History

History is a term that refers to information about the past. When used as the name of a field of study, history refers to the study and interpretation of the record of human people, families, and societies. Knowledge of history is often said to encompass both knowledge of past events and historical thinking skills.

The lessons of history

In addition to being an interesting topic of study in its own right, historians often claim that the study of history teaches valuable lessons with regard to past successes and failures of leaders, economic systems, forms of government, and other recurring themes in the human story. From history we may learn factors that result in the rise and fall of nation-states or civilizations, motivations for political actions, the effects of social philosophies, and perspectives on culture and technology.

Related Topics:
Nation-state - Civilization - Culture - Technology

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

One of the most famous quotations about history and the value of studying history by Spanish philosopher, George Santayana, reads: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The German Philosopher. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel remarked in his Philosophy of history that: "What history and experience teach us is this: that people and government never have learned anything from history or acted on principles deduced from it." This was famously paraphrased by the British stateman, Winston Churchill into: "The one thing we have learned from history is that we don't learn from history."

Related Topics:
Spanish - Philosopher - George Santayana - German - Philosopher - Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - Philosophy of history - Paraphrased - British - Stateman - Winston Churchill

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

An alternative view is that the forces of history are too great to be changed by human deliberation, or that, even if people do change the course of history, the movers and shakers of this world are usually too self-involved to stop to look at the big picture.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Another view is that history does not repeat itself because of the uniqueness of any given historical event. In this view, the specific combination of factors at any moment in time can never be repeated, and so knowledge about events in the past can not be directly and beneficially applied to the present. This approach is challenged in less meta-historical terms with the notion that historical lessons can and should be drawn from events, and that careful generalizations of unique events is useful. For example, emergency response to natural disasters can be improved, even though each individual disaster is, in itself, absolutely unique.

Related Topics:
Meta - Emergency - Natural disasters

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~