This article has been written for Easy History by Andrew Eckas.
Introduction
I’m often asked a simple question. Sometimes by coworkers or curious strangers, but most often by family and friends. It comes in different forms, but in all cases it’s something akin to, “Why do you like history so much? What’s the point? Why is it important to study history?”
These questions feel apologetic in tone, as if what they really wanted to say was, “I’m sorry you’ve been afflicted with history, is it genetic? Is there a cure?”
But, as every professor, researcher, enthusiast, or history buff knows, the answer to “why study history” seems so intrinsic, so self-evident that it doesn’t require any explanation at all. History’s value implied, its benefits obvious. Yet, for many, history’s value isn’t discernible at all.
Despite living and breathing historical understanding, I still struggle to articulate the importance of historical understanding into words. The reason has to do with a need to incite action. When someone asks me why history matters, I don’t want to give them a straight lined, boring answer—I want to ignite something in them. I want to compel them to go straight home and crack open The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich on the spot.
While it’s not realistic to expect everyone to turn into a devout steward of history, there is a need, now more than ever, to make history something everyone thinks about on a daily basis.
The challenge isn’t loving history ourselves, but convincing others to care, to appreciate what it can do to improve empathy, critical thinking, and human understanding.
The following aims to defend the importance of the past and bring it alive for those who have yet to realize its power.
We Keep the Records That Serve Us and Ignore the Ones That Save Us
We scrutinize a date’s relationship history before committing, check a used car’s accident report before buying, and won’t book an Airbnb without combing through reviews. We trust medical history to save lives, credit history to determine our financial future, and criminal history to keep society in check. Buying or selling a property? Title history and previous ownership determine legal status and value.
As a society we’re beholden to the tangible history around us. Yet when it comes to understanding the events that shaped the world we take part in—the wars, revolutions, injustices, triumphs, failures, and accidents that brought us to today—we shrug and move on.
We obsess over the past of many things, but when it comes to the history that defines us, we treat it as trivia, as fun facts. Ask someone about the history of their own country, of a single event, of the events that led to the outbreak of WWI and the past becomes elusive, meaningless, and uninteresting.
History is not a stagnant record of the past; it is an inheritance, a treasure trove of wisdom left to us by those who came before. The greatest minds of history—philosophers, warriors, statesmen, and scholars—but also the honest, hard working everyday people like you and me. The men, women, and children of the past have left their thoughts for us to pour over.
Let’s make sure they did not labor in vain. Their struggles, their triumphs, their hard-won insights were not only for their own time but for ours. To ignore them is an act of profound ingratitude.
We’re All Watching the Last Five Minutes of a Movie
We all too often accept the current underpinnings of the world around us. Events unfold before us like we’re inside a chaotic, self-contained cage, detached from the past that created them. All too often we accept that objective reality exists, and the events that came before, heard in passing like a whisper in a storm. Without historical context, it is impossible to come to any intelligent opinion, or understanding of current events.
History is what helps us decode the present. It provides the backstory, the motives, the unresolved conflicts, and the patterns.
But modern media feeds reactionary hot takes instead of context. Social media algorithms reward engagement, not understanding—so the loudest, most emotionally charged interpretations rise to the top.
We all feel the pull to check social media right after a major event. But relying on instant reactions without historical context is like watching the final scene of a movie and then being asked to explain the entire plot. You might catch the emotions, the conflict, the climax—but without the story that led up to it, without understanding the character motivations, character arcs, the twists, the internal conflicts of the protagonist, your understanding will be shallow at best, completely wrong at worst.
And if you don’t know the full story, powerful interests will be more than happy to shape it for you. They know you’ve only seen the last five minutes of the movie, and they’ll tell you exactly what to think about the ending.
Speaking of movies, in a survey conducted by the AHA and Fairleigh Dickinson University,theyfound that the top three sources for historical knowledge amongst the American public come from Documentary TV, Fictional Film/TV, and TV News. While documentaries have their merit, and there are plenty of history YouTubers that put out well researched work, it’s no surprise we have a history comprehension problem when most Americans learn about our own revolution via Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger.
Movies and TV can only go so far, and in many circumstances, our reliance on the media to educate us about history can result in dire consequences. A prime example? D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation–which happens to beHollywood’s first big budget success–released in 1915 wasn’t just a film, it was a weaponized narrative that reshaped American culture and politics in damaging ways. We still have wide open wounds that are yet to heal from this film caused, all stemming from historical inaccuracy.
The three hour long silent film depicts an alternate version of American history in which the South, led by the KKK, gains revenge against hostile, evil abolitionists and wins the civil war through the establishment of white dominance. Yes, this film is as horrid in every conceivable way as it seems.
The film uses subtle, emotionally provocative narrative devices to distort and twist the reality of what reconstruction was following the end of the Civil War. It paints the aftermath of the war as an unjust punishment unleashed on the South via greedy, evil Northern bureaucrats.
The film’s most devastating impact came from its widespread mainstream acceptance. Screened at the White House by President Woodrow Wilson (who praised it) lent it government-level legitimacy.
The film’s portrayal of Reconstruction as a disastrous era of Black political power and its heroic depiction of the KKK had a direct contribution to a massive resurgence of the Klan, turning it from a fading memory into a powerful national movement. It’s no coincidence that ten years after the film’s release 30,000 members of the KKK marched on Washington, in what will always be one of America’s darkest moments.
This film, this bad history, solidified Lost Cause Revisionism (which aims to downplay if not totally ignore the issue of slavery as the primary cause for which the south seceded) which is why, unfortunately, it’s still not uncommon to stumble upon a confederate flag displayed in certain parts of the country. Anyone who argues that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery or spouts that the South were victims from Northern aggression are repeating the false arguments laid out by this film in 1915.
Birth of A Nation distorted history and presented a skewed, agenda ridden depiction of history to rewrite how people viewed a historical event, and it worked. When those who embody and appreciate the value of history leave its communication to others, and when the general populace is not equipped to understand the past for themselves, this is what happens.
If You’re a Human You Should Want to Understand Humans
Today’s society has an insatiable thirst for stories. It’s why people watched 94 billion hours on Netflix in the first half of 2024 alone. But this shouldn’t come as a complete shock. It’s through stories that we form a construct of our environment and form a moral compass. It’s how we unpack a complex world and practice how to be human in a safe, comfortable environment. In more ways than one it’s how we work out what’s right and what’s wrong.
As Salmon Rushdie puts it, “We need stories. We need stories to understand ourselves. We are the only creature that does this unusual thing of telling each other stories in order to try and understand the kind of creature that we are.”
People obsess over the actions, thoughts, and motivations of their human counterparts. It’s why we gossip, spy on neighbors, and eavesdrop. Humans are inherently fascinated by humans, and it’s history that is a conduit to a better understanding of humans.
History is an epic narrative filled with real people, making real choices, with real consequences.
Real stories of pain, and love. Real stories of betrayal, and despair. Real stories of determination and bravery. Real stories of women, rising above the crushing societal constructs of their era. Real stories of cultures and people bearing the hardships of life, and in most cases, paying a significant price that we take advantage of time and time again. Stories, either fictional or real, allow us to use past events to model future ones. And so history is our story, our chance to learn from real mistakes, real cause and effect, real people.
Don’t eat that mushroom, one villager said to another, it made me sick.
Don’t leave food out in the open at night, it will attract predators.
Don’t underestimate guerrilla warfare.
Don’t invade Russia in the winter.
Don’t let fascism take hold of your political system.
History Isn’t Boring–You Are
A common misconception about history that needs squashed is the notion that history is boring. That it’s a mundane list of people and events.
Turning again to the study conducted by the AHA and Fairleigh Dickinson University their goal was to gauge American’s thoughts and perceptions on history. The results? Two-thirds of survey takers considered history to be little more than an assemblage of names, dates, and events–source.
We must tear down and rebuild public perception of what history is and isn’t. It’s not history that’s boring—it’s how people have been conditioned to see it, that’s dull.
If we are to communicate the virtues of history we must highlight that history is relatable, practical, and gripping.
To do this we must understand that we are not the first society to experience a global pandemic, deep political polarization, ideological wars, divided societies, concerns over rising authoritarian regimes, surveillance states. We are not the first to endure democratic backsliding, military interventions, and geopolitical rivalries, inflation, skyrocketing costs of housing, food, and healthcare, and widening wealth gaps. Nor are we the first to experience a distrust in science, xenophobia, and movements for women’s rights.
If history teaches us anything, it’s that the challenges we face today are not new—they are modern versions of ancient fears. Societies rise and fall, wars forgotten, economies collapse and rebuild. The question isn’t whether we can relate to people of the past—it’s whether we choose to.
In Meditations for example, the astonishing personal journal of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, he scribbles scattered thoughts regarding an average, ordinary day in which he doesn’t want to get out of bed. That the warmth and comfortability of his covers prevent him from starting the day. He finds himself locked in a familiar battle—the same one he’s fought on countless mornings before, the same one we all know too well.
In Book 5 of Meditations Aurelius opens with the following,
“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”
Reatable? Of course, and it’s something you share in common with a Roman Emperor who died in 180 AD. If you’re not privy to being lazy with an Emperor, maybe you want to stand in the agora with Socrates and question the nature of truth. Or perhaps you want to buy a round of ale for Benjamin Franklin and drink to his claim that “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
The point is that history is the culmination of people who all shared the same fears, dreams, hopes, and questions that anyone reading this has today. Not a single aspect of the human experience is closed to us. Time is not a barrier but a gateway beyond the narrow confines of modern existence. We can and should roam the endless hallways of history, drawing wisdom from its well of stories.
History Teaches Humility and Empathy
History makes you more human. Humble. Empathetic. It’s quite the cathartic exercise, to learn about the hardships, the pain, the suffering, the loss of people of the past. Submit yourself to it you’ll immerse yourself not in despair but in perseverance. In progress. You’ll soon realize that the world today is one worth fighting for.
Yes, there are unimaginable horrors that take place everyday, and we are full steam ahead into a world even Orwell couldn’t have predicted, but it’s for this reason why history is so invaluable.
Historian Sam Wineburg puts it best in his book titled, Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts, “…the narcissist sees the world–both the past and the present–in his own image. Mature historical understanding teaches us to do the opposite: to go beyond our own image, to go beyond our brief life…history is the best for teaching humility in the face of our limited ability to know, and awe in the face of the expanse of history.”
Empathy, real historical empathy, isn’t about excusing the past. It’s not about saying “well, they were a product of their time.” Instead, it’s about understanding why people believed what they did, so we can recognize those same forces at work today. It’s about resisting the urge to dehumanize others, recognizing how context shapes beliefs, and using what we’ve learned to imagine paths forward.
History isn’t an academic exercise reserved for the back of a dimly lit library. It’s armor–protection against lazy thinking, against propaganda, against the kind of ignorance that makes people easy to manipulate.
As the groundbreaking website Our World in Data suggests:
“The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better.”
Conclusion: Lessons from Carthage
Last summer I spent a week in Rome. It was, as any history lover will assume, a divine experience. While the Colosseum gets all the glory and all the attention from Instagram influencers, I found walking the ruins of the Forum to be a much more profound experience. Walking through the same streets as Cato, Cicero, Marius, Sulla, and Caesar, fulfilled a lifelong dream of mine.
Amongst the rubble, the Ancient world ceased to be a distant memory and materialized as a real place from our past. From London to Baghdad, the once-bustling heart of an empire that stretched across continents, where senators debated, generals paraded in triumph, and the fate of civilizations was decided—yet today, its towering columns lay scattered like children’s blocks, mere shadows of their former grandeur.
“Now you have to remember this is a fraction of what it looked like,” our tour guide reminded us. If an ancient Roman returned, they would stare in disbelief—with genuine incomprehension that their reality, something so powerful, so eternal, has crumbled into petrified remains. They would not be able to understand a timeline in which Rome would not have endured.
Scipio Africanus, however, the great Roman general of the 3rd century BC, knew better. As he stood victorious over the burning ruins of Carthage, he didn’t revel in victory—instead he feared the same fate would one day befall Rome.
On the heels of a victory over Hannibal and Carthage at the Battle of Zama in 202 BCE, Scipio said, “It is glorious, but I have a dread foreboding that some time the same doom will be pronounced upon my own country.”
He was right. Scipio understood what history teaches us most. That we are not the beginning nor the end of the story. Around six hundred years from his epiphany, in 455 AD, Vandals sacked Rome and seized the imperial family. This itself was not the first, nor the last time Rome would be sacked.
Writing this as an American in the 21st century, I couldn’t help but ponder the words of Scipio Africanus as I walked through the Forum. Some day, perhaps, two-thousand years from now, tour groups will walk through the ruins of Washington D.C., posing for family pictures upon the crumbled stone remains of Abe Lincoln, or the rubble of a toppled Washington monument, a foundationless White House. And those people will ask their tour guide what happened. How did they let it get to this? And if that tour guide submits themselves to history, they will have an answer.
About the Author
Andrew is a writer based in Colorado. A graduate of the University of Northern Colorado, he’s worked in the tech and non-profit sectors, specializing in content strategy. An avid traveller with a deep appreciation for history and culture, he has lived abroad in Europe and Mexico. He writes both literary fiction and nonfiction.
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