Why history?

[Straha]

The ultimate question for a History forum. Why study history? Not the generalities of History, but the nitty-gritty refined detail that, to the majority of the world, will be of no use? Why are massive tomes published on Childhood in Roman and Greek times, on sexuality amongst actors in the Medieval era, on syntax and usage of Latin in the dark ages? Or, more in general why study history beyond the practical uses that could be applied to modern times and to the future? In short: What is the purpose of modern historiography?








I play devil's advocate here. I have reasons of my own to dedicate a massive of my time towards the study of relatively arcane things. I would elaborate but I've been having sleep issues of late and I'm trying to reset my sleep cycle, but I do hope to post about this in about twelve hours.

[thejester]

The ultimate question for a History forum. Why study history? Not the generalities of History, but the nitty-gritty refined detail that, to the majority of the world, will be of no use? Why are massive tomes published on Childhood in Roman and Greek times, on sexuality amongst actors in the Medieval era, on syntax and usage of Latin in the dark ages? Or, more in general why study history beyond the practical uses that could be applied to modern times and to the future? In short: What is the purpose of modern historiography?

You just answered your own question, surely. You can't have good history without the nitty-gritty, since it creates the building blocks of a wider understanding of what the period you are study was like; and such history is necessary for us to understand the present and have some idea of what the future may look like.

[K. A. Pital]

The details are required analysis which precedes the synthesis into a general picture.

Without counting forces of an army, for example, examining the life and attitudes of a general soldier, detailing the performance of military technology of the age a more generalized reivew of a huge battle - say Somme - would be impossible. Just as making general conclusions about a historic event without a prior analysis of details usually is impossible, or this shallow approach yields wrong results.

That's why.

[PeZook]

History, ultimately, is about predicting the future. And in order to accurately predict the future, you need to understand as many variables about the period you are studying as possible, and know how they relate to the present. Especially in important cases, like trying to predict who you are going to fight next.

Let's take U-Boat warfare as a quick example: between the wars, all naval powers have studies the WWI German anti-shipping campaigns in details, in order to conclude what uses U-Boats would have in the future. Despite studying similar data, many countries arrived at vastly different conclusions. These conclusions had huge consequences throughout the war, and it was crucial to understand everything about WWI sea warfare to actually make a decision, say, about how U-Boat crews should deal with airplanes. Everything was important, down to possible diving times, crew numbers, turnaround, etc.

[Surlethe]

History, like many of the other sciences (I use this term loosely), has come away from researching only practical knowledge to gathering knowledge for its own sake. So publishing a tome, say, on childhood in mid-Imperial Rome might not ever be useful, but then again it's simply adding to the knowledge human civilization is storing up.

[irishmick79]

For me history was more about developing an understanding of the human condition and gaining perspective on modern times. On a personal level, history helped me bond with both of my grandfathers, who were both world war II veterans. Their stories of their time in uniform were facinating, and sparked historical research into the details of the time so I could put context to the stories - did my grandfather really do all that with his M-1 Garand, or was the old man simply bullshitting me (he usually wasn't)? Several times, I was able to jar loose a memory after telling my grandfathers about something that I had researched, and I would get another entertaining story out of them.

Getting away from military history, I've found that understanding past social trends and events has helped me place modern times into a more precise and nuanced context. Seeing the complexities and consequences of massive events like the French Revolution or the Holocaust has helped me acquire a necessary comfort with moral ambiguities often found in life, and has helped me develop an appreciation for the expansive breadth of human emotion from its deepest suffering to its greatest triumphs.

The wide range of history also offered me an intriguing intellectual playground in which I could touch upon virtually any aspect of human life I wish to examine. From the nuts and bolts of the north american slave trade to the intricacies of diplomacy in Europe after Napoleon to the history of flight, History has shown that it can be combined with virtually every other major field of study and that students of History can apply a bewildering array of precise methods to develop a logical narrative of the human experience.

Getting into the nuts and bolts of historical topics allows students of history to paint a picture of an era with precision and accuracy. The value of this in terms of the human political experience should be self-evident. However, I believe that the value of the historical narrative lies not in its ability to predict the future (it can't), not in its ability to demonstrate right or wrong (it doesn't), nor as a literary experience (it's not), but in its celebration of the human condition.

[MKSheppard]

History, ultimately, is about predicting the future.

(snip expample of WW1 U Boat War)

Exactly. If you want to predict the future; you have to look at the past for clues to where the future goes. This is especially important in Military History; because large scale wars are now very rare - even in the bad old days of warring; big HUGE wars only occured every century or so; look at European History; you had the 30 Years' War in 1618-1648; then a relative peace until 1789-1815; the napoleonic wars; then another century of peace until 1914-1945; the bloodiest wars yet in Europe; which were followed by 50 years of staring at the other guy across the Inner German Boarder; with nothing but the experience of 1939-1945 to guide you in making casualty estimates, how men would perform.

[Shroom Man 777]

Perhaps to gain a better understanding of how things always change with time, not to get complacent and assume that the way things are at this time will remain static.

Today the West is so... presumptuous and they love looking down on the Third World and the Middle East, yet less than a thousand years ago, it was the Middle East that was the apex of civilization and the West was barbaric. And we know the extent of the refinement of Middle East culture by studying the devil in the details, not just knowing general data like "Baghdad was a multicultural hub" but by getting specifics like learning the intricate details of which Arab physicians performed surgery, or the methods by which Arab philosophers preserved Greco-Roman philosophy while expounding upon them greatly.

Is not the general picture of periods like the Renaissance painted by our knowledge of specific men like Da Vinci and their relatively inconsequential deeds?

[Kanastrous]

He who knows the past, knows the present.

He who knows the present, knows the future.

[Simplicius]

Without a fine-grained view of history, how would you deal with all of the niggling questions that will arise when you encounter artifacts? Suppose you find, in your attic, an old photograph taken during a baseball game. You ask, "Why the hell is every man in that stadium wearing a straw boater? Why does no one wear straw boaters now?" Detailed historical research lets you answer those questions. Otherwise, it haunts you until your dying day.

[Kanastrous]

And I'd sure hate to be lying on my deathbed, followed into darkness by nagging straw-boater-related questions.

[Surlethe]

History is also essentially one big socioeconomic case study. If you have hypotheses of human nature, society, economics, etc., you often must look to history for confirmation or refutation. The more nuanced the understanding of history, the better we understand human nature and society itself.

[Xenuite]

On the individual level, history can show us the grand scale of things and make us appreciate what we have at this moment and how fortunate we are to be here at this time rather then anywhere in Europe during the Dark Ages.

[Thanas]

Why study history? To remember those who came before you and to learn about their lives.

Also without a proper knowledge of history you cannot understand civilization or the background behind current political struggles.