History and Other Inter-disciplinary Approach

History is not just about history. In fact, history cannot stand alone that it cannot ignore the other disciplines in social sciences. Anthropology, sociology, psychology, literature, philosophy, economics etc. are some of the discipline the augment and enrich history as a discipline. History, in return, also augment these disciplines to further enrich and better understand social sciences.

Historians are finding out the great usefulness of a multi-disciplinary approach in historical writing. Other social sciences such as political science, economics, linguistics and literature are among the major contributing disciplines that contribute to the richness of history. You could imagine a historian writing history without even understanding the language of the people. This will be a fatal mistake for how can someone write a credible and authentic history ignoring this factor.

But how exactly can other social sciences contribute in history and vice-versa? For example, anthropology can fill in the gaps in the pre-historic studies of history thru the fossils and remains of the early people as they march in history. Political science can give history a good insight in the rise and fall of governance and politics. Literature can inspire a historian to write it down with solid and rigid frameworks of a literary writing. Psychology can give a historian a clear analysis the factors why such things happened in the first place thru the actions of a person. These lists are some of the few contributing social sciences to history on how they benefit from each other and further develop the inter-disciplinary approach in history.