History & Historians
This page features links to a number of subject areas
related to History and to the Historians who have used a rather
interesting variety of approaches in their attempts to inform us
about the past.
The linked pages are presented in the general context of the age-of-the-sage Web site where
our main sections are about Comparative Religion and tend to show that there is a God with whom
sincerely spiritual people may hope to "Mystically Commune." Another major section investigates
the connections between "Spirituality and the Wider World" - and tends to suggest that
people, as individuals and as members of groups, are motivated by Desire - Materialism, by
Ethnicity - Wrath, by the claims of Reason, as
well as by Spirituality - Wisdom.
Some mention is made of how the very enactment of internationally impacting
collective historical tragedies inevitably gives rise to the raising of questions about
the Existence, the Nature, and the Powers, of God.
The most "original" linked historical pages that are accesssible from this page consider:-
Emerson's call for a "transcendentalist"
approach to the Study of History.
These pages attempt to explore whether there might be any validity in
Emerson's assertion that the Human Mind contains a pattern that has proven
to be the foundation for the Unfolding of History.
Emerson's view suggests that :-
man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots,
whose flower and fruitage is the world.
Direct Hot Links to a selection of historically related
subject areas are set out below for your convenience:-
Emerson, Transcendentalism,
and the Unfolding of History
The Transcendental Idealism of Immanuel Kant was adopted and
adapted by many other people in Europe and the Americas, one of
the more interesting instances of these adoptions / adaptions
being that of the New England Transcendentalists.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was perhaps the most far-seeing of the New
England Transcendentalists, he came to believe that all people
share a 'commonality of mind' and that it is this mind that acts
as a foundational pattern for historical developments.
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Famous Historical Personalities
From time to time individual human beings "have lived at the
centre of events" such that an outline of their individual lives
also tells us a something about the times in which they
lived.
When the wide range of aims these people individually
supported are considered it tends to remind us of the perplexing
reality that people often sincerely pursue goals that are
definitely not shared by others.
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Famous Historians
"The historian should be fearless and
incorruptible; a man of independence, loving frankness and truth;
one who, as the poets says, calls a fig a fig and a spade a
spade. He should yield to neither hatred nor affection, not
should be unsparing and unpitying. He should be neither shy nor
deprecating, but an impartial judge, giving each side all it
deserves but no more. He should know in his writing no country
and no city; he should bow to no authority and acknowledge no
king. He should never consider what this or that man will think,
but should state the facts as they really occurred."
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Philosophy of History
Many philosophers, writers, and historians, have variously attempted to
discern "patterns" in History or to prescribe more effective approaches
to the study of History .
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Alternate History
Many writers, and some historians, have speculated over the
momentous "What Ifs" of history and have attempted to depict the
resulting scenario if "this" had happened rather than "that" at
key turning points of history.
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Some fascinating
Quotes about History
The links below lead to some variously insightful, wise and entertaining quotes about history.
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Original Source Documents
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![[History and Historians]](enlightenment.gif)
