History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity.

-Cicero, Pro Publio Sestio Roman author, orator, & politician (106 BC - 43 BC)




What is History? Why is it Important?


Seems appropriate for the Forum to discuss these questions from the outset; and to have a quote from Cicero, one of Rome’s greatest citizens, as an initial answer.

-Zeno

It´s about the past, mainly the highlights. It´s interesting and we can and should learn from it.

History is the fiction of what really happened.

History is the present with old outfits.

History is the Theory of Everything

I think what has driven a lot of historians to their conclusions is whatever circumstances they find themselves living in. Most of my research in college was looking at the American Revolution, more specifically the build up of tensions resulting in the Declaration of Independence. I was interested in this due to the current political atmosphere - I began by wondering about the US media, its objectiveness, and whether liberty could be fought for without media on its side. So I looked at American newspapers in the 1760s and 1770s, and found that the papers were incredibly biased (far more-so than any modern day news outlets in the United States), and that they were essential to the Patriots in the years leading up to 1775 (1).

Well, then I began to wonder, how could people like me stop what we perceive to be threats to our liberty today, and as such I looked at how the colonists attempted to stop British power advances during the 1760s and 70s. Of course there were many examples, there was rioting, petitioning (which was completely without any direct affect), and economic measures (such as non-importation agreements, essentially boycotting British trade). The boycotting had a great result, as while Parliament ignored American petitions which often questioned the authority of that body to levy taxes in America, it could not ignore complaints from British merchants who were losing wealth due to the non-importation agreements. Still more effective was the violent attacking of British tax agents - the individuals sent to the colonies to distribute the stamped paper after the passage of the Stamp Act. After several mobs attacked a few of these agents, most of the rest resigned without any violence, and no stamped paper was ever distributed as a result. (2)

So, like many, I found common ground with a certain event or idea, and tried to find out more about it. It is incredibly interesting, to me at least, how current events affect the research and perception of history. Mercy Otis Warren, writing in the early 1800s, wrote a history of the American Revolution, which labeled it as a failure, due to the size of the Federal government created by the Convention in 1787. Writing about a hundred years later, and a product of Marxism, Schlesinger wrote of how the elite colonists manipulated the lower classes into supporting resistance against the British. Then, after WWII during a period of great American nationalism, historians like Edmund Morgan re-examined the American Revolution in a more positive light. In the 70s and 80s other historians (Pauline Maier and Robert Middlekauf) focused on the civil rights struggles (motivated obviously by the civil rights struggles of their present day), and more specific battle events (motivated by the Vietnam War).

For me, history is important because it can show us what to do today, there is common ground to be seen and shared. I'd argue the historians I mentioned feel the same way.


1 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Prelude to Independence: The Newspaper War on Britain, 1764-1776
2 Edmund S. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution

“You can't be a full participant in our democracy if you don't know our history.”

"History is the story of the human experience."

David McCullough

Bingo. History is written by the winners. If America had lost the revolutionary war, Englands textbooks would reflect the heroic struggle of Brittania in her valient efforts to maintain the empire, and promote peace and prosperity in the colonies. The colonies would be portrayed as upstart interloping vagabonds and thieves who dared to think they knew what was good for them. Que "My Brittania"

Interestingly, it's not nearly as true now. The news coverage addresses so many different angles that it would be difficult to tell a story that was significantly altered. Unless you controlled the press. All the press.

History is important because you can analyze human situations that tend to come up over and over and over again across the planet.

This is why it's important. It's the same as having historical data for financial markets. The important thing is to be able to apply the correct circumstances to the current situation you are trying to find a solution to. Unfortunately, most people can't do that, so they **** it up.

A+.

History is the record of man's fallibility.

If man weren't fallible there would be no history to record as the most significant recordings of history are usually about war, famine, economic depressions and other hard times that human groups experience.

News is just the current recording of future history and everyone knows that the bad news garners the most attention.

Sure the victors to some extent make the historical interpretation after the events but the fallibility of peace had to occur first before any interpretation of those events followed.

I worded that badly above so I reworded my post.

More or less agree but not sure I'd phrase it the same way. There are 'facts' (Obama is the POTUS) which are a part of history. That's a small part. Then there are narratives and stories--which could I suppose be called fiction--that attempt to connect facts to a bigger picture, which is what we call history.

Facts are facts, History is interpretation. Interpretations making better use of the facts in a coherent narrative are better histories, but "truth" in the historical realm is only realizable inasmuch as it is in most other human endeavors.

As for the question in the OP, it's something I ask of my students every quarter (I am a Community College History Instructor fwiw). The answers I get are always interesting. I always get the "those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it" line, but when I press people, I find that students are rarely able to clarify or justify the remark.

In some sense, History is tied into our conception of identity. When people talk about "tradition" or where they "come from," they are tapping into historical narratives. Most people believe their religious tradition in some ways is reliant in some fashion on the historical record. Nationalist sentiments are explicitly historical, or at least rely on historical narratives (even if most of them are highly idealized or outright fictitious). As for me, I got into History because I like a good story. And I found that History offers stories better than any literature in most cases.

History is very important. Its how we know when we have made the same mistake again