• _Intellectual history* _ refers to the history of the people who create, discuss, write about and in other ways propagate ideas. Although the field emerged from European discourses of Kulturgeschichte and Geistesgeschichte, the historical study of ideas has engaged not only western intellectual traditions, including, but not limited to, those in the far east, near east, mid-east and Africa.

Intellectual history is closely related to the history of philosophy and the history of ideas. Its central perspective suggests that ideas do not change in isolation from the people who create and use them and that one must study the culture, lives and environments of people to understand their notions and ideas. This is also frought with the sentiment of hostility towards, or mistrust of, intellectuals and intellectual pursuits known as anti-intellectualism. This may be expressed in various ways, such as attacks on the merits of science, education, or literature.

• intellectual history - Europe and the West
  • An intellectual is one who tries to use his or her intellect to work, study, reflect, speculate on, or ask and answer questions with regard to a variety of different ideas. There are, broadly, three modern definitions at work in discussions about intellectuals. First, 'intellectuals' as those deeply involved in ideas, books, the life of the mind. Second, 'intellectuals' as a recognizable occupational class consisting of lecturers, professors, lawyers, doctors, scientist, etcetera. Third, cultural "intellectuals" are those of notable expertise in culture and the arts, expertise which allows them some cultural authority, and who then use that authority to speak in public on other matters.
• intellectual history - Asia and the Far East
  • Central to development of intellectual history has been the birth of scholarship in ancient China, the creation of Confucianism with its extensive exegesis of the texts of Confucius, and the active part of scholars in governments. In Korea, the yangban scholar movement drove the development of Korean intellectual history from the late Goryeo to the golden age of intellectual achievement in the Joseon dynasty.
• intellectual history - Africa and the Middle East
  • In the Near East, Islam and modernity encompass the relation and compatibility between the phenomenon of modernity, its related concepts and ideas, and the religion of Islam. In order to understand the relation between Islam and modernity, one point should be made in the beginning. Both Islam and modernity are not simple and unified entities. They are abstract quantities which could not be reduced into simple categories. The history of Islam, like that of other religions, is a history of different interpretations and approaches to Islam. "There is no a-historical Islam that is outside the process of historical development." Similarly, modernity is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon rather than a unified and coherent phenomenon. It has historically had different schools of thoughts moving in many directions.
• intellectual history - Prominent Individuals
• intellectual history - See also
  • • Access to Knowledge movement
• intellectual history - References
  • ;General information
• intellectual history - External links
  • • • intellectual history - External links - Resources
        • • Dictionary of the History of Ideas (Courtesy of the University of Virginia)
• intellectual history - Related topics