Why History is Important

I've heard that question too many times in one semester. The students in my class didn't see the relevance of history to their fields - whether it was sports medicine or music. My response? "But history is all around you!" What would sports medicine be without the history of medicine? What would music be without Beethoven? In every subject that my students threw at me, there was a tie to history. Because there is history behind everything.

There are many people who try to answer this question, so I've compiled a list of things that history helps you learn. Hopefully, you'll see that history is just as important as learning to read and write.

1. Reading. Specifically, reading from different time periods. We didn't always talk this way, you know.
2. Writing. Specifically, good writing. How to not just repeat what someone else said, but to analyze information from multiple sources and come up with your own conclusions. This isn't a chemistry experiment where we put all the compounds in a jar and see what happens, proving the same result time after time. This is about debating over issues that have plagued humanity time and time again. It's also about forming your own opinions and being able to effectively argue those opinions with others. Anyone can say "yes" or "no." Most people can't answer "why." For example, anyone can say that aliens have visited Earth before. However, where's the proof? And could that "proof" point to other conclusions?
3. Work Skills. History also contributes to building effective work skills. History is vital to fields like politics, business, and public administration. History teaches research skills, evaluation skills, writing and speaking, and exposure to both quantitative and qualitative types of information.

• History helps us understand other people and other societies. We live in a world of vastly different ideas, religions, political and philosophical beliefs, etc. Why we believe what we do, and why we act the way we do, is a product of not only our social conditioning but also our history. Society is shaped by what came before. In order to understand how we have become what we are, and why we differ from others, it's important to look to history. Very few events are truly "global" - and understanding the "non-global" is a key to understanding why I like Barbie but a middle eastern nation would ban it.
• History helps us understand current events. Why was there a war in Iraq? Why did such a regime ever exist? We must look into history - into how religion and politics shaped the Middle East - in order to understand why dictatorships are accepted and why people believe that religion and politics can mix (rather than be separate, as the US attempts to do).
• On a more personal level, history helps us understand who we are and the "risk factors" we have to face. This ranges from our medical history (and what we might have "inherited") to long-standing family problems (such as depression and alcoholism) to our heritage. To understand our own family's customs and traditions, we must look to where we came from and who those people were. It's like comparing Southerners in the U.S. to Californians. There's two vastly different lifestyles present within the same country, but it's because of who came here and where they settled.
• History also helps guide us morally. Many children are told Aesop's Fables and other stories. These stories come to us from the past, as both a warning and a guide to moral behavior. Typically, these stories are also shaped by non-historical forces, but they are based on historical characters. The legend of King Arthur - both a means of escape and a means of instilling a moral code - is but one example.
• It's fun. History, despite popular belief, can be fun. Take a look around the bookshelves at Barnes & Noble, and you'll find some interesting tidbits. There's always another story emerging, another ghost from the past rearing up to shed light on something unexpected. And there's history in everything: sex, courtesans, drugs, music, skateboarding, surfing, video games...the list goes on. Give me a topic and there will be a history behind it, somewhere. The funnest part: digging it up. You never know what you will find.