Talk:History
Interesting how most history is about wars and empires. ;-)
That is a bias.
We need more on natural history, modern natural history, modern economic history, modern social history, modern intellectual history, and maybe the most neutral perspective is changes that have happened in ecology - like urbanization, deforestation, climate change, etc., which are scientific. For instance we can say more reliably what the weather was like in Dark Ages Europe than what the people were doing. ANd we know more about what crops they ate than about what they actually believed. So this is actually more reliable history.
Also, it matches what we tend to know about Ancient America, Ancient Australia, etc., so it's less biased to use this as the basis of comparison. If we compare weapons of war, for instance, we are going to make Rome look more "advanced" or Spain more "advanced" than cultures they wiped out. That isn't a good idea, is it?
As just one example, Muslim Spain is almost universally regarded as a far better society than the one that replaced it - it was educated, creative and multicultural. But the conquerors Ferdinand and Isabella deported Muslims and Jews, killed people who would neither leave nor "convert", then did the same all through the Americas, wiping out religions, enslaving everyone their subjects and their heirs' subjects came near. They were horrible, vile, ignorant people, who would be either shot without trial like Saddam's sons or at best on trial for war crimes, genocide etc.. But that is not what most history books say about them. ;-)
"History is the study of the past. We know about what happened in the past by looking at things from the past: books, newspapers, letters, coins, paintings or other things. These are held in libraries, archives or museums." -- History is usually defined by reference to written records; the time before before cultures began to keep written records is usually called their "prehistory" -- RJWiki
- That should be in here.
Does that mean that we have to call Africa up to recent times Prehistoric Africa? Those people kept records orally and some were written on media that rotted away. So did the Inca. Since "prehistoric" often means "primitive" the term seems POV. But if it's correct, it's correct, and we just have to explain it.