score:50
SHORT ANSWER
There is no easy, short answer here, but here are some key points:
DETAILS
Record keeping is as old as or older than writing itself; the earliest evidence we have of writing suggests that it was used to keep records. Some ancient writers (e.g. Herodotus, Polybius, Xenophon, Sun Tzu) clearly intended to educate and instruct both their own and future generations, and the copying of their works through the ages shows that some people at least saw value in preserving them.
Also, where you have bureaucrats you have records, and bureaucrats have been around for a very long time (see, for example, China). Much of what they recorded was fairly mundane so our 'mania' for keeping detailed records is certainly nothing new, though many of these 'mundane' records have survived more by chance or accident than by design.
The keeping of records is very much tied up with the development of the state (and its accompanying bureaucracy), which in turn both necessitates and facilitates the keeping of records. The states of today generally have far greater resources and needs for keeping and maintaining records than they did a couple of centuries ago. This is one possible point which "inspired this change in mindset", but keep in mind that there have probably always been people who sought to preserve for future generations (if only through family inheritance at first), and there will always be people who see no value in preserving something (or who set out to purposefully destroy, e.g. the Taliban's destruction of the Buddhas of Bamyan).
Although there is evidence of many 'mundane' records being stored, how long the creators intended them to be kept is hard to say. The most likely answer is 'for as long as they thought them useful'. Perceptions of usefulness, and thus the desire to record, catalog and preserve, can change very quickly. For example, as recently as the 1950s, many saw little point in preserving for future generations old films or TV shows; although they were sometimes stored, it was usually in a haphazard manner with little regard for preservation. Hence the destruction during WWI of most of the films of Georges Méliès (a collection which would now be priceless) and the loss of early BBC TV shows from the mid 1950s such as some of the classic Hanc**k's Half Hour - the tapes were simply wiped so they could used again. Thus, there are clear examples of both meticulous record-keeping and of non-preservation from both ancient and modern times.
A key depository of records is the archive, the existence and maintenance of which is greatly facilitated by the existence of a stable, prosperous state. Archives date back to early ancient history, and they existed in ancient Greece and Rome. However,
These archives were all destroyed during the Great Invasions of the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries A.D...
Source: Michel Duchein, 'The History of European Archives and the Development of the Archival Profession in Europe'. In 'The American Archivist Vol. 55, No. 1' (1992)
Later, though,
European archives began to revive only in the eleventh and twelfth centuries when a new political and religious organization of the continent gradually emerged from the chaos....All the new monarchies (German, French, English, and later Spanish), the great feudal powers, the Church, and the towns organized their own records-keeping independently so that little by little local or national traditions and methods were created, giving birth in modern times to the various archival systems which now exist.
Source: Duchein
The above, of course, only applies to Europe; the extent of record keeping has varied greatly throughout history in different regions.
Knowledge and technology are also key factors. Knowledge may bring realisation of the importance of preserving something, while technology helps us to achieve the exploitation and preservation of a record.
Below are a few examples of record keeping or instruction materials for posterity from Europe and Asia for you to explore further:
In Sumeria, Cuneiform was used to keep records of everyday transactions. From circa. 3500 BC, "clay tokens were used to record specific amounts of livestock or commodities." The article The Evolution of Writing has much more on Sumerian record-keeping.
The Ancient Egyptians kept records and had histories. The freely available article Ancient Egypt: The Development of Record Keeping in the “Old Kingdom” has details.
From at least 1450 BC the Linear B script was used by the Mycenaeans to record wool, sheep and grain disburs*m*nts by cities, among other things. Some of these records on clay tablets were stored on shelves.
There are many examples from ancient China and the Hundred Schools of Thought of texts intended for instruction, covering behaviour (e.g. Confucianism), military science, administrative methods etc. Not least of these is The Art of War, attributed to Sun Tzu.
One of the most famous examples of record-keeping is the Greeks recording of the the winners of the various events at the ancient Olympic Games. Herodotus stated at the beginning of Histories that he wrote because:
so the memory of the past may not be blotted out from among men by time, and that great and marvellous deeds done by Greeks and foreigners and especially the reason why they warred against each other may not lack renown.
Xenophon wrote several 'instructional' works, among them On Horsemanship and Cynegeticus (hunting with dogs), though whether he intended them for future generations as well as his own generation is hard to say.
The Romans had official records offices, the best known of which is the Tabularium in Rome. Unfortunately, everything has been lost to time. Not lost, though, is Pliny the Younger's description of the disaster that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 AD.
Polybius noted in his Histories the importance of the study of history for a life in politics, adding that the:
surest and indeed the only method of learning how to bear bravely the vicissitudes of fortune, is to recall the calamities of others.
The 10th century AD The Complete Book of the Medical Art by the Persian physician 'Ali ibn al-'Abbas al-Majusi includes a 'how to do' of surgery, and much more. It "was widely circulated in Europe" after being partially translated into Latin in 1089.
In medieval times, England was one of many states that kept records. For example, the Pipe rolls are detailed financial records of the treasury which date back to 1130 and the reign of Henry I. Detailed legal records also survive, kept in what are now known as Year Books dating from at least 1268. And, as mentioned by justCal in a comment, let's not forget the Domesday Book which has a long history of use.
Other sources:
J. Raven, 'Lost Libraries: The Destruction of Great Book Collections Since Antiquity' (2004)
Rochelle Forrester, 'History of Writing and Record Keeping' (2016, revised 2019)
Upvote:0
I think you are mistaken in your assumption. The middle ages were notorious for their record keeping, and where those records have not been destroyed (most are), we can reconstruct minute details of both noble and peasant lives (what I mean by detail: Up to the size of the market stall they rented).
Likewise, ancient Egypt kept extensive trade records, and Arab traders around the year one thousand kept diaries of their travels, some of which are among the best sources of life in non-writing societies such as the Germanic tribes that we have.
The reason why we don't have many of these records is, simply put, that paper is flammable. We have a bias in judging the extent of available records. Spend a minute to think about how much of today's records will still exist in just two or three centuries. Anything stored on any magnetic storage device will be long gone. Many paper records will be destroyed. Modern SSD drives? No lifetime even worth mentioning on historic timescales. CDs, DVDs are measured in decades, not centuries.
Upvote:2
How about the management of the limited resources?
Today's 90+ percent literacy among Europe, North America, Asia and a lot of other places is something rather new (and good, and societies worked hard for it).
In the past, it was different.
The economy was product-oriented (read: food oriented) and weaker than today in general. It didn't had the power to employ many people to do services of any kind.
Literate people were scarse, expensive to employ and busy with tasks those in power considered important.
The writing itself was expensive in tools, consumables and time.
Storing the texts was a complex task by itself. Roof that doesn't leak? Maintained for a century or two? Fire safety for extended periods? Good luck with pre-1800 technology.
Upvote:3
While I would still prefer that this question were founded on stronger preliminary research, and I agree with many of the answers posted, I want to eat some crow and admit that the question persists in my mind. The question isn't perfect, but it is interesting, and more interesting the longer I contemplate it. So allow me to thank @gezakerecsenyi for an interesting question.
I have a hypothesis, based on Fukyama that there is a technology of human organization - sociological capital deepening. Until we have achieved a certain minimum level of social capital, it doesn't make sense to create and archive a large store of records. It would be kind of interesting to study the scope of records and circulation of records of each of the examples above and compare them to the kind of examples that OP suggests. That would require a great deal more rigor in defining the terms.
I also have a hypothesis (that I can't support) that premodern cultures viewed time rather differently than we do. If you view time as an eternal constant - the way Imperial China seems to - then you have a different motivation for keeping records than if you perceive time as leading to the end of times (as early Christian civilizations did). If you view the future as potentially better than today, that will lead to the collection and organization of records differently. Those are all high level abstractions for the sake of illustrations only - I'm not attempting to pretend that I can understand those cultures with a simple phrase.
Upvote:8
Others have rightly pointed out that the ancients did indeed keep records, but I’ll add another perspective as to why your perception may be that their record-keeping was less extensive than modern record-keeping.
The simple answer is that we currently live in an age of incredibly cheap record storage and intensive over-retention of records. Between surveillance states and the data economy, all incentives align to keeping records rather than discarding them. Nearly every financial transaction is recorded and audited with high fidelity. On some websites every click or even every mouse movement is logged and data-mined. Phone call metadata is stored by the government and nearly every citizen voluntarily shares photographs with the giant global never-delete storage system we call the internet.
Audit is a billion-dollar industry. The back catalog of arts and entertainment grows continuously in value. Archives and family history have never been more accessible and popular.
So I think your question could be rephrased not as why previous societies kept so few records, but as why ours keeps so many.
Upvote:10
Years ago I prepared a speech on backups and disaster recovery in IT. I started by pointing out that backups and disaster recovery are not new concepts, nor do they have anything to do with technology.
European monks spent much of their time producing off-site backups. For them this was a labourious process in which they would transcribe documents by hand which would then be sent to other monasteries. There the process would repeat. It is only through the work of countless scribes working by candlelight that so many ancient texts survive in the west. We owe them a debt of gratitude and we should also recognise that they understood concepts that many today consider to be entirely modern.
Those who don't read history are destined to misunderstand it.
Upvote:26
Your question assumes that there were no such records in ancient times. I can think of several examples:
You are right that history as a scientific discipline has greatly improved over the ages, but that was not a single great jump.
Upvote:85
I feel like I need to point out why many mundane records will have been lost.
Imagine you're a scribe making copies of old documents. Which do you decide to copy? Harvest records from 50 years ago, or your religion's sacred text? An invoice from 10 years ago, or the biography of your king?
My point is that there is a selection bias going on here. The texts most likely to be copied and preserved are the exciting ones, not boring day-to-day documents. We still have some administrative documents just by sheer chance; a huge number were made so, even with low individual survival rates, some lucky examples have survived to today. But there was essentially no societal effort spent on ensuring that, whereas society went to great lengths to preserve the Bible for example.