Anthropology Vs History
Anthropology, by mere definition, is the study of human beings. On the contrary, history is the study of history, period! Basically, studying history is learning about the past of human civilizations. Everything that has occurred in the past is history and every event that is bound to happen will eventually become a part of it. This includes the oral and written accounts of history, although there is more emphasis with written records.
History is definitely broader than anthropology. The latter can be part of history because in actuality anthropology is indeed a sub component of history. Viewing history itself won’t make you focus into much detail about man’s culture as opposed to how specific anthropology can be when it comes to studying man’s religion, shared myths, and even folklores. History will not go into that much detail. However, you cannot avoid studying anthropology when you delve into history because you will eventually bump into anthropology when you deal with the study of past events.
The one who studies history or writes something about a piece of history is called a historian whereas the one who studies anthropology is called an anthropologist.
In an objective manner, the study of history involves finding out the cause and effect of certain events. In anthropology it is only about defining an entity, for example what defines humans and who are their ancestors? In the anthropologist’s view, answering such a question will only lead to more questions on how the answer will affect the trait, behavior and associations of human beings. Thus, anthropology is specific to studying human beings alone across all periods of time.
Overall, the general goal of history is to know what have happened including all events that involved the humans. Conversely, anthropology has only one central goal and that is holism. It envisions a holistic view of what humans are and what human nature really is.
Summary :
1.History is the study of ‘history’ whereas anthropology studies about most facets of human beings.
2.History has a broader scope compared to anthropology.
3.The one who helps in writing accounts about history is a historian whereas the one who studies about anthropology is called an anthropologist.
4.History seeks to discover the answers of the cause and effects of certain events whereas anthropology primarily deals with homo sapiens (the humans).
5.The key objective of history is to know and understand the past whereas anthropology is geared towards discovering the true nature of human beings.