The most common answer to this question is that one should study history because those who do not learn the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat it. While the point is well-taken, cliches like this, perhaps calling it the motto of textbook history is a good way of thinking about it, make it easy to do just what one shouldn't, namely learn about history without bothering to understand it, making it all but certain one will repeat the mistakes of the past.

History is numbers, dates, places and things. Events happen which put into motion other events. Those events have consequences, and so on. Seems logical enough. If you read about World War II, you're likely see how the decision by Britain's Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, to "appease" Hitler, believing it would quiet his avarice for power, proved a failure of monumental proportions. Action. Reaction. And it's all completely meaningless if one wants to get anything out of history useful in the present.

Yes, all those things are certainly important to know, but such knowledge provides little more than explanation. One is never going to "learn the lessons of the past" if they never learn why things happened. Chamberlain miscalculated Hitler's grand vision, and millions paid the price.

A future leader who examined the neat textbook version of the years preceding World War II might easily conclude that power-hungry dictators should be dealt with preemptively. Sounds good, but there's a problem. What if that future adversary was a weak, petty despot teetering on the edge of oblivion? Suddenly that leader turns on the despot, not wanting to be history's next Neville Chamberlain. The weaker nation's leader then decries how the world is against their people and uses the incident to prop up his or her government and, along the way, develop delusions of grandeur that make them into the next Hitler. Not exactly what we hope history leads to.

So, is studying history dangerous or pointless? Admittedly, to say that only by understanding why decisions were made in the past can anything be gained to improve the present and future raises a difficult question. It's impossible to understand all history. Historians who study World War II will never completely master the subject, so what of the rest of us? Why bother to study history at all if there's too much for any one person to absorb, let alone take the "right" lessons from?

The answer lies in the same textbook history I mentioned at the start of this article. Textbooks are designed primarily to open doors to the past. They're not designed to be exhaustive. It's those cues we've read in them that should (hopefully) make us pause at key points in our lives or as we read the day's news sometimes and say "that reminds me of when..." At that moment we should set aside our textbooks (or wikipedias) and pick up histories specific to the events and individuals we want to learn more about. Then we get closer to understanding how history can help in the present.

While not as crisp as a simple phrase, we don't ultimately study the past so we don't make the same mistakes as our ancestors. We often do, despite the best of intentions. History does nonetheless provide something very powerful to study. It gives us a window onto how others faced difficult decisions or fateful moments. Instead of lining up all people and events from the past to make a simple judgment of right and wrong (as if knowledge was so black and white), we study the past to understand the choices and motivations of others as they faced defining moments, hoping for guidance through the uncertainly of the present.

Ultimately, history reminds us we are not alone.

Learn more about this author, Theodore Douglas.
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