I think he should have leaned the lesson that being an aggressive madman is often an advantage at the beginning of a conflict but tends to become a liability once the opposition has adjusted

Quit right, my apologies........keep marching on....


-Zeno

In HS I had the worst history teacher ever and thus absolutely hated history. We also had a student teacher, who was equally terrible. Would constantly give them hell and ask them this very question...why should we care?

One day the student teacher responded to this question and said "well this one time I took a trip to France and it was July 14th and I couldn't get a hotel room and had to sleep in a phone booth and..."

At this point I cut in and said "everyone knows that's Bastille Day, why didn't you just look at a calendar dumbazz?" I might have got detention, but it was worth it

So ya, I'm still not exactly sure why it's important, but it could def be interesting if people actually present it properly.

Yawn.... Sorry that you had such bad teachers; but I need to point out that you sound a bit too much like the typical American know-nothing (no offense).

History, when done properly, is the sequential analysis of social structures (in the sense of longue durée of Braudel and the Annales School). It is not really about historical "events" (as most amateurs would understand history to be) at all. And it actually helps us to understand the world that we are living in today. That is the main reason we study it. Otherwise it would be just for antiquarian interest and would not be so much different than, say, stamp collecting.

Longue durée for the win: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longue_dur%C3%A9e

Cheers

Wasn't much of Stalin's threat his ruthless willingness to sacrifice his own troops?

My point was that to me (and probably many other students), it can be pretty intolerable, especially if taught in an unappealing manner, and that it's important to try to make it approachable otherwise people will get turned off from it at a young age.

I'm not going to derail this conversation into a discussion of my background, and the hundreds of other things that are arguably equally or of greater importance to history in understanding the world around us.

I'm glad you enjoy history, and I will leave you and your forum alone

The Annales School and social struture people went out of fashion in the 1980s. No one does this anymore. In fact, "event" history is much more in fashion than you realize.

I read somewheres there are multiple schools or approachs to history. At least 7 or 8 of them. I forget who it was that said it but I think it was someone engaged in writing about the evolution of civilization and what causes a civilization to flourish or decline.

And they might be just the most well known approachs. I'm sure there'd be many more ways to approach history than just 7 or 8 methods or schools.

Meh...One of the many bad turns of the 1980s to say the least (the other bad turns include the current meaningless obsession with "cultural studies" and "identities" as well as the virtual disappearance of good economic history). I very much realize that "event history" is in fashion nowadays: I am a professional historian too. What can I say? In the land of the blind, one-eyed man is the king, I guess. In my better moments I tolerate that kind of history as it may provide context and supplement our understanding of the past and present. In my worse moments, I simply think that it is misguided journalism.

Note: Structuralist approaches to history do not begin with the Annales School. It has a noble pedigree going through Karl Marx to Ibn Khaldun (the fourteen century Arab genius whose work on world history remains, for my money, to be the most important work on history ever written). Braudel readily accepted this pedigree and mentioned those influences in numerous places. His lazy followers are a different matter.

Cheers

I actually agree wholeheartedly with this. I love economic history. I’ve been on a one-man mission to bring economic history back and integrate it into “cultural history.”

And you’re absolutely right about the Annales School. One of the reasons they’re so out of favor is because of the Marxist implications. The “Cultural Turn” basically hates anything that smells of the Marxist paradigm, including anything economic.

If only aggressive madmen, reasoned like you, chez

From looking at the created threads history is all about war -- and war, war never changes.

Is that what history is mostly about? If not then why so many war threads?

maybe that's what many people find interesting about history.

Wars are easy to talk about because the even the most unread person has basic knowledge to begin to investigate causes stc.

Discussions of political and religious figures walk a fine line between the historical analysis of thier accomplishments and devolving into thier politics/doctorine.

But the discussion of history can involve anything. If you have a topic, fire up a thread.

Or was Heraclitus right when he stated, "War is father and king of all."?

Doesn't it, though? The US still hasn't annexed Canada and, youthful fantasies aside, I'm not out scavving for 9mm shells.

History is the story we tell ourselves about what we remember.

Wars are hard to forget.

Indeed he was right- and may the sanctimonious do-gooders and sniveling moralistic busybodies be damn.

Heraclitus also stated: We must know that war is common to all and strife is justice, and that all things come into being and pass away through strife.


We are all perpetually at war, individually and collectively. That is the history of Mankind.


-Zeno

History well told is a great story. Biography and military history appeal to us partly because of the stories they contain. Studying real history is actually better than most modern fiction for pure entertainment. I just finished re-reading "Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic" This real story is better than any fictional story I have read in years.

The fundamental reasons for studying history underlie quite diverse uses of history in our own lives including learning how to deal with situations we all face by seeing how others have dealt with things in the past.

Many historians who most appeal to me know the importance of drama as well trying best as possible for accuracy. History as art and entertainment serves a real purpose, on aesthetic grounds but also on the level of human understanding.

History well done are narratives that reveal how people and societies have actually functioned, and they prompt discussion about human experiences in other times and places. The background and goals of the past actors inspire people to immerse themselves in the past with efforts to reconstruct remote events, far removed from today but in many cases we still can relate to.

Solid post. I love Ibn Khaldun(would absolutely love to use a timemachine to see his discussion timurlane, but i digress)

I think nowadays we get a little bit of everything. We still get social historians but we get event historians as well. Biographers are somewhat less in vogue, which i find sad as a good bio gives a full picture to why individuals act the way they do.(Stalin comes to mind here)

While the majority of history fans begin with military history(which is certainly the most fun but least applicable), the political and economical history is the most applicable to our current days, even if technologically we seem so far away. As Dan Carlin says

''When i hear politicians say that old historical events cannot happen again because things are too different nowadays, i tell them: you think Caesar, Robespierre, Herbert Hoover and the others the past didn't think that too?''

And internally.

History is the story of peace through victory.

It is important because it shows us how to win.

I know that's a rather militaristic view, but all this talk about struggle brought me to it.

Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever.

Marcus Tullius Cicero.

History is, after all, a pack of tricks played on dead men.

Voltaire.

I was going to say pretty much exactly this. Why do I almost always agree with you?

poton, what?