Why I Study History
Ever since I was a child I’ve had a fascination with the past and the ongoing story of the human race. My interest extends beyond our reality and I often find myself researching heavily into the history of fictional universes, like the Tolkien universe for example. There’s something about all of history being apart of one long continuous story, that I’m also apart of, that makes it so absorbing to me.
One of the more interesting parts of history in my opinion, is how one can map the progression of human thought and intelligence throughout almost any aspect of our existence. Whether it be art, or science, or government, our species, slowly throughout hundreds of years, progressed in every field imaginable. What’s uplifting about that thought as well is that we’re still moving forward and progressing, if sometimes slowly and with some hiccups.
And that of course is where that old cliche comes in about “those who ignore history” being “doomed to repeat it.” While I hate to cite that in one of my introduction posts (I really do), I think it is and always will be completely true. History isn’t just a story about human progression, it’s a map that tells our race what has worked and what hasn’t, and the conditions and circumstances of which those things worked or didn’t.
I like to think that these two ideals are what lay the foundation for the specific areas of history I’m interested; that being Ancient Rome, African American history, Religious history, and WWII. I’m hoping to be able to incorporate at least two of those in my overall area of study. I hope this gives a good idea as to why I choose to study history!
Oh good, you’ll get my Mordor jokes.
I must counter your “doomed to repeat it” with the idea that history doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes, which I think is Mark Twain.
It’s very hard to see that something is going wrong while it’s going wrong, or even afterward. And it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what happened, what caused what. It’s why I’ve begun preferring “explanation” to “causation”.
Perhaps we should keep the focus larger, since you seem to be talking about intellectual history, the history of ideas. We don’t need to focus on a particular era, but could rather use several eras as examples of a larger theme. Since our class is Western Civ since 1648, that already limits it a bit. What do you think?
I have to agree with Professor Lane’s observations on the repeatability of history. We can learn from the past, but we have to acknowledge that it is never the same. I think that Santayana’s quote is more of a warning than anything else. I first saw this quote at the entrance to the Nazi camp of Dachau outside of Munich. Just look at Syria today and we can see we have not learned from the past very well.
I like your interest in intellectual history. You will have to talk with Terren Brin, one of our History Community, on the subject as he is interested in the role intellectuals play in society.