Why should we study history?

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it- George santayanaWhy should we study history?Material taken from Teaching What Really Matters by James Loewen.History helps you be better citizens by enabling you to understand what causes what in society. Even when an event seems to be new, the causes of the acts and feelings are deeply embedded in the past. Thus, to understand an event (an election, an act of terror, a policy decision, etc.) we must start in the past.Causation#1History helps you become critical thinkers about the past and present.

Sometimes no one knows the right answer.

Critical Thinking#2Knowing and correctly understanding the past will enable you to see through fabrications and oversimplifications.

Understanding what happened in the past empowers you to argue for better policies in the present.

History is a weapon!!#3As the wealthiest, most culturally influential and militarily powerful country in the world, we are inevitably ethnocentric.Ethnocentric the belief that ones own culture is the best, and that others should be ranked by how much they resemble ours.Ethnocentrism is a form of arrogance, and leads to American exceptionalism.

To resist your stereotype.#4Sociology - Social structure pushes people around, influences their careers, and even affects how they think.

To resist sociology.#5

There is a direct relationship between justice in the present and honesty about the past.

Telling the truth about the past can help us make it right from here on.

To be honest.#6To be smarter than Britney Spears.#7

#8Howard Zinn: History is important. If you don't know history it is as if you were born yesterday. And if you were born yesterday, anybody up there in a position of power can tell you anything, and you have no way of checking up on it.