Political history has enjoyed a superior position in the academic discipline of history.

Political history is the recoding of the past that concerns the former organization of control in society. It states the events that transpired under their rule, the policies they implemented or dissolved, how they came to hold the position of power and how were they ousted out of power. Its dominance is this discipline over other faucets of history owes to a number of factors. These factors are, the zeal to quenched ones thirst in this area, the number of sources available the mere fact that politics is incorporated into our society and the perception that only scholars would write and study political history. Before many historians believe that political history is in fact history itself and that past events that was political nature was the only variant of history that existed and was deemed important to record up until the nineteenth century. There were many renounced historians who echoed the same sentiments in having the perception that history is past politics. Some of these historians were Edward Augustus Freeman and Sir John Seeley who was an English essayist and historian. Political history is regarded as traditional history and, while it is not inherently superior to other genres of history such as social, economic and womens history to name a few, it enjoys a superior position in comparison to the others. Womens history is the study of women in the roles they played in the past years and historic events. Social history is also referred to as new social history; it is the study of plight and actions of society or masses in the past. Economic history is the study of the economic aspects of

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societies in the past; the history of the economic use of resources land, labour and capital; or the examination of the past performance of economies.1 Political history has been a branch of history that has been accredited very highly as compared to other variants of history such as economic history, social history and womens history just to name a few. Political history was deemed the only history that was worth learning and that it as the aspect of the disciple that was beneficial. People are naturally intrigued by individuals who once held the power to rule a country. Individuals seem to be keen in learning the rise of fall on people in power and how they impacted on society in their time. As time elapsed it brought to historians attention that all variants of history are inter- related in some way. An instance of this inter connection is that there are aspects of economic history that are found in political history, the policies enforced by the people in power that affects the money flow in and out of the country. With political history individuals can get an insight on the lives of past and influential leaders which can assist either just genuinely satisfy their interest in finding out more about politics in the past or aid them in providing potential or current leaders guidelines on what avenue is most effective in creating a prosperous country. Politics have always exerted some impact on peoples everyday lives because a society functions under the rule of the most able and qualified individuals. Society its self cannot run a country owing to the fact that it takes dedication and the vast knowledge to run the affairs of the country. And the decisions that a country operates on stems of the government, therefore, the dominance of political history is inevitable.

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Political history has been the variant of history that existed since the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. long before social, economic and womens history. These other variants of history did not prove to be important because of who or what the history was centred around. Social history for example was not deemed relevant since it focused on the masses of a society, that is the individuals who make up a country, and they were not seen as important in society as compared to the rulers of people who held positions of power in a country. As a result of this past mind-set political history enjoys a dominant position among the other variants of history because historians down through the ages have maintained the tradition of studying the events of the parts related to political, constitutional and diplomatic issues, which fostered the longevity of political history as compared to other variants of history. As a result individuals would become naturally attracted to this variant of history since it has been highly accredited and it would give the reader a sense of excitement to learn the same things that powerful men of the past once learnt, because potential rulers would have to be educated on political history since it was seen as a crucial building block towards a great leader since they would be knowledgeable about certain polices, constitutions and successful and failed tactics of laws which would aid them in ruling successfully. Also learning about once powerful men would prove to be intriguing since there would be information about military and warfare tactics, and also change and continuity to what laws that were passed successfully and are still present and what laws changed in accordance to pressures of society. Even though there are other variants of history emerging and that they are trying to elevate their position in history, such as womens history which is fairly new and has not been given the same level of credit as political history because many view it as not being as important.

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Political history is the dominant facet than other variants of history because there is a vast number of sources available pertaining to this aspect. Since the documentation of the lives and the workings of people in power have been meticulous recorded and preserved it is not shocking at the availability of quantity of sources available for an individual to educate himself. The recoding of new laws or proclamations were religiously recorded since it was deemed important to have an account of past politics, so that future government can follow procedure and know what proved to be a success or failure and see the achievements of past rulers or politicians. Along with the vast documentation on a regular basis that allows political history to have so many sources, there is also the fact of the well preservation of these documents. Many of the ruling individuals or ruling classes would have been people of wealthy backgrounds and owing to their high finances they were able to afford the best quality and grade of ink and paper which aided in the preservation of political documents. . They would also have the luxury of having their documents stored in munificant rooms which with guarantee their survival. Many of these documents were not recorded for only certain individuals to see, it was intended for public circulation, some in the form of proclamations which had numerous copies to ensure that everyone got the message, and with the issuance of copies to the public it ensured that these documents of a political nature were preserved. Unlike social and womens history which was not recorded as sufficient as political history since it was not seen as important and as a result not much emphasis was placed on the documentation of the events or plights that transpired out of the masses or women in the past.

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In todays society we live in a more democratic state and society are open to voice their opinions and concerns about the people in power of them. As defined in the Social contract by French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau asserted that people enter into a binding agreement among themselves and that it is their responsibility to establish a system of government. According to Rousseau, people "have a duty to obey only legitimate powers," meaning that only the people can decide who governs them.2 As a result of these new powers and interest people are interested in the political affairs of their society, because the decisions made by the government affects their everyday lives and owing to this they would be more interested the politics and ever before since it is a part of their lives, incorporated into society. This can also be said for social history, since the opinions and plights of the society are more emphasised than in the past, but it must be noted that the plights of the masses are supposed to be rectified by the government which is political in nature, hence womens, social and political history are meshed together. Evidently once there is a democratic society there would be the prevalence and emphasis on political history. Up until the first half of the nineteenth century, it was believed that historians who were involved in the works of political history were considered to be superior in knowledge. The association was that only scholars wrote and read political history. As a result historians who dabbled in the other variants of history were perceived to be not up to par as political historians. They were frowned upon and were not considered worthy of their discipline all because of their specialized area of study. This is because it was believed that this aspect of the discipline of history was complex and intricate to learn owing to the numerous of legal matters and policies. So forth if

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one was to be taken seriously as a historian and to be considered as a highly respectable and intelligent individual. All of these factor such as the zeal to quenched ones thirst in this area, the number of sources available the mere fact that politics is incorporated into our society and the perception that only scholars would write and study political history contribute the dominance of political history as compared to other variants of history such as economic, social and womens history. Another reason why political history is dominant that other variants of history is because it gives attention to real people in real circumstances. In comparison to economic history, this can undergo changes but does so at a slow pace unlike political history. Political history is also said to be the history of the elites, males, people in powerful positions and the military which by definition intrigues an individual to learn more about these people which would continue to foster political history dominance. Many can argue it could be because these other aspects are fairly new to be considered reputable enough as political history. One can see that from the past and now the present political history has a superior position in the discipline of history and in accordance to societys beliefs and perceptions it may or may not continue to be the dominant variant of history.

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