List of historians
This is a list of historians.
The names are grouped by order of the historical period in which they were writing, which is not necessarily the same as the period in which they specialised.
Chroniclers and annalists, though they are not historians in the true sense, are also listed here for convenience.
See also: List of historians by area of study, List of historians of the French Revolution
Ancient historians
- Dio Cassius, Roman history
- Gaius Acilius, Roman history
- Lucius Ampelius, Roman history
- Herodotus, (485- c.420 BC), Halicarnassian "Father of History"
- Thucydides, (c.460-400 BC), Peloponnesian War
- Xenophon, (431-c.360 BC), an Athenian knight and student of Socrates
- Polybius, (c.203-120 BC)
- Julius Caesar, (c.100-44 BC), Gallic and civil wars
- Flavius Josephus, (37-100), Jewish history
- Kalhana
- Sima Qian, (c.140 BC), Chinese history
- Livy, (c.59 BC-17 AD), Roman history
- Cremutius Cordus
- Sallust, (86-34 BC)
- Plutarch, (c. 46-120 AD)
- Gaius Cornelius Tacitus, (56-120), early Roman Empire
- Suetonius, (75-160)
- Eusebius of Caesarea, Christian history
- Ammianus Marcellinus, (c.325-c.391)
- Arrian
Medieval historians/chroniclers
- Jordanes, (6th century), Goths
- Procopius, (died c. 565), Byzantines
- Gregory of Tours, (538-594), Franks
- Bede, (c. 632-735), Anglo-Saxons
- Nennius
- Geoffrey of Monmouth, churchman/historian
- Albert of Aix, historian of the first crusade
- Michael Psellus the Younger, (1018 - c. 1078)
- Sima Guang (1019-1086), historiographer and politician
- Guibert of Nogent (1053-1124)
- William of Malmesbury (c. 1080 - c. 1143)
- Anna Comnena (1083 - after 1148)
- Adam of Bremen
- Saxo Grammaticus, (12th century), Danish
- Svend Aagesen, (12th century), Danish
- William of Tyre (c. 1128 - 1186)
- Giraldus Cambrensis (c.1146- c.1223)
- Ambrose the poet (fl. 1190)
- Geoffroi de Villehardouin, (c. 1160-1212)
- Nicetas Choniates (died c. 1220)
- Matthew Paris, (died 1259)
- Jean de Joinville, (1224-1319)
- ibn Khaldun
- Piers Langtoft, (died c. 1307)
- Jean Froissart, (c.1337 - c.1405), chronicler
- Alphonsus A Sancta Maria, (1396-1456)
- Johannes Longinus, Polish historian and chronicler
- Philippe de Commines, French historian
- Christine de Pizan, (c.1365-c.1430), historian, poet, philosopher
- Albert Krantz, (1450-1517)
- Polydore Vergil (c.1470-1555), Tudor history
- João de Barros (1496-1570)
- Josias Simmler, (1530-1576)
- Raphael Holinshed, (died c. 1580)
- Caesar Baronius, (1538-1607)
- John Hayward, (1564-1627)
Early modern historians (1600-1900)
- Ludovico Antonio Muratori, (1672-1750), Italy
- Edward Gibbon, (1737-1794), Roman Empire
- Johannes von Müller, (1752-1809)
- Anton Tomaz Linhart, (1756-1795)
- George Grote, (1794-1871), classical Greece
- Leopold Von Ranke, (1795-1886), German
- William H. Prescott, (1796-1859), US historian of Spain, Mexico, Peru
- Jules Michelet, (1798-1874)
- Ludwig von Köchel, (1800-1877), writer, composer, botanist, music historian
- Theodor Mommsen, (1817-1903), Roman Empire
- Jacob Burckhardt, (1818-1897), art history
- Zacharius Topelius, (1818-1898)
- Henry Adams, (1838-1918), Democracy: An American Novel
- Arnold Toynbee, (1852-1883), British
- Henri Pirenne, (1862-1935), Belgian
- Alfred Thayer Mahan, (1840-1914), naval history
- Frederick W. Maitland, (1850-1906), legal history
- Simon Rutar, (1851-1903)
- Piers Mackesy, (1775-1890), British and US military history
Modern historians (after 1900)
- Robert G. Albion, maritime history
- Gar Alperovitz
- Stephen Ambrose, (1936-2002), US history
- Isaiah Berlin, (1909-1997) - history of ideas
- Marc Bloch (1886-1944) - medieval France
- John Boswell, (1947-1994) - mediævalist and gay history
- Ferdinand Braudel
- Robin Briggs
- Peter Brown
- Alan Bullock
- Jeffrey Burton Russell
- Angus Calder - Great Britain
- Lionel Casson
- Howard I. Chapelle - maritime history
- Robert Conquest, Russia, Soviet Union
- David B. Danbom
- Saul David - military history
- John Davies
- Norman Davies
- Robert Divine, diplomatic history
- Georges Duby, (1924-1996), Middle Ages
- Trevor Dupuy
- C. J. Everon, (born 1971)
- Ronan Fanning, Irish historian
- Brian Farrell, politics
- Lucien Febvre, (1878-1956), French historian
- Joachim Fest, (born 1926), Nazi Germany
- Orlando Figes, Russia
- Walter Frank, (1905-1945), Nazi historian and anti-Semitic writer
- Antonia Fraser, England
- Sheppard Frere
- Bruno Fuligni
- Francis Fukuyama, (born 1955)
- John Lewis Gaddis, diplomatic history
- Pieter Geyl, Dutch historian
- Martin Gilbert
- Peter Green - ancient history
- Lionel Groulx, (1878-1967), priest, historian
- Denys Hay (1915-1994), medieval and Renaissance Europe
- Christopher Hill, (1912-2003), 17th century England
- Eric Hobsbawm, British historian
- Richard Holmes
- Michael Howard
- Johan Huizinga, Dutch historian, wrote 'Waning of the Middle Ages'
- Tristram Hunt, (born 1974)
- Jonathan Israel, British historian
- Pawel Jasienica, (1909-1970), Poland
- Gwyn Jones, medieval history
- John Keegan - military history
- George F. Kennan - US-Soviet relations
- Paul Kennedy
- France Kidric, (1880-1950), literary history
- Michael Laffan - Irish historian
- David Lavender, (1910-2003), US West
- Melvyn Leffler, modern international relations
- Barbara Levick, English; specialising in Roman emperors
- Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie
- Li Ao, (born 1935), Chinese historian, author
- John Edward Lloyd
- Sr. Margaret MacCurtain, Irish mediævalist
- Charles B. MacDonald - World War II
- Rosamond McKitterick
- Ramsay MacMullen
- Magnus Magnusson, Norse
- Charles Maier
- Tyrone G. Martin, USS Constitution
- Rev. F.X. Martin - Irish mediævalist and campaigner
- William McNeill
- Kenneth O Morgan
- Samuel Eliot Morison - naval history
- Lewis Mumford, (1895-1988)
- Leo Niehorster, military history
- Henry Newbolt, (1862-1938)
- Frank Ninkovich
- Thomas Paterson
- Peter Paret - military history
- Amos Perlmutter
- Harry W. Pfanz - American Civil War
- Richard Pipes - Russia, Soviet Union
- Eileen Power - Middle Ages
- Ivan Prijatelj, (1875-1937), literary history
- Ludwig Quidde, (1858-1941), historian and pacifist
- William L. Rodgers
- Alex Roland, history of technology
- Theodore Roosevelt, War of 1812, frontier
- Sheila Rowbotham
- A L Rowse, (1903-1997)
- Steven Runciman - Crusades
- Cornelius Ryan - World War II
- Norman Saul
- Michael Schaller
- Simon Schama
- Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
- Howard Hayes Scullard (1903-1983), ancient history
- Robert Service
- Kenneth Setton - Crusades
- Michael Sherry
- Goldwin Smith, (1823-1910), historian
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, (born 1918), Russian historian and novelist
- Jackson J. Spielvogel, Pennsylvania State University
- David Starkey, (born 1945), Tudor historian and TV presenter
- Frank Stenton, Anglo-Saxon historian
- Ronald Syme, (1903-1989), ancient history
- A J P Taylor, (1906-1990), Historian of European International Relations
- Hugh Thomas, Spanish Civil War
- E. P. Thompson, (1924-1993), British Labour historian
- Arnold J. Toynbee, (1889-1975), A Study of History
- George Macaulay Trevelyan
- Hugh Trevor-Roper, (1914-2003), specialist on Nazi leadership and British peer
- Robert C. Tucker, Stalin
- Frederick Jackson Turner, (1861-1932), US historian developed the Frontier Thesis
- Retha M Warnicke, (born 1939), Tudor history & gender issues
- Cicely Veronica Wedgwood, (1910-1997)
- Russell Weigley - military history
- John Whyte - focused on Northern Ireland and on divided societies
- Eric Williams, (1911-1981), Caribbean historian, strongly anti-imperialist
- Glanmor Williams
- Mary Wilhelmine Williams
- John B. Wolf, French history
- Michael Wood
- C. Vann Woodward, (1908-1999), southern United States
- Howard Zinn
Unsorted
- Pierre Vidal-Naquet, historian and Civil Rights activist
- Henri Raymond Casgrain, priest, author, historian
- Peter Englund, Swedish historian
- Justo Gonzalez, historian and theologian
- Claude Mossé, (Ms), historian
- Albert Soboul, historian
- Jean-Pierre Vernant, historian
- Pierre Vilar, historian
See also: List of Canadian historians, Lists of authors