Rebasing-only is a manual way to "linearise history". Whereas, a git log is a query target. And the `git-log` tool is one's friend. I bash-alias these for quick use:

  git log --oneline # `gl`, to see "linear" history with branch annotations
  git log --oneline --merges # `glm`, to see merge commits only
  git log --oneline --graph # `glg` see the train tracks too, if I need to

And I know that git log has me covered, if/when I need to narrow / slice history more.