Theodor Mommsen, A Historian, Awarded the Nobel Prize in 1902 subtantiated with a video.

Please watch the video in which the script is used as a voice-over.

The Script of the Over-Voice

Theodor Mommsen was a historian awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1902.

The Nobel Prize motivation reads, “the greatest living master of the art of historical writing, with special reference to his monumental work, A history of Rome”.

The nomination was made by 18 Prussian Academy of Sciences members in Berlin, Germany.

In short, He was a historian whom the Nobel Foundation awarded a Nobel Prize. 

Acknowledgement

As an acknowledgement, the content is developed based on the information provided on the Nobel Prize website. 

The citation:

Theodor Mommsen – Facts. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach 2025. Sat. 1 Mar 2025. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1902/mommsen/facts/

The Relevance of the content of this video

At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a crisis situation for some of the university-level departments in the Western world. It was related to the funding of the departments. The departments of General Sciences were receiving liberal funding from the corporate world. The social sciences departments struggled to obtain the funding the governments provided. In addition to that and parallel to it, a debate had also started about the utility of many departments. Questions were being raised on the value they provide to humanity in the field of knowledge. The achievements of the General Sciences and applied sciences were gaining in number and overshadowing the contribution of other departments, especially in the field of social sciences, which apparently provided philosophical solutions that did not have much value in the day-to-day struggle to earn a living. 

Lord Acton called the nineteenth century a century of history. The general public was not much impressed. J B Bury called History a science, nothing less and nothing more, in 1909. The General Sciences experts were unconvinced and questioned their scientific research methodology. A. F. Pollard gave numerous lectures on the importance of history in the field of knowledge and published a book titled “Factor in Modern History” in 1907. During such a churning of the intellectual world, a historian was awarded the Nobel Prize. This has made me produce and present it here. 

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