Ancient universal histories
Herodotus (c. 484-20 bcb) is commonly described as the ‘father of Western history' and he is also credited for having recognised that history can be a means for understanding the world.
In his Histories, Herodotus delimited the military and political history of the Greeks in part by discrimination from barbarian ‘others', and thus established the link between world history writing and actual and desired world order. Studies of the field, however, typically begin at a later point, with the emergence of the genre of ‘universal history'. ‘Universal history' has at least four meanings. First, it denotes a comprehensive and perhaps also unified history of the known world or universe; second, a history that illuminates truths, ideals or principles that are thought to belong to the whole world; third, a history of the world unified by the workings of a single mind; and fourth, a history of the world that has passed down through an unbroken line of transmission.[9]Universal history is thought to have emerged with the Greek writer Ephorus (405-330 bce) and the climate of cosmopolitanism engendered by the conquests of Alexander of Macedon. Raoul Mortley has also tried to demonstrate the influence of Aristotelian philosophy on the emergence of the genre, but the survival of less than 5 per cent of Hellenistic literature makes the formulation of general explanations difficult.[10] Additionally, it is not always clear whether extant histories might have been parts of universal histories: for example, commentators have argued that the Roman historian Arrian’s (c. 92-c. 180 ce) Anabasis Alexandri and Indica were originally united. Even Jose Miguel Alonso-Nunez’s more inclusive description of the first universal historians as those who dealt ‘with the history of humankind from the earliest times, and in all parts of the world known to them’ is problematic, because it masks the contribution of those - particularly women - who composed biographical catalogues.[11] While not spatio-temporally exhaustive, biographical catalogues were designed to illuminate universal social, moral or political principles.
Any history of the field must also take into account the rich traditions of Chinese and Islamic universal history writing, which date from at least the third century bce and the ninth century ce respectively. In China, Han historian Sima Qian (c. 145-90 bce) synthesised historical processes into an organic whole in his presentation of events, activities and biographies of emperors, officials and other important people, beginning with the semi- mythical first sage rulers of China. The Muslim historian Abu Ja’far al-Tabari (c. 839-923) began before the creation of Adam, and used Biblical, Greek, Roman, Persian and Byzantine sources to present history as a long and unbroken process of cultural transmission.
Ancient universal history writing flourished after campaigns of political expansion, the advent of standardised systems of chronology and the spread of monotheistic religions such as Christianity and Islam. Writers followed no single template, and, as a result, their works varied widely in scope, structure and world vision. In simple terms, there is no template for universal history. The adoption of a particular view of universal history could depend on a host of reasons, both intellectual and pragmatic. Polybius (c. 203-120 bce) and Diodorus of Sicily (c. 90-21 bcb), for instance, agreed that the truth of history was to be gleaned by treating it as a connected whole, but whereas Polybius' decision was based on an observation of the spread of Roman power, Diodorus assumed the existence of a universal human nature.
Variations were also evident across cultural and religious groups. For example, as viewed by Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 263-339 cb), St Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Paulus Orosius (fl. 414-17) and Bishop Otto of Freising (c. 1111-58), God's work in the world and the victory of Christianity was to be narrated through a seven-age framework that had been adapted from Jewish works like Josephus ben Matthias' Jewish Antiquities (93 cb). Islamic writers like Abu Ja'far al-Tabari also saw universal history as structured through successive ages and infused their accounts of events with predictions of future judgement.
The number of ages in their works, however, was more often three than seven. Furthermore, they derived their status as universal histories in part because of their construction out of isnads: unbroken chains of transmission. For many Islamic writers of the Abbasid dynasty (749/750-1258), universal history thus entailed both chronological and historiographical continuity. Exceptions, like Abu Al-husayn ‘ali ibn Al-husayn Al Ma'sudi's (c. 888-957) chronologically, philosophically and geographically arranged Muruj adh-dhahab wa ma'adin al-jawahir (The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems), were given a highly critical reception. Later writers eschewed isnads as a narrative and methodological intrusion and built upon Al Ma'su- di's approach. Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), for instance, combined philosophy, geography and social theory in his Kitab al-‘Ibar.Chronologically arranged universal histories were also produced in China, as Sima Guang's (1019-86) Zi Zhi TongJian (Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government) attests. However, it is the synchronic, encyclopaedic structure of official Chinese histories that most sets them apart from other historiographical traditions. The first four official histories - the Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian) begun by Sima Tan (d. c. 110 bcb) and completed by Sima Qian, the Hanshu (History of the Former Han Dynasty) by Ban Gu (32-92 cb), the Sanguozhi (History of the Three Kingdoms) by Chen Shou (d. 297 cb) and the Hou Hanshu (History of the Later Han) by Fan Ye (398-445 cb ) - established a four-part division of histories into imperial annals (benji), tables (biao), treatises (shu) and biographies or memoirs (juan or liezhaun). The first part documented major events in imperial families, the second month-to-month events for government offices, the third knowledge of an enormous range of activities and the fourth accounts of virtuous and infamous individuals and collective biographies. Though modified, this structure was employed in official histories right up to Qingshi gao (Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, 1928).[12]