The Meaning of History

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A different meaning has the word “historiography”, often confused with history by non expert historians. Historiography is the history of history, or, broadly speaking, historiography examines the writing of history and the use of historical methods. As the tools of historical investigation have changed over time and space, the term itself bears multiple meanings and is not readily associated with a single all-encompassing definition.

For that reason, There are three basic issues involved in historiography:

- the study of the development of history as an academic discipline over time, as well as its development in different cultures and moments;
- the study of the academic tools, methods and approaches that have been and are being used, by historians;
- a specific body of historical writing that was written during a specific time concerning a specific issue. For instance, a statement about "Contemporary historiography" refers to some issue in the academic discipline of Contemporary History, and not to the actual history of the Contemporary epoch or to historical works written in this time.

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