<P> Historians write in the context of their own time, and with due regard to the current dominant ideas of how to interpret the past, and sometimes write to provide lessons for their own society . In the words of Benedetto Croce, "All history is contemporary history". History is facilitated by the formation of a "true discourse of past" through the production of narrative and analysis of past events relating to the human race . The modern discipline of history is dedicated to the institutional production of this discourse . </P> <P> All events that are remembered and preserved in some authentic form constitute the historical record . The task of historical discourse is to identify the sources which can most usefully contribute to the production of accurate accounts of past . Therefore, the constitution of the historian's archive is a result of circumscribing a more general archive by invalidating the usage of certain texts and documents (by falsifying their claims to represent the "true past"). </P> <P> The study of history has sometimes been classified as part of the humanities and at other times as part of the social sciences . It can also be seen as a bridge between those two broad areas, incorporating methodologies from both . Some individual historians strongly support one or the other classification . In the 20th century, French historian Fernand Braudel revolutionized the study of history, by using such outside disciplines as economics, anthropology, and geography in the study of global history . </P> <P> Traditionally, historians have recorded events of the past, either in writing or by passing on an oral tradition, and have attempted to answer historical questions through the study of written documents and oral accounts . From the beginning, historians have also used such sources as monuments, inscriptions, and pictures . 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 . But writing is the marker that separates history from what comes before . </P>

Chinese historians in the past generally viewed chinese history as