So, I'm gonna limit this the history of historians in the historiography of the historical west (woaaaah) because that's the tradition I was trained in and know best, but the history of history (called historiography) is a complex thing, so I would appreciate anyone who could give a non-western perspectives. This is also going to be much more male- cis- and white-focused than I want it to be, largely because I'm drawing on my notes from my graduate school historiography, which was a brutal and amazing class, but was taught by a very traditional professor. The last third of this is also from a review of Peter Novick's That Noble Dream, which I still think is one of the better introductions to historiography, even though, as I note at the end, I am unsatisfied by it's conclusion.

So I would also welcome people who could join in with female, trans* and nonwhite historiographies. Also, this is greatly simplyfying and compressing history in general, so take these bags of salt and caution with you below--

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As with nearly everything else in the "Western World," in order to trace the origins of (his?)tory, you must walk down that familiar and treadworn path to Ancient Greece. It is perhaps a small mercy that this one does not lead straight to Aristotle, as so many others seem to do, but instead, to Herodotus. The fifth century BCE historian wrote about the origins of the Greco-Persian wars and is the so-called 'founding of history' because he was one of the first to write history in an systemic way--he tests the accuracy of his sources by questioning them and checking them against each other (telling both sides and then arriving at his own conclusion), and then he goes on to arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid narrative. It is doubtful that Herodotus was deliberately attempting to do something completely new—to “remove myth from history”—but instead, he was, as he says in his introduction, only attempting to “preserve the memory of the past by putting on record the astonishing achievements of both our own and other peoples; and more particularly, to show how they came into conflict” (Selincourt 41). It would seem likely, as with Homer before him, Herodotus was only attempting only to preserve his collection of testimonies for the future , and the idea that he was attempting to found history as a discipline is unlikely—it is something that has been projected upon him by later historians.

However, many modern historians, considering themselves rational and scientific, would be traumatized (clutching their pearls) reading Herodotus' histories; not only because of his repeated digressions but because of his inaccuracies, his dependence on divine intervention, and his lack of discretion in his sources: one historian called him a “curious false start to history” because he failed to “remove myth from history” (Murray 188), another “the father of lies” (qtd. in Selincourt, 10). Many 'modern' (rational, scientific) historians might prefer Thucydides (no, not /u/thucydideswasawesome, though this flair IS awesome), the father of 'scientific' history, who wrote about the later Peloponnesian War, using (unlike Herodotus) a standard chronology, a 'neutral' point of view, and a secular view of historical events. However, even Thucydides admitted that he made up the speeches of important figures within his history: “I will not pretend to recite them in all their exactness…[I have kept them] as near as possible to what would pass for genuine.”(Smith, 8)

Clearly, there is no home for modern historians among the white marble of the Parthenon—they must build their temple on another rock.

The history of Western history, as some 'scientific' historians describe it, would fumble about in the dark from the publishing of Herodotus' Histories until the systematization of Leopold von Ranke's ideas in the 1830's. Ranke was a Prussian historian, whose histories tended to focus on the history and the development of various groups and peoples in Europe. Thus he is often credited as being the founder of modern "source-based" history--despite the fact that his own histories rarely lived up to his ideals. Indeed, it is not usually his work that tends to be remembered, it is his comment that “history has been assigned the office of judging the past...to such high offices this work does not aspire: it wants only to show what actually happened (wie es eigentlich gewesen)” (qtd. in Stern, 57). Ranke's goal was to arrive at a literal and scientific rendering of the past through source-based history such as eyewitness accounts, memoirs, or diaries. As a result, Ranke developed a history that can be politely described as “cold, factual, and apparently undisturbed by the passions of the time” (Beard 221). Regardless, von Ranke's ideal -- wie es eigentlich gewesen -- was incredibly influential among American historians, who attempted to arrive at a literal and scientific rendering of the past. To many of them, this is where they could build their foundation: on the ‘noble dream’ of objectivity.

The objectivity question is one that has haunted American history like the communist spectre supposedly haunting Europe. Peter Novick, a professor of History at the University of Chicago, argues that the model of German rationalism and objectivity was so influential to American history for two primary reasons: its borrowed prestige and its virtual monopoly on the education of American historians. The borrowed prestige and moral power came from scienticity—American historians opted for “an austere style which would clearly distinguish professional historical work from the florid effusions of the amateur historians who the professionals sought to displace” heavily influenced by the scientific method. German history also had a near-monopoly on the first generations of American historians because:

Graduate or professional training worthy of the name hardly existed in the United States until the century was well advanced. English Universities were concerned with turning out gentlemen, not scholars…[and]French universities offered no easily attainable advanced degree…also, study in Germany was inexpensive. (all of this is from Novick, p. 20-30.)

The effect of German schools and what Americans thought Rankean philosophy was is apparent from Novick’s survey: “Fredrick Jackson Turner explained Ranke’s orientation as a result of his having grown up in a ‘age of science’…Emerton of Harvard describe[ed] Ranke as the founder of ‘the doctrine of true historical method’…[and] Adams of Yale…hail[ed] ‘our first leader.’” (ibid.)

This, however, is not necessarily what Ranke wanted or was even attempting to do. Just as any history reflects on the historian who wrote it, as well his own place in time, Ranke wrote after the Sturm und Drang of the French Revolution, and politically, he was “weary of history written for...the purposes of revolutionary propaganda. He wanted peace. The ruling classes in Germany, with which he was affiliated...wanted peace” furthermore, he intellectually rejected the “Enlightenment ‘radicals’ [who] criticized history and the past…[and instead] accepted [the past] as the basis of existing conditions.

This is not how he was understood: “to American historians, their mythic hero [Ranke] was empirical science incarnate,” but Ranke did not seem to be deliberately attempting to make history into a science, but instead, seemed to be pushing for it to be more scientific by focusing on primary source material. The idea of history as a science seems to have been projected upon him by American historians. It does not follow logically that Ranke, who rejected the Hegelian idea of a priori philosophy manifested in history, would support an approach to history that would attempt to find universal, normalized laws of history. Nor does his most famously cited quote—wie es eigentlich gewesen—necessarily mean what the early American historians wanted it to mean: “in the nineteenth century, eigentlich had an ambiguity it no longer has: it also meant essentially.” (Charles 221 and Novick 27-28)