Why we study History:

We study history because we must if we are to be fully human.
Then how can such a sweeping claim be understood?

We must begin by confronting the fact that we are social beings.
Aristotle, in the fourth century before Christ, wrote of the origins of the Political community, the State. It all began with the necessary union of male and female for the perpetuation of humanity.
Then followed the association of people in families, in villages, in cities, and in nations.
Thus the history of humanity began.

Galileo’s discoveries concerning the nature of the universe involved the death of a worldview that had dominated human perceptions for centuries.
Because he seemed to be turning the truth upside down, his discoveries aroused the church hierarchy dramatically.

Alaric’s sack of Rome is a strong symbol of the end of the Roman peace and of Roman domination of the Mediterranean world.
But it is also the symbolic of the release of new possibilities, the prospects that led to the development of Western Europe with all its achievements and failures yet to unfold.
Le Harvey Oswald’s fatal shooting of Present Kennedy involved the death of hope for many people and a reassessment of ourselves and our corporate life in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Such events in time past impinge on us now.
We are involved in mankind through the ages. If we are to know who we are we must self-consciously relate ourselves to the past.

If we ignore history (the past,) we will deteriorate, becoming less than fully human.
Historical study as rigorous, sometimes critical discipline exercised on behalf of humanity, its dignity and freedom, is essential to our well-being and indeed our very survival.

This is a very well known fact attested to by the psychiatrist who assists patients to recover their pasts in order that they may find themselves.
It is this fact that world leaders being wise who, for the sake of sanity and the survival of the human race, will not let anyone forget the horrors of the Nazi death camps, the bombing of Hiroshima with its horrific outcome, and the tragic deaths of the use of Napalm in Vietnam, we can all remembered that little child running naked along the road.
This is why the study of history is so important to us all, we have to confront the past to understand it, and therefore to build a better future.