WHY STUDY HISTORY?

Everything has a history. Our planet, the people, cultures, traditions, nations, politics, arts, literature, and many more.
Almost everything you’re seeing in this world has its own history. Some argue that there’s no use in studying history
because all those events that happen in past has no significance in the present and you couldn’t even change what happen
before. Indeed, we couldn’t change anything in past unless we have a time machine. However, how can we understand the
present moment and the future if we don’t know how it had been before, where we came from and how come we’re living
this way.
We humans who have a lot of history. Isn’t it amazing how we had able to survive this far when all those strong
creatures on our planet had ceased to exist a long time ago, isn’t it amazing how we continuously improve our way of
living, our brain, and how we never stop to attain more and new knowledge? Our nation, what is life before? Do our
ancestors have freedom like what we have now? Who are those great heroes who fight for the freedom of our motherland?
What is the history of our cultures and traditions, does it still alive now? Even in terms of arts and literature, what are the
stories behind those masterpieces and its artist? Also in politics, how the government works, how the laws and way of
governing shaped the present one, the success and failures of leaders, did we learn from our past mistake? Is there any
development and good changes?. See? everything’s a history. How can we live in the present and face the future without
the knowledge of the past? We can’t, present and future without history are like trees without roots.
All of those things that happen in the past, a mistake, success, failures, defeat, triumph; we might not change
anything about it but studying how these events unfolded and why it occurs gives us a strong lesson and guide so that we
can better face the future.
So why study history? Unlike physics or economics, history is not a means for making accurate predictions. We
study history not to know the future but to widen our horizon, to understand that our present situation is neither natural
nor inevitable and that we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we imagine - Yuval Noah Harari,
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.