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Although the broad discipline of history has often been classified under either the humanities or the social sciences[3], and can be seen as a bridge between them, incorporating methodologies from both fields of study, Ritter places history in the humanities, and asserts that it is not a science.[4] In the 20th century the study of History has been revolutionized by French historian Fernand Braudel, by considering the effects of such outside disciplines as economics, anthropology, and geography on global history. Traditionally, historians have attempted to answer historical questions through the study of written documents, although historical research is not limited merely to these sources. In general, the sources of historical knowledge can be separated into three categories: what is written, what is said, and what is physically preserved, and historians often consult all three. [5] Historians frequently emphasize the importance of written records, which universally date to the development of writing. This emphasis has led to the term prehistory[6], referring to a time before written sources are available. Since writing emerged at different times throughout the world, the distinction between prehistory and history is often dependent on the topic.
The scope of the human past has naturally led scholars to divide that time into manageable pieces for study. There are a variety of ways in which the past can be divided, including chronologically, culturally, and topically. These three divisions are not mutually exclusive, and significant overlaps are often present, as in "The Argentine Labor Movement in an Age of Transition, 1930–1945." It is possible for historians to concern themselves with both very specific and very general locations, times, and topics, although the trend has been toward specialization. For others, history has become a "general" term meaning the study of "everything" that is known about the human past, but even this barrier has been challenged by new fields such as Big History. Traditionally, history has been studied with some practical or theoretical aim, but now it is also studied simply out of intellectual curiosity.[7]