Why is the study of history is the effort to reconstruct the past to discover how people lived?

Question

Why is the study of history is the effort to reconstruct the past to discover how people lived?

Answer 1

It's not. That's what archeology is for.

History is a study of the past....but, its past events. The events, and the people involved in them, that shaped the society in which they lived. It is the current generations way to understand....it does not concern itself with the way people lived except in how their lives were affected by the events surrounding them. How many farmers, as opposed to how many rich, and how the people in power shaped the rules that everyone lived under, how they affected those who were poorer, who were richer, so to speak. Great events that shaped the world in which people lived...like the Punic wars, WW I & II.....that is history.

How they built their houses, what they ate and drank, what gods/goddesses they worshipped, how their religion affected their daily lives, how they wrote, how they counted...that may be touched upon in history, but it is the realm of the archaeologist to study.