Editing Essentialism (section)

== In historiography ==
Essentialism in history as a field of study entails discerning and listing essential cultural characteristics of a particular nation or culture, in the belief that a people or culture can be understood in this way. Sometimes such essentialism leads to claims of a praiseworthy national or cultural identity, or to its opposite, the condemnation of a culture based on presumed essential characteristics. [[Herodotus]], for example, claims that Egyptian culture is essentially feminized and possesses a "softness" which has made Egypt easy to conquer.<ref>DeLapp 177.</ref> To what extent Herodotus was an essentialist is a matter of debate; he is also credited with not essentializing the concept of the Athenian identity,<ref>Lape 149-52.</ref> or differences between the Greeks and the Persians that are the subject of his ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]]''.<ref>Gruen 39.</ref>

Essentialism had been operative in [[colonialism]], as well as in critiques of colonialism. [[Post-colonial]] theorists, such as [[Edward Said]], insisted that essentialism was the "defining mode" of "Western" historiography and ethnography until the nineteenth century and even after, according to [[Touraj Atabaki]], manifesting itself in the historiography of the Middle East and Central Asia as [[Eurocentrism]], over-generalization, and [[reductionism]].<ref>Atabaki 6-7.</ref> Into the 21st century, most historians, social scientists, and humanists reject methodologies associated with essentialism,<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Phillips|first=Anne|date=1 March 2011|title=What's wrong with essentialism?|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1600910X.2010.9672755|journal=Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory|volume=11|issue=1|pages=47–60|doi=10.1080/1600910X.2010.9672755|s2cid=145373912}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=Cody|first=Lisa Forman|date=1 December 2015|title=Essentialism in Context|work=Perspectives on History|url=https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/december-2015/essentialism-in-context}}</ref> although some have argued that certain varieties of essentialism may be useful or even necessary.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Sayer|first=Andrew|date=1 August 1997|title=Essentialism, Social Constructionism, and beyond|url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-954X.00073?journalCode=sora|journal=The Sociological Review|volume=45|issue=3|pages=453–487|doi=10.1111/1467-954X.00073|s2cid=145731202}}</ref> [[Karl Popper]] splits the ambiguous term ''[[Philosophical realism|realism]]'' into ''essentialism'' and ''realism''. He uses ''essentialism'' whenever he means the opposite of [[nominalism]], and ''realism'' only as opposed to [[idealism]]. Popper himself is a realist as opposed to an idealist, but a methodological nominalist as opposed to an essentialist. For example, statements like "a puppy is a young dog" should be read from right to left as an answer to "What shall we call a young dog", never from left to right as an answer to "What is a puppy?"<ref>''The Open Society and its Enemies'', passim.</ref>