VIII. Answer the questions trying not to give a one-word answer, add some information to develop the idea:

1. What do theories of history try to explain?

2. Explain the difference between regarding history by ancient Greeks and Christian theology.

3. How do modern historians regard history?

4. Who argued that Western civilization is already doomed?

5. Why have most modern philosophers turned away from theories of history?

6. Where can we find the oldest written historical sources?

7. Can we consider the history of Herodotus a precise account of human events?

8. What ancient Roman historians do you know?

9. What were the most part of Medieval historians interested in?

10. What idea was introduced by Eusebius? How did Saint Augustine use it?

11. When did history become an academic field? Why?

12. Is it enough for historian to study only course of events?

IX. Give the summary of the text.

X. Render the text close to its original variant.

XI. Translate the following passage in written form; entitle it; put 5 questions (of different types):

The "father of history" has generally been acclaimed as Herodotus of Halicarnassus (484 BC – 425 BC). However, it is his contemporary Thucydides (ca. 460 BC – 400 BC) who is credited with having begun the scientific approach to history in his work the History of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides, unlike Herodotus and other historians, regarded history as being the product of the choices and actions of human beings, and looked at cause and effect, rather than as the result of divine intervention. In his historical method, Thucydides emphasized chronology, a neutral point of view, and that the human world was the result of the actions of human beings. Greek historians also viewed history as cyclical, with events regularly reoccurring.

Outside of Europe, there were historical traditions and sophisticated use of historical method in ancient and medieval China. The groundwork for professional historiography in East Asia was established by the Han Dynasty court historian known as Sima Qian (145–90 BC), author of the Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian). For the quality of his written work, Sima Qian is known as the “Father of Chinese Historiography”. Chinese historians of subsequent dynastic periods in China used his work as the official format for historical texts, as well as for biographical literature.

Saint Augustine was influential in Christian and Western thought at the beginning of the Medieval period. Through the Medieval and Renaissance periods, history was often studied through a sacred or religious perspective. Around 1800, German philosopher and historian George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel brought philosophy and a more secular approach in historical study.

In the preface to his book the Muqaddimah, historian and early sociologist Ibn Khaldun warned of seven mistakes that he thought that historians regularly committed. In this criticism, he approached the past as strange and in need of interpretation. The originality of Ibn Khaldun was to claim that the cultural difference of another age must govern the evaluation of relevant historical material, to distinguish the principles according to which it might be possible to attempt the evaluation, and lastly, to feel the need for experience, in addition to rational principles, in order to assess a culture of the past.

Other historians of note who have advanced the historical methods of study include Leopold von Ranke, Lewis Bernstein Namier, Geoffrey Rudolph Elton, and Edward Gibbon. In the 20th century, historians focused less on nationalistic narratives, which often tended to glorify the nation or individuals, to more realistic chronologies. French historians introduced quantitative history, using broad data to track the lives of typical individuals, and were prominent in the establishment of cultural history. American historians, motivated by the civil rights era, focused on formerly overlooked ethnic, racial, and socio-economic groups. In recent years, postmodernists have challenged the validity and need for the study of history on the basis that all history is based on the personal interpretation of sources.