Original chapter reference: Chapter 40: Display commit history graphically with Gitk. The command options and documentation recipes below are fully transcribed from Git Notes for Professionals.
Section 40.1: Display commit history for one file
Source example · PDF page 145
gitk path/to/myfile
Section 40.2: Display all commits between two commits
Let's say you have two commits d9e1db9 and 5651067 and want to see what happened between them. d9e1db9 is the oldest ancestor and 5651067 is the final descendant in the chain of commits.
Source example · PDF page 145
gitk --ancestry-path d9e1db9 5651067
Section 40.3: Display commits since version tag
If you have the version tag v2.3 you can display all commits since that tag.