Introduction to History
"When you deal with the past, you're dealing with history, you're dealing actually with the origin of a thing. When you know the origin, you know the cause. It's impossible for you and me to have a balanced mind in this society without going into the past,...Malcolm X (1965).
The word history comes from a Greek word historia which means to research or to ask for the truth. Many learned people have given history different definitions but generally, most of them agree that history is the study of the past events in relationship with man and his surroundings. History is strictly a liberal science which studies past events in order to understand present situations and predict with some degree of accuracy, what will take place in future. Therefore in history we have the past, the present and the future.
In most cases, the events which make up history are usually connected with the family, village, tribe and nations. It is important to note that history is made everyday. Whatever you have read and seen in the newspaper, television or heard on radio today becomes history tomorrow. We can therefore conclude according to Dr. Clarke that,
history is a clock people use to tell their historical culture and political time of the day. It is a compass that people use to find themselves on the map of human geography. The history tells them where they have been, where they are and what they are. But most importantly history tells a people where still they must go and they still must be.[1]
Although history and a story are quite related, they are different because a story broadly speaking is an account of past events which can either be true or imaginary. But history should be a true story. There are some of our people who say that what we study as history today is more of his story i.e. the story of the white man and what he did in Africa. That it is therefore not our story. This still raises questions for us. The European researchers wrote about Africa with their own interests hence portraying Africa as a dark continent as if they came at night and went back at hours of darkness to report that Africa was actually dark.
History is as old as man because for ages man has been making it. We learn about civilisation in different areas, the political, economic and social organisation of societies during pre-colonial, colonial and post colonial periods. History also looks at the great leaders who ruled the societies in different areas.
[1] Dr. Henrik Clarke, the Pan Africanist (1970)
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A Complete East African History ebook