Why History Is Important: The Importance Of History?

Various people will argue the importance of history. Modernists, for example, completely reject history and see it as no importance, they believe that ‘if one is committed to the future, then why bother with the past?’ . However, if you were to ask a history student, whether the level GCSE, A-Level or even degree level, the answer would be varied. Just many of the few possible answers could be; that history is to facilitate others, and that studying it is a social responsibility to educate those that don’t. History teaches us empathy, and primary sources such as diary entries allow us to see events in other’s perspectives. History gives us the intellectual training to analyse and evaluate, a universal skill. But most importantly, we use history

History teaches us empathy towards other humans who have lived through past crises, and a fraction of an understanding of their feelings during that time. Tosh and Lang have said that history shows us ‘the resourcefulness they[humans] amy show in a crisis, the sensitivity they can show in responding to each other’s needs’ . From history, we can be taught kindness, compassion and togetherness. This gives us the empathy needed in today’s society that are going through similar matters. For example, we can look back to the war time era when hundreds of thousands of Jews were fleeing Nazi occupied countries and empathise, and we can do the same to the millions of Syrian refugees that are fleeing Syria. This empathy taught from history is one of the many reason as to why this is being done, from comparing, as mentioned previously, to previous matters we can empathise and help them even more. Something that’s helped us do this is first-hand accounts of events, such as diary entries. These force us to put ourselves in other’s positions, force us to understand what it would be like, whether it be a soldier’s diary, or a diary entry from a mother in the early industrial era of Britain worrying about her children. This cannot be gained from merely watching the news, or reading media reports, as journalists tend to have a very historically flatten view, which leaves it to the historians to uncover the

We study history for evaluation, as our society is forever changing and different, and we need to understand why. Reasons like this is what more people need to understand why we do study history, and that it’s more than for our pleasure and enjoyment. We study history in order to help, to prevent and to maintain. Whilst we also do study history for empathy and other versatile life skills, history to reflect from is much more