ABSTRACT
Our word ‘history’ comes from the Greek, from the Ionian word histori , formed on the Indo-European root *wid-, meaning ‘see’ and in the perfect, ‘knowledge from sight’. The origins of history in the West lie in the taste for enquiry which expressed itself in every sphere in Ionia at the end of the sixth century (and was still inspiring the activities of Aristotle and the Lyceum at the end of the fourth century). Thus it has its source in the same curiosity as early science.
