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| Photo courtesy of the Museum of Latin American Art Encuentro en el cielo by Andrade Llaguno, currently on exhibition at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. |
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"Dead poets, philosophs, priests,
Martyrs, artists, inventors, governments long since,
Language-shapers, on other shores,
Nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn, or desolate,
I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you have left, wafted hither:
I have perused it—own it is admirable, (moving awhile among it;)
Think nothing can ever be greater—nothing can ever deserve more than it deserves;
Regarding it all intently a long while—then dismissing it,
I stand in my place, with my own day, here."
Martyrs, artists, inventors, governments long since,
Language-shapers, on other shores,
Nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn, or desolate,
I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you have left, wafted hither:
I have perused it—own it is admirable, (moving awhile among it;)
Think nothing can ever be greater—nothing can ever deserve more than it deserves;
Regarding it all intently a long while—then dismissing it,
I stand in my place, with my own day, here."
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass 1900
The causes of events are ever more interesting than the events themselves.
Marcus T. Cicero
68 comments:
Because as Clarence Darrow said: "History repeats itself; that's one of the things that's wrong with history."
Or maybe you'll accept Mark Twain's quote: "History doesn't repeat itself; but it rhymes."
“Those who forget their past are condemned to repeat it”
“The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it”
“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there”
“The winners get to write history”
"All great truths begin as blasphemies."
"I know histhry isn't thrue, Hinnessy, because it ain't like what I see ivry day in Halsted Sthreet. If any wan comes along with a histhry iv Greece or Rome that'll show me th' people fightin', gettin' dhrunk, makin' love, gettin' married, owin' th' grocery man an' bein' without hard-coal, I'll believe they was a Greece or Rome, but not befure. Historyans is like doctors. They are always lookin' f'r symptoms. Those iv them that writes about their own times examines th' tongue an' feels th' pulse an' makes a wrong dygnosis. Th' other kind iv histhry is a post-mortem examination. It tells ye what a counthry died iv. But I'd like to know what it lived iv." — Finley Peter Dunne, Observations by Mr. Dooley (1902)
The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid.
(de Selincourt translation)
The past isn't dead. It isn't even past.
[courtesy of Professor Walter Nugent at ND]
In general, I see three good reasons for studying history:
1 - It is an excellent way to understand the present. I think there is a distinction between knowledge and understanding. Knowledge is the intellectual grasp of a truth or datum of information, for example. that the square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the two sides in a right triangle. But understanding is something deeper; it is knowledge through causes. We know WHY is thing is that way and why it cannot be another way. Understanding is when we can prove that geometric theorem WHY the square of the hypotenuse equals and must equal the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Understanding is deeper; it is knowledge through causes.
History can give us knowledge of an event through causes, true understanding. We know, for example, not only that the Wall Street Crash occurred in the fall of 1929 but we know the causes of that Crash, why it happened then (the stock market too speculative, an unequal distribution of wealth, over-production in some industries, inability to solve the farm problem, and so on), why it did not happen ten years earlier, or have to wait until ten years later. We all have knowledge of the present but, with a good background in history, we can have true UNDERSTANDING of it; we see the causes of it also.
2 - I think history is simply a good intellectual discipline. Most of what we know we know through induction. We form general conclusions from individual experiences. For example, if every time we drink beer, wine, or liquor we get sick, we come to the conclusion that alcohol makes us sick. In history we do the same. We look at the individual events of the President Clinton presidency, for example, and, from them, form the judgment that he was a good or a poor president. History is thus a good intellectual discipline, helping us to think correctly in other areas because we normally think from the particular to the general.
3 - Finally, I think history is an excellent skeleton on which to tie other subjects we learn. We generally learn by building on what we already now. We begin by learning words, then phrases, the sentences, then paragraphs, and so on, building on what we have already learned. If one has a good understanding of United States history, for example, it is easier to remember American literature by connecting it to a particular era which fits what the authors were saying (tying James Fenimore Cooper with the opening of the west before the Civil War or John Steinback with the Great depression of the 1930's, etc.). One can often connect other learning or subjects with American or World history in a similar way way.
“The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth, on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone, one generation vanishing after one another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone like ghosts at cock-crow.”
“Only an awareness of the dangers menacing what we love allows us to sense the dimension of time and to feel in everything we see and touch the presence of past generations…”
I like to read other people's mail!! I just find it fascinating to learn about the past and what people went through to survive. I am writing a book right now on the history of the Irish in the U.S. and it is so enlightening to learn more about what the famine was all about, what emigration meant to people leaving their homeland, and what life was like in the U.S. Right now I am working on labor movements and the Irish who were very involved in the labor movement. Miners were striking for an eight hour day in the 1880s, they were getting $4 an hour and that was a good wage for miners back then, they were adamantly opposed to big business that was gouging them in terms of wages, working conditions, unemployment, etc. The U.S.has had one of the most violent labor histories in the world and the Irish were in the midst of this. Of course learning about the Irish helps me to understand my own history and the roots of that history as well. My grandparents came from Ireland and left because there was no more opportunity for them there. History is just fascinating and you can never learn enough about it. I also like to read biographies since I enjoy learning what other people did and how they achieved what they did.
As John F. Kennedy said: "History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside."
History is the short trudge from Adams to atom.
History is past politics, and politics is present history.
History abhors determinism but cannot tolerate chance.
History is philosophy teaching by example.
The historian's first duties are sacrilege and the mocking of false gods.
Chance is a mask, and it precisely the historian's duty to lift it or fear it away.
History is more or less bunk. [Cotter: Providing a reason not to study history.]
I don't take no stock in dead people. [Cotter: from the Henry Ford School of History]
Life must be lived forward; but it can be understood only backward.
The maion thing is to make history, not to write it. [Cotter: perhaps a rival to Henry Ford's thesis.]
Any fool can make history, but it takes genius to write it.
...die phantasie, welche wie aller Poesis so auch aller Historie di Mutter ist...
Nothing capable of being memorized is history.
History is filled with the sound of silken slippers going down stairs and wooden shoes coming up.
That which has been is that which will be. That which has been done is that which will be done. There is nothing new under the sun.
The historian must not try to know what is truth, if he values his honesty; for if he cares for his truths, he is certain to falsify his facts.
Who does not know that the first law of historical writing is the truth.
History is a pact between the dead, the living, and yet unborn.
Ended, a story is history.
Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking around.
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.
History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.
Fewer great historical events are brought about by the power of the new than be the enduring strength of the old.
You must always know the past, for there is no real Was, there is only Is. [Cotter: Someone please find out if this is the original of the earlier, perhaps paraphrased quote of Faulkner.]
The first law of history is to dread utterly a falsehood; the next is not to fear stating the truth; lastly the historians' writings should be open to no suspicion of partiality or animosity.
History books that contain no lies are extremely tedious.
History is the living tissue of facts. In this tissue, the thoughts of God and men blend, unite, at times appear at variance, cross each other, and even impede each other's course, the final result being a wonderful mosaic, of which the most outstanding feature is the undying love of God for the human race.
Respect for the past must be pious, but not mad.
The history of the world is but the biography of great men and women.
The only history worth readind is...the history of that was done and seen abd, heard out of the mouths of the men and women who did and saw.
The supreme purpose of history is a better world.
History is a myth that men agree to believe.
"Written history is always more than merely innocent story-telling, precisely because it is the primary vehicle for the distribution and use of power."
"Deconstructing History"
so we can learn from our mistakes
Their World is falling apart
We need to study history to learn the reasons for the present and the ways they solved problems in the past.
Studying history allows a person to get rid of his or her ignorances and become more worldly aware.
One should study history to learn from the past, understand the present, and prepare for the future- Becca S.
In order to learn about our past and our ancestors. This way we can learn from the mistakes they made and avoid making similar ones in the future. It's also helpful because knowledge is power, and the more knowledge we can gain, the more powerful we can become.
We study history to learn from our predecessors, to repeat the good things and discard the disastrous; to in a sense make a better world for those coming after us.
Ignoring history or simply disreguarding its importance, disgraces the memory of influential leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Amelia Earhart, George Washington, Winston Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt. Each of these people, and others for that matter worked very hard their entire lives to change the world, and ignoring it is simply not right. I suppose that ignoring mistakes could be just as deadly for today's society.
History repeats itself. Only by becoming aware of the past can we be prepared for the future.
History helps us to understand people and societies. It also helps us to understand change and how the society we live in came to be.
"History never looks like history when you are living through it."
John W. Gardner
To gather as much knowledge as possible about us and our ancestors.
We need to learn about the past and where we came from so we can better understand the world around us.
We need to understand our past, in order to be ready for the future
History helps us understand our society and the entire world that surrounds us. We must learn from our past mistakes and victories in order to create a better world in the future
"History is philosophy teaching by example and also by warning."
-Lord Bolingbroke
By studying history, we can learn from our past to prepare for the future.
A knowledge of history prevents us, hopefully, from repeating the mistakes of our ancestors.
A knowledge of the past also enables us to understand why societies and cultures exist as they do today.
In essence, I believe we study history to acquire an understanding of our past and past cultures, to learn from past mistakes, and gain from past ideas. But what are we really studying?? And how much of it is really the truth??
We study history to know of many things.
For some, to learn of our ancesters. Some learn how to learn from past mistake. Some want to learn the knowledge of other cultures. I mean how far would we be if we didn't know about the past.
kyler stott.
history is yesterday but in order to succeed in the future you have to learn from yesterday
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