The 15 branches of History: what are they and what do they study?

These are the main branches of history, and their ways of studying humanity's past.

History is the discipline that studies the events that have taken place throughout the past. Although it studies the past in its entirety, whether or not there are human beings, traditionally history focuses on some of the contexts, situations or experiences that are properly human.

There are many branches of history, and below are some of the best known, such as the history of art, history of history, history of history, and history of history.The history of art, the history of religion or universal history.

What is History?

History is a social science that deals with the study of the past, traditionally that of humanity.. As a discipline, history deals with any period of the past, with or without human beings present, but there is a consensus in considering that its symbolic beginning was with the appearance of writing and, therefore, the beginning of a more or less reliable written record of events. What comes before the appearance of writing is called "prehistory" but is equally considered part of history.

The experts in history are the historians and among the most important of all times we have Herodotus and Thucydides, the former being called the father of history for his way of studying and explaining historical events. The methods of both historians have modeled and shaped history as the discipline we know today.

There are many branches of history and, in fact, we could say that there is one for practically any of the areas that may come to mind. To mention a few, we can speak of military history, social history, cultural history, diplomatic history, religious history, intellectual history, gender history, public history... Likewise, it is very important not to confuse the branches of history with its aspects, which are mainly the following two:

1. Historiography

Historiography is the set of techniques and methods of review, analysis and production of knowledge about history..

2. Historiography

Historiography, also known as "Theory of History", encompasses the set of explanations and methods to deduce and understand why and how explanations and methods to deduce and understand why and in what way certain historical events occur..

The main branches of history: a summary of their objectives and topics.

As we have mentioned, there are many branches of history, and there is one for practically every type of human area. The main and most commonly studied are the following:

1. military history

Military history places special emphasis on war strategies, battles, weapons, combat psychology, and any phenomenon related to the course of a war that has been of great historical importance.

Relatively recently, in the 1970s there was a shift in the paradigm of military history. It is from then on that more attention begins to be paid to the soldiers rather than the generals and more to military psychology than to tactics.. In addition, the study of the impact of war on society and its culture began to be studied.

2. History of cartography

Cartography is more a branch of geography although it is directly related to history. The history of cartography is interested in the methods of spatial representation of the planet, that is, how the world has been represented in maps, atlases and planispheres throughout history. throughout history.

3. History of religion

The history of religion studies the forms of religious and mystical manifestation that has occurred in all types of culture throughout its history, putting them in relation and studying their influences and characteristics. Etudies how faiths have developed and evolved along with their political, cultural, and artistic dimensions, either by focusing on their theories and practices, or by examining their political, cultural, and artistic dimensions.It focuses on their theology as well as their liturgy.

4. Social history

Social history focuses on ordinary people, their experiences and strategies, and how their actions have fostered changes in political institutions. Social history is considered a bridging branch between various other branches such as political history, intellectual history, economic history and many others.

This branch of history had a golden age during the 1960s and 1970s and, to this day, has a strong presence in every history and sociology department.. Before its golden age, social history was a mixture of diverse subjects that often included political movements such as populism.

5. Intellectual history and history of ideas

Intellectual history is based on the work of great intellectuals or famous people whose ideas have shaped the world in one way or another. Thus, this branch of history focuses not only on the figure of important figures but also on their ideological and intellectual paradigms or on "anonymous" ideas in general, regardless of whether they have been good or bad.regardless of whether they have been good or bad for humanity: Marxism, atheism, nationalism, fascism, republicanism, humanism...

6. History of gender

Gender history is a branch that looks at the past from a gender perspective and, in many ways, could be called women's history. It puts the spotlight on how people have been privileged or repressed on the basis of their gender, with the female gender usually being the worst off.

7. Art history

Closely related to cultural history, art history focuses on the forms of artistic expression and the ways in which they are expressed.. This discipline does not focus on a single type of artistic current or the creative representations of a particular ethnic group, but rather deals with the extensive study of any artistic representation from any part of the world and how it has evolved over time.

8. Historical linguistics

Historical linguistics is the field of knowledge that studies the change of languages over time and the process of linguistic change. This discipline is of great importance in the study of the diachronic evolution of languages and is also used to classify languages according to their common origin.. It also studies the contact between peoples, the routes of expansion and cultural influences between linguistic communities.

9. Diplomatic history

Diplomatic history studies the relations between sovereign states.. It takes special emphasis on the diplomacy of two or more nations, their international relations, their strategic alliances, history of common wars or diplomatic conflicts. It also studies the phenomena that lead to peace and respect for human rights.

10. Economic history

Economic history studies the history of individual business organizations, business methods, a government's market regulation laws, labor relations, major economic systems, and the impact of each type of economy on society. on society. Also included in this branch of history is the study of the biography of individual companies, executives and entrepreneurs.

11. Environmental history

Environmental history studies and analyzes human interaction with the environment over time. This branch emphasizes the active role that nature has played in human history and how the interaction of the two has led to changes in both, since human beings are conditioned by the environment and, in turn, the environment is modified by human action.

Environmental history emerged in the United States as a result of the environmental movement during the 1960s and 1970s.. It is still very much alive today, being the driving force behind all kinds of movements against climate change and the destruction of forests and large environments to be protected.

12. World or universal history

World history, also called global history, universal history or transnational history, studies history from a global perspective and tries to find common patterns that occur in all cultures. World history and the works that speak of it present the history of humanity as a whole, as a more or less coherent unit with some differences at the local level..

Any book or work that pretends to speak of world history will do so taking as its beginning the appearance of writing up to the most recent times. It covers the most important events of each historical period and of all countries, or at least those that have had a major impact on making the world what it is today. Taking a Western perspective, world history is usually divided into three parts: ancient, medieval and modern.

13. Cultural history

Cultural history combines the approaches of anthropology and world history to examine aspects such as language, folk traditions, and cultural interpretations of a people's historical experience, and of a people's historical experience and makes use of records and narrative descriptions of events, customs, iconography and artistic styles.

This branch gained much relevance during the 1980s and 1990s, replacing social history as the dominant branch. It is related to other branches of history since it also touches on aspects such as religion, politics and socioeconomic aspects of each ethnic group studied.

14. Public history

Public history is an umbrella concept that includes a Wide range of public a wide range of professional and public activities carried out by people who have some training in history but work outside of academic settings.. It is all those professions and settings that bring history to the general public.

The practice of public history takes its roots in the areas of historic preservation, archival science, oral history, museum maintenance, and other related trades. Among the most common settings where we can find public history are museums, historic houses, theme parks, battlefields, archives, libraries, film and television companies that make documentaries, and all levels of government.

15. History of Law

The history of law deals with how throughout human history the law has been formulated, applied and exercised based on social and institutional perceptions of what was considered a crime or an offense. of what was considered a crime or a moral fault. This branch of history investigates legal texts, changes in laws over the history of a country, the extent to which religion has influenced penal codes (e.g., Sharia)....

Bibliographical references:

• Carr, Edward H. (1985). what is history?. Barcelona : Ariel. ISBN 84-344-1001-X
• Tuñón de Lara, Manuel (1985). Why history. Barcelona : Aula Abierta Salvat. ISBN 84-345-7814-X.
• Máxima-Uriarte, J. (2019)What is history? Features.com Retrieved from: https://www.caracteristicas.co/historia/