historiographer

Historiographer is a person who writes about history, or, more broadly, a scholar who studies or compiles histories. The term derives from the Greek historia, "inquiry, knowledge obtained by investigation," combined with graphein, "to write." In classical usage, a historiographer could be a chronicler who records events in a chronological narrative, sometimes in an official capacity. In modern scholarship, the word is often used to distinguish someone who writes history from a historian who also engages with theory and method; more commonly, historians are described as such, while historiography refers to the study of how history is written and how historical explanations are constructed.

A historiographer gathers sources, evaluates evidence, and situates events within broader social, political, and cultural contexts. They must assess bias, gaps in the record, and the influence of perspective on interpretation. The work can take the form of narrative histories, monographs, or scholarly essays, and it may contribute to historiography by analyzing prevailing methods, sources, and assumptions. Notable historical figures often associated with the term include ancient Greek authors such as Herodotus and Thucydides, medieval chroniclers, and later scholars whose work shaped the discipline’s methods, such as Leopold von Ranke, who emphasized primary sources and empirical narrative.

Today, historiographers are found in universities, archives, and literary circles, and the term is frequently used in discussions of historiography—the study of how history is written and how historical knowledge is produced.