To Study History: or Not

A. Marwick once said “History is to the community as memory is to the individual.” This statement means that history plays the role of a reminder of what different people and communities have been through. People often study history because it is a reminder of what happened in the past. Though this is a wonderful reason to study history, it is not the only reason. People, as individuals study history for many different reason; some because they have to. History is not only a memory but is a tool to promote tolerance, prepare for the real world and an interesting subject at that. In order to better understand the reasons to study history one must understand major events in history that have effected the future and will continue to affect future events, such as, the bombing of pearl harbor.

People often study history because they want to develope tolerance and multicultural awareness. By learning about different cultures people can understand; the attitude and traditions of others. African American culture has been adopted by different people and have influenced differnt people and have influenced different music, clothing and dialogue/slang terms. By learning about African American culture one can learn where these styles have developed. This study can also create exceptance and make people proud of who they are. People will be proud beause they will see that their identity is normally based off their history. The Revolutionary war was a war of independance. It gave America freedom from England and many patriots are proud of this. A good knowledge of the past promotes patriotic behavior and cause tolerance of other cultures, this is a wonderful reason to learn history and to remember what er have learned about it.

Other people study history because it prepares them for the real world. It prevents politicians from making the same mistakes as the past, and tells inventors what worked in the past and how they can improve it. It can also predict the outcome of the future to some extent.Many of the famous historical changes in time were because of base events that influenced them. Along with this theory comes the domino effect in that what happens is based on “causes”. This is what helps us to predict what the outcomes of our actions will be.  Revolutionary war and civil war are examples. The revolution of the Americans was so that they could be their own nation. The confederate union (the south) wanted to be their own nation from the north. The north, like England, was not happy about this. The past, Revolutionary war, could have not only influenced confederates to revolt, but also predicted that they would do anything to win. Thia proves people do things based off past mistakes and achievements. In the war against terrorism we were led to believe that we went to war because we were terrorized ourselves. Because our disagreements on what we believe should be going on in other countries we went to war. This same concept occured after the bombing of pearl harbor. After the bombing we went to war. In order to predict the future we should be able to use the past to guide us, which is a reason to learn history.