What Is History?
E677210
"What Is History?" is a highly influential 1961 historiographical work by E. H. Carr that examines the nature of historical facts, objectivity, and the relationship between historians and the past.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| What Is History? canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T7617445 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: What Is History? Context triple: [E. H. Carr, notableWork, What Is History?]
-
A.
The Meaning of History
The Meaning of History is a philosophical work by Russian religious thinker Nicolas Berdyaev that explores the spiritual and existential significance of historical events and humanity’s destiny.
-
B.
The Writing of History
The Writing of History is a seminal work by Michel de Certeau that critically examines how historical narratives are constructed, emphasizing the interplay between power, discourse, and the practice of writing history.
-
C.
The Politics of History
The Politics of History is a critical work of historiography by Howard Zinn that challenges traditional narratives and argues for a politically engaged, socially conscious approach to writing and teaching history.
-
D.
The Concept of History
"The Concept of History" is a philosophical essay by Hannah Arendt that examines how modern understandings of history shape political thought, human action, and our sense of temporal experience.
-
E.
Not by Fact Alone: Essays on the Writing and Reading of History
Not by Fact Alone: Essays on the Writing and Reading of History is a collection of reflective essays by historian John Clive that explores how history is written, interpreted, and understood beyond mere factual narration.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: What Is History? Target entity description: "What Is History?" is a highly influential 1961 historiographical work by E. H. Carr that examines the nature of historical facts, objectivity, and the relationship between historians and the past.
-
A.
The Meaning of History
The Meaning of History is a philosophical work by Russian religious thinker Nicolas Berdyaev that explores the spiritual and existential significance of historical events and humanity’s destiny.
-
B.
The Writing of History
The Writing of History is a seminal work by Michel de Certeau that critically examines how historical narratives are constructed, emphasizing the interplay between power, discourse, and the practice of writing history.
-
C.
The Politics of History
The Politics of History is a critical work of historiography by Howard Zinn that challenges traditional narratives and argues for a politically engaged, socially conscious approach to writing and teaching history.
-
D.
The Concept of History
"The Concept of History" is a philosophical essay by Hannah Arendt that examines how modern understandings of history shape political thought, human action, and our sense of temporal experience.
-
E.
Not by Fact Alone: Essays on the Writing and Reading of History
Not by Fact Alone: Essays on the Writing and Reading of History is a collection of reflective essays by historian John Clive that explores how history is written, interpreted, and understood beyond mere factual narration.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
historiographical work ⓘ |
| academicDiscipline |
history
ⓘ
philosophy ⓘ |
| arguesAgainst | view of facts as independent of interpretation ⓘ |
| author | E. H. Carr NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| basedOn | George Macaulay Trevelyan Lectures NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| centralThesis |
complete objectivity in history is unattainable
ⓘ
historical facts are selected and interpreted by historians ⓘ history is a dialogue between the present and the past ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| criticized | positivist concept of historical facts ⓘ |
| firstPublicationFormat | book ⓘ |
| genre |
historiography
ⓘ
non-fiction ⓘ |
| hasEdition | second edition with new introduction ⓘ |
| hasISBN | 9780140135848 ⓘ |
| hasPart |
Chapter 1: The Historian and His Facts
ⓘ
Chapter 2: Society and the Individual ⓘ Chapter 3: History, Science and Morality ⓘ Chapter 4: Causation in History ⓘ Chapter 5: History as Progress ⓘ Chapter 6: The Widening Horizon ⓘ |
| hasReception | considered a classic of historiography ⓘ |
| influenced |
debates on historical objectivity
ⓘ
late 20th-century historiography ⓘ social history ⓘ |
| intendedAudience |
general educated readers
ⓘ
historians ⓘ students of history ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| lectureSeriesLocation | University of Cambridge NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| mediaType | print ⓘ |
| notableFor |
critique of empiricist views of history
ⓘ
emphasis on the historian’s role in constructing narratives ⓘ impact on history education ⓘ |
| proposes | history as a process of continuous reinterpretation ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1961 ⓘ |
| publisher | Macmillan Publishers NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| subjectMatter |
historical methodology
ⓘ
historiographical theory ⓘ nature of historical facts ⓘ objectivity in history ⓘ philosophy of history ⓘ relationship between historian and past ⓘ |
| timePeriodDiscussed |
19th century historiography
ⓘ
20th century historiography ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: What Is History? Description of subject: "What Is History?" is a highly influential 1961 historiographical work by E. H. Carr that examines the nature of historical facts, objectivity, and the relationship between historians and the past.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject surface form:
E. H. Carr