This article by Peter Stearns from 1998 states just about all the good arguments for the benefits of studying history: It can be found on the website of the American Historical Association.
Why Study History?
People live in the
present. They plan for and worry about the future. History, however, is the
study of the past. Given all the demands that press in from living in the
present and anticipating what is yet to come, why bother with what has been?
Given all the desirable and available branches of knowledge, why insist—as most
American educational programs do—on a good bit of history? And why urge many
students to study even more history than they are required to?
Any subject of study
needs justification: its advocates must explain why it is worth attention. Most
widely accepted subjects—and history is certainly one of them—attract some
people who simply like the information and modes of thought involved. But
audiences less spontaneously drawn to the subject and more doubtful about why
to bother need to know what the purpose is.
Historians do not
perform heart transplants, improve highway design, or arrest criminals. In a
society that quite correctly expects education to serve useful purposes, the
functions of history can seem more difficult to define than those of
engineering or medicine. History is in fact very useful, actually
indispensable, but the products of historical study are less tangible,
sometimes less immediate, than those that stem from some other disciplines.
In the past history
has been justified for reasons we would no longer accept. For instance, one of
the reasons history holds its place in current education is because earlier
leaders believed that a knowledge of certain historical facts helped distinguish
the educated from the uneducated; the person who could reel off the date of the
Norman conquest of England (1066) or the name of the person who came up with
the theory of evolution at about the same time that Darwin did (Wallace) was
deemed superior—a better candidate for law school or even a business promotion.
Knowledge of historical facts has been used as a screening device in many
societies, from China to the United States, and the habit is still with us to
some extent. Unfortunately, this use can encourage mindless memorization—a real
but not very appealing aspect of the discipline. History should be studied
because it is essential to individuals and to society, and because it harbors
beauty. There are many ways to discuss the real functions of the subject—as
there are many different historical talents and many different paths to
historical meaning. All definitions of history's utility, however, rely on two
fundamental facts.
History
Helps Us Understand People and Societies
In the first place,
history offers a storehouse of information about how people and societies
behave. Understanding the operations of people and societies is difficult,
though a number of disciplines make the attempt. An exclusive reliance on
current data would needlessly handicap our efforts. How can we evaluate war if
the nation is at peace—unless we use historical materials? How can we
understand genius, the influence of technological innovation, or the role that
beliefs play in shaping family life, if we don't use what we know about
experiences in the past? Some social scientists attempt to formulate laws or
theories about human behavior. But even these recourses depend on historical
information, except for in limited, often artificial cases in which experiments
can be devised to determine how people act. Major aspects of a society's
operation, like mass elections, missionary activities, or military alliances,
cannot be set up as precise experiments. Consequently, history must serve,
however imperfectly, as our laboratory, and data from the past must serve as
our most vital evidence in the unavoidable quest to figure out why our complex
species behaves as it does in societal settings. This, fundamentally, is why we
cannot stay away from history: it offers the only extensive evidential base for
the contemplation and analysis of how societies function, and people need to
have some sense of how societies function simply to run their own lives.
History Helps Us Understand Change and How the Society We Live in Came to Be
The second reason history is inescapable as a subject of serious study follows
closely on the first. The past causes the present, and so the future. Any time
we try to know why something happened—whether a shift in political party
dominance in the American Congress, a major change in the teenage suicide rate,
or a war in the Balkans or the Middle East—we have to look for factors that
took shape earlier. Sometimes fairly recent history will suffice to explain a
major development, but often we need to look further back to identify the
causes of change. Only through studying history can we grasp how things change;
only through history can we begin to comprehend the factors that cause change;
and only through history can we understand what elements of an institution or a
society persist despite change.
The
Importance of History in Our Own Lives
These two fundamental
reasons for studying history underlie more specific and quite diverse uses of
history in our own lives. History well told is beautiful. Many of the historians
who most appeal to the general reading public know the importance of dramatic
and skillful writing—as well as of accuracy. Biography and military history
appeal in part because of the tales they contain. History as art and
entertainment serves a real purpose, on aesthetic grounds but also on the level
of human understanding. Stories well done are stories that reveal how people
and societies have actually functioned, and they prompt thoughts about the
human experience in other times and places. The same aesthetic and humanistic
goals inspire people to immerse themselves in efforts to reconstruct quite
remote pasts, far removed from immediate, present-day utility. Exploring what
historians sometimes call the "pastness of the past"—the ways people
in distant ages constructed their lives—involves a sense of beauty and
excitement, and ultimately another perspective on human life and society.
History
Contributes to Moral Understanding
History also provides
a terrain for moral contemplation. Studying the stories of individuals and
situations in the past allows a student of history to test his or her own moral
sense, to hone it against some of the real complexities individuals have faced
in difficult settings. People who have weathered adversity not just in some work
of fiction, but in real, historical circumstances can provide inspiration.
"History teaching by example" is one phrase that describes this use
of a study of the past—a study not only of certifiable heroes, the great men
and women of history who successfully worked through moral dilemmas, but also
of more ordinary people who provide lessons in courage, diligence, or
constructive protest.
History
Provides Identity
History also helps
provide identity, and this is unquestionably one of the reasons all modern nations
encourage its teaching in some form. Historical data include evidence about how
families, groups, institutions and whole countries were formed and about how
they have evolved while retaining cohesion. For many Americans, studying the
history of one's own family is the most obvious use of history, for it provides
facts about genealogy and (at a slightly more complex level) a basis for
understanding how the family has interacted with larger historical change.
Family identity is established and confirmed. Many institutions, businesses,
communities, and social units, such as ethnic groups in the United States, use
history for similar identity purposes. Merely defining the group in the present
pales against the possibility of forming an identity based on a rich past. And
of course nations use identity history as well—and sometimes abuse it.
Histories that tell the national story, emphasizing distinctive features of the
national experience, are meant to drive home an understanding of national
values and a commitment to national loyalty.
Studying
History Is Essential for Good Citizenship
A study of history is
essential for good citizenship. This is the most common justification for the
place of history in school curricula. Sometimes advocates of citizenship history
hope merely to promote national identity and loyalty through a history spiced
by vivid stories and lessons in individual success and morality. But the
importance of history for citizenship goes beyond this narrow goal and can even
challenge it at some points.
History that lays the
foundation for genuine citizenship returns, in one sense, to the essential uses
of the study of the past. History provides data about the emergence of national
institutions, problems, and values—it's the only significant storehouse of such
data available. It offers evidence also about how nations have interacted with
other societies, providing international and comparative perspectives essential
for responsible citizenship. Further, studying history helps us understand how
recent, current, and prospective changes that affect the lives of citizens are
emerging or may emerge and what causes are involved. More important, studying
history encourages habits of mind that are vital for responsible public
behavior, whether as a national or community leader, an informed voter, a
petitioner, or a simple observer.
What
Skills Does a Student of History Develop?
What does a
well-trained student of history, schooled to work on past materials and on case
studies in social change, learn how to do? The list is manageable, but it
contains several overlapping categories.
The
Ability to Assess Evidence.
The study of history builds experience in dealing with and assessing various
kinds of evidence—the sorts of evidence historians use in shaping the most
accurate pictures of the past that they can. Learning how to interpret the
statements of past political leaders—one kind of evidence—helps form the
capacity to distinguish between the objective and the self-serving among
statements made by present-day political leaders. Learning how to combine
different kinds of evidence—public statements, private records, numerical data,
visual materials—develops the ability to make coherent arguments based on a
variety of data. This skill can also be applied to information encountered in
everyday life.
The
Ability to Assess Conflicting Interpretations. Learning history means gaining some skill in sorting
through diverse, often conflicting interpretations. Understanding how societies
work—the central goal of historical study—is inherently imprecise, and the same
certainly holds true for understanding what is going on in the present day.
Learning how to identify and evaluate conflicting interpretations is an
essential citizenship skill for which history, as an often-contested laboratory
of human experience, provides training. This is one area in which the full
benefits of historical study sometimes clash with the narrower uses of the past
to construct identity. Experience in examining past situations provides a
constructively critical sense that can be applied to partisan claims about the
glories of national or group identity. The study of history in no sense
undermines loyalty or commitment, but it does teach the need for assessing
arguments, and it provides opportunities to engage in debate and achieve
perspective.
Experience
in Assessing Past Examples of Change. Experience in assessing past examples of change is vital
to understanding change in society today—it's an essential skill in what we are
regularly told is our "ever-changing world." Analysis of change means
developing some capacity for determining the magnitude and significance of
change, for some changes are more fundamental than others. Comparing particular
changes to relevant examples from the past helps students of history develop
this capacity. The ability to identify the continuities that always accompany
even the most dramatic changes also comes from studying history, as does the
skill to determine probable causes of change. Learning history helps one figure
out, for example, if one main factor—such as a technological innovation or some
deliberate new policy—accounts for a change or whether, as is more commonly the
case, a number of factors combine to generate the actual change that occurs.
Historical study, in
sum, is crucial to the promotion of that elusive creature, the well-informed
citizen. It provides basic factual information about the background of our
political institutions and about the values and problems that affect our social
well-being. It also contributes to our capacity to use evidence, assess
interpretations, and analyze change and continuities. No one can ever quite
deal with the present as the historian deals with the past—we lack the
perspective for this feat; but we can move in this direction by applying
historical habits of mind, and we will function as better citizens in the
process.
History
Is Useful in the World of Work
History is useful for
work. Its study helps create good businesspeople, professionals, and political
leaders. The number of explicit professional jobs for historians is
considerable, but most people who study history do not become professional
historians. Professional historians teach at various levels, work in museums
and media centers, do historical research for businesses or public agencies, or
participate in the growing number of historical consultancies. These categories
are important—indeed vital—to keep the basic enterprise of history going, but
most people who study history use their training for broader professional
purposes. Students of history find their experience directly relevant to jobs
in a variety of careers as well as to further study in fields like law and
public administration. Employers often deliberately seek students with the
kinds of capacities historical study promotes. The reasons are not hard to
identify: students of history acquire, by studying different phases of the past
and different societies in the past, a broad perspective that gives them the
range and flexibility required in many work situations. They develop research
skills, the ability to find and evaluate sources of information, and the means to
identify and evaluate diverse interpretations. Work in history also improves
basic writing and speaking skills and is directly relevant to many of the
analytical requirements in the public and private sectors, where the capacity
to identify, assess, and explain trends is essential. Historical study is
unquestionably an asset for a variety of work and professional situations, even
though it does not, for most students, lead as directly to a particular job
slot, as do some technical fields. But history particularly prepares students
for the long haul in their careers, its qualities helping adaptation and
advancement beyond entry-level employment. There is no denying that in our
society many people who are drawn to historical study worry about relevance. In
our changing economy, there is concern about job futures in most fields.
Historical training is not, however, an indulgence; it applies directly to many
careers and can clearly help us in our working lives.
Why study history? The
answer is because we virtually must, to gain access to the laboratory of human
experience. When we study it reasonably well, and so acquire some usable habits
of mind, as well as some basic data about the forces that affect our own lives,
we emerge with relevant skills and an enhanced capacity for informed
citizenship, critical thinking, and simple awareness. The uses of history are
varied. Studying history can help us develop some literally "salable"
skills, but its study must not be pinned down to the narrowest utilitarianism.
Some history—that confined to personal recollections about changes and
continuities in the immediate environment—is essential to function beyond
childhood. Some history depends on personal taste, where one finds beauty, the
joy of discovery, or intellectual challenge. Between the inescapable minimum
and the pleasure of deep commitment comes the history that, through cumulative
skill in interpreting the unfolding human record, provides a real grasp of how
the world works.
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