- The state of any information, source and theory when it is not proven by enough evidence or simply doesn't have any evidence to be considered reliable.