History: How and Why
Many of you probably wonder why we study history. Some of you are here because you enjoy it, some of you have a test or something and you're scrambling for time, but almost all of you have that same question: Why?
History is, at heart, a story. A magnificent, era-stretching epic, rivaling any Song of Ice and Fire or Deathly Hallows. Even more incredible is the fact that this gigantic storyline is real. So real that you can see the ripple effects everywhere upon the Earth. In the stone towers of ancient castles, in the forgotten battlefields of the Fertile Crescent, in the endless rows of white crosses arrayed across the fields of Europe and America.
It's the story of us, and it's important to remember that it isn't over yet. It is an ever-expanding concept, one that won't end until the Earth is a distant memory, and all that is left is the endless, perfectly uniform, perfectly empty nothingness of the universe's heat death.
............ Ahem. That got.... really, really dark for a moment there. On a somewhat brighter note:
History reminds us of our greatest accomplishments. A man on the moon. Monuments from the great pyramids of Giza to the Burj Khalifa, standing in defiance of nature and probability and time. It reminds us that we are the best this earth has. The smartest. The strongest. The top-shelf talent.
That we are the human godd**n race, and we will endure.
But not only that, it reminds us of our failures. The Atlantic Slave Trade that stripped Africans of their dignity. The Columbian Exchange, which slaughtered up to 90% of the New World's population. Widespread discrimination, World Wars, brutal oppression, famine, disease, poverty, strife of all shapes and sizes and intensities. Our darker half.
But we shouldn't wallow in our filth and misery. No! We must remember Tenochtitlan and Auschwitz and Kentucky and Tiananmen Square and Stalingrad, BECAUSE of how terrible they were. We use our knowledge about the subject to avoid such things in the future, to prevent those tragedies happening again.
As the old phrase goes, "Those who do not remember history......."
So please... Remember your past. For in it lies our future.
Best of Luck,
Tom
History is, at heart, a story. A magnificent, era-stretching epic, rivaling any Song of Ice and Fire or Deathly Hallows. Even more incredible is the fact that this gigantic storyline is real. So real that you can see the ripple effects everywhere upon the Earth. In the stone towers of ancient castles, in the forgotten battlefields of the Fertile Crescent, in the endless rows of white crosses arrayed across the fields of Europe and America.
It's the story of us, and it's important to remember that it isn't over yet. It is an ever-expanding concept, one that won't end until the Earth is a distant memory, and all that is left is the endless, perfectly uniform, perfectly empty nothingness of the universe's heat death.
............ Ahem. That got.... really, really dark for a moment there. On a somewhat brighter note:
History reminds us of our greatest accomplishments. A man on the moon. Monuments from the great pyramids of Giza to the Burj Khalifa, standing in defiance of nature and probability and time. It reminds us that we are the best this earth has. The smartest. The strongest. The top-shelf talent.
That we are the human godd**n race, and we will endure.
But not only that, it reminds us of our failures. The Atlantic Slave Trade that stripped Africans of their dignity. The Columbian Exchange, which slaughtered up to 90% of the New World's population. Widespread discrimination, World Wars, brutal oppression, famine, disease, poverty, strife of all shapes and sizes and intensities. Our darker half.
But we shouldn't wallow in our filth and misery. No! We must remember Tenochtitlan and Auschwitz and Kentucky and Tiananmen Square and Stalingrad, BECAUSE of how terrible they were. We use our knowledge about the subject to avoid such things in the future, to prevent those tragedies happening again.
As the old phrase goes, "Those who do not remember history......."
So please... Remember your past. For in it lies our future.
Best of Luck,
Tom