A historian is a person who studies, writes about, and interprets past events. Historians use documents, artifacts, and other evidence to understand how and why things happened.
From Greek “histōr,” meaning “learned or wise man,” related to “historia,” meaning “inquiry” or “account of past events.” Through Latin and French, it came to mean someone who researches and records history.
Historians don’t just collect facts; they argue about which facts matter and what stories they tell. Two historians can look at the same event and tell completely different versions, both supported by evidence. In that sense, history is as much about interpretation as it is about dates.
‘Historian’ itself is gender-neutral, but the profession has long been male-dominated, and women historians’ work was often marginalized or attributed less authority. Earlier language sometimes used ‘historian’ to implicitly mean male, with women labeled as ‘amateur’ or ‘popular’ writers.
Use ‘historian’ for people of any gender and avoid assuming a historian is male; when giving examples, include historians of diverse genders.
Explicitly name women and gender-diverse historians whose scholarship reshaped fields—such as women’s history, social history, and histories of marginalized groups—that were previously neglected.
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