Why Study History free essay sample

By Anita J. Rowe DeVry University May 11, 2013 Professor Betsy Anderson Why Study History? Why should we study history? Why should we study about the participants in that history? What should we hope to gain from these studies? I hope to answer these questions, but first we must think about where we get our information about historical facts. How reliable are they? How do we know the truth? The study of history is both interesting and beneficial but we have to have a basic understanding that there are primarily three basic sources for obtaining information. We must realize that we cannot believe everything we read and the further we are away from the primary source of information, the more we must question the reliability of that information. There are four factors that determine the truth: verifiability, reliability, plausibility, and probability (Anderson, 2013). So, what are these three basic sources for information? The first is the primary source. We will write a custom essay sample on Why Study History? or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page This is the first hand, primary witness or the original documents. The secondary source would be a collection of reports such as a book about the subject. The third or tertiary source would be reports about reports, such as information gathered from the internet or in encyclopedias (Anderson, 2013). But even information from the primary source level cannot be guaranteed because â€Å"the interpretation of facts and the authors’ agendas combine with the cumulative piling of inferences upon one another to quickly dilute the reliability of information† (Anderson, 2013). Taking those factors into consideration, we should look at why we bother to study history at all. How does it benefit us? Peter Stearns of the American Historical Association cites two reasons to study history. First, history helps us to comprehend people and cultures. Those who study and know history have a better understanding of both the past and the present. History helps you understand the origins of contemporary political and social difficulties and why people behaved as they did. History offers much information about how people behaved in the past and may likely behave in the future. You are able to see that people were not just ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but that they were driven in complex and inconsistent ways, just like everyone else. History â€Å"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† (Stearns, 1998). Second, history helps us recognize change and how the civilization we live in came about. It is important to know why something happened. â€Å"The past causes the present, and so the future† (Stearns, 1998). Only by studying history can we understand how things change, what causes these changes and what features of the society persevere regardless of change. The study of history is the only way to study the human condition. History is real. The way people identify and interact with one another is a consequence of history, which shapes and conditions individuals and societies whether they understand it or not. History lets us understand how the world used to be and how it came to be as it is today. History must not be confused with irrelevant trivia. Details matter, but history does not stop with the details. Facts about history must be based on the truth or the humanitarian lessons will be lost. References Anderson, B. (2013). Week 1: Visiting historians in far away lands-Lecture. Retrieved from http://www. devryu.