by Michelle Belle

Created on: January 13, 2009

From the practical to the personal, history does have its uses. This is not a popular opinion among those wholly invested in the now, the new, the disposable present that seems to them disconnected from anything that ever was or will be. In actuality, every aspect of life on any given day has a long and complex history that resulted in its present appearance. Every smell, sight or sound, every building or lamppost or vending machine came to be through a knotty web of stories dating all the way back to the founding of human civilization.

Perhaps that's going back a little far for most people's purposes. Even so, there's merit to knowing where things come from. A man buying a corned beef sandwich from his favorite deli probably isn't thinking about more than how much he likes corned beef sandwiches, and may not consider that there's a story behind his sandwich, his deli and even his own ability to walk freely into an establishment and order. Some of these stories will be practical, some personal, and some just plain amusing. That's one bonus aspect of studying history: entertainment. Despite what you may have learned in public school history classes, history can be interesting. People rave about the excitement in movies, books and television, but as good as some of those inventions are, nothing in fiction can compare to what has happened in reality. Imagine a ruler so disillusioned by his own society that he does all he can to destroy it, a noblewoman turned pirate to avenge the death of her husband, a child political prisoner growing up to become the most bloodthirsty scourge of his captors, or a pope screaming excommunication down on siege armies. (If you've ever heard the phrase, "You cannot make this up!" this is where it surely applies.)

Still, if the man at the deli has no interest in the wealth of compelling, personal stories about American immigrant culture provided by the legacy of the delicatessen, he may instead be interested in any number of food industry stories connected with the safety of the consumer, or that may affect his ability to continue to buy from his favorite place in the future. From a practical perspective, history can be a gateway to learning everything about human civilization, even what might happen. On the small scale, a knowledgeable person might be able to predict what could happen in person-to-person interactions based on what they have learned about the interplay of each person's cultural history. Too, predictions can be made

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