Who Needs History? — A Killing Froth

I love reading history. From junior high through post-graduate studies, I not only took a lot of history courses, I also excelled in them. Moreover, in my role as a book reviewer, I have interviewed such eminent historians as Doris Kearns Goodwin, Stephen Ambrose, David McCullough, Taylor Branch, Douglas Brinkly and Jon Meacham (reviews available here). So when I question the value of “knowing history,” it is not out of any distaste for the subject. But I read history as entertainment—for the “movies” it creates in my head--not as a guide to being a better or more prescient citizen.

“Those who do not learn history,” we are told, “are doomed to repeat it.” Implicit in this saying is that if we do learn from the pitfalls of history, we can avoid falling into them now.” How's that working out? If history were a reliable guide and if our best minds have access to knowing it, why aren't there fewer problems in the world rather than more? If history teaches everyone the same lesson—as a scientific experiment would--why are there such deep divisions in the world?

I maintain that nobody knows more than a sliver of history—including professional historians, and even they disagree what that history teaches us. I think we learn from the trials and errors of our own lives and the lives of our contemporaries—not from looking to the past for guidance. Let's say you were picked up and deposited in another country whose citizens speak the same language that you do. And let's further say that your job was to improve the tax system or get clean water to more people or create a more just judicial system or plan a more effective way of teaching children—would you feel the need to bone up on the country's history or would you spend your days and nights examining current shortcomings and assessing the available resources?

Any advocate for any political view can easily find historical examples to “prove” the rightness of his or her point. And they all do. The best case in point is the New York Times-supported “1619 Project,” which “proves” that the bringing of Black slaves to America in 1619 is the pivotal cause of the nation's flawed development. Dozens of historians have taken exception to this obvious simplification, but it's still being offered to schools—and accepted—as authentic history.

The need to “know history” has become such an article of intellectual faith that it's a heresy to suggest otherwise. So burn me at the stake. I don't believe it.

Consider these impediments to knowing:

Each history is written by a person who viewed that particular period of time through a lens that was ground by his or her cultural, political, linguistic, temporal, access, gender and intellectual limitations. It’s something like watching a baseball game through a knothole.
Moreover, the material the historian examined from which to draw broad conclusions consisted of only the tiniest fragments of all that was actually going on during the period in question. To diminish further the reliability of his or her account and interpretations, those fragments that were available for examination and analysis consisted of such questionable sources as (1) secondary accounts reported by contemporary observers whose own capabilities, capacities and motives are always suspect; (2) eyewitness accounts that are necessarily partial and inevitably tainted by intelligence and self-interest; and (3) primary documents that do not always convey the reasoning, conflicts and compromises that went into their final drafts.
Left out of most histories and only touched on in others are ephemeral elements that may have loomed large at the time in causing people to act in certain ways—such as crimes, trials, weather patterns, songs, poems, cartoons, political commentary, religious revivals, natural disasters, shifts in school curricula and local and regional epidemics.
While knowing about events in history—such as how a battle was fought or an election won--provides us with ideas for present-day actions, the same can be said of events described in myths and fiction. In other words, the value of an example lies in its potential applicability to a situation, not in whether it actually happened or not.
In even the most exhaustive and well-researched history, more events and figures will be left out or overlooked than will be cited.
When we speak of “knowing history,” it implies that there is a set of historical facts that are equally reliable and commonly agreed on. That is rarely the case.
For every historical event that parallels a current condition, there are thousands that don’t. So are those events that don’t parallel valueless, even though they may be as well-documented as the other events that do parallel?
Just because Historical Event A precedes Historical Event B, it does not mean that A caused B or that A foretold the inevitability of B happening.
Is knowing the history of Albania as instructive as knowing the history of Finland? Is each country’s history equally valuable as a source of or guide to action? If history really were a guide, wouldn’t we be intellectually obligated to know the histories of all nations?
Is there any proof that political leaders who studied history ruled more wisely and effectively than those who didn’t?

Most people have the illusion that they “know history”—whatever that gauzy concept may mean—but they would be hard-pressed to demonstrate that fact. Having the illusion is not the same as having the knowledge. But in the end it doesn’t matter—except for tests and game shows.