Why It’s Important That We

Study History

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When most of us think back to our childhood school days, we can also
remember at least a handful of kids who thought history class was a drag. To
them, history just seemed like a jumble of names and dates attached to
events long over with and people long dead. What was the point of learning it
at all?

They didn’t know then that history was one of the most important
subjects they’d ever study. Here we’ll take a closer look at why history is
important and explore why everyone should make it a point to study it in depth.

1. History helps us develop a better understanding of the world.

You can’t build a framework on which to base your life without understanding
how things work in the world. History paints us a detailed picture of how
society, technology, and government worked way back when so that we can
better understand how it works now. It also helps us determine how to
approach the future, as it allows us to learn from our past mistakes (and
triumphs) as a society.

2. History helps us understand ourselves.

To understand who you are, you need to develop a sense of self. A large part
of that is learning where you fit into the story of your country or the global
community in the grand scheme of things. History tells you the story of how
your nation, city, or community came to be everything that it is. It tells you
where your ancestors came from and tells you who they were. Most
importantly of all, it gives you the ability to spot (and appreciate) the legacies
you may have inherited from them.

3. History helps us learn to understand other people.

History isn’t just an essential introduction to your own country, ethnic heritage,
and ancestry. It’s also a valuable tool when it comes to understanding those
who are different from us. Global, national, and regional history books help us
understand how other cultures affect our own.

They encourage us to develop a greater appreciation for multicultural

influences within our own communities as well – exactly why everyone should
study African American history, immigrant history, and so forth, regardless of
their own cultural background.

4. History teaches a working understanding of change.

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It goes without saying that change can be a difficult concept to understand.

Each of us has a different experience with the rest of the world – an
experience shaped by societal norms, cultural differences, personal
experiences, and more. We know when we as individuals crave change and
why. History helps us better understand how, when, and why change occurs
(or should be sought) on a larger scale.

5. History gives us the tools we need to be decent citizens.

Good citizens are always informed citizens, and no one can consider himself
to be an informed citizen without a working knowledge of history. This is the
case whether we’re talking about our role in our community or in regards to
our nation on the whole. History helps us become better voters and more
effective members of any type of society. It helps put us in a position to better
inform others as well.

6. History makes us better decision makers.

“Those that do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” Those words were
first spoken by George Santayana, and they are still very relevant today
because of how true they are. History gives us the opportunity to learn from
past mistakes. It helps us understand the many reasons why people may
behave the way they do. As a result, it helps us become more compassionate
as people and more impartial as decision makers. Our judicial system is a
perfect example of this concept at work.
7. History helps us develop a new level of appreciation for just about
everything.

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History is more than just the living record of nations, leaders, and wars. It’s
also the story of us. It’s packed with tales of how someone stood up for what
they believed in, or died for love, or worked hard to make their dreams come
true. All of those things are concepts we can relate to; it’s enriching to know
that so could the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, or Martin
Luther King.

Plus, history is just plain interesting. Everything you like about your favorite
movies, television shows, and fiction novels is yours to experience right here
in reality when you study history. Explore the possibilities today and step into
a whole new world that will change who you are forever.

https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/Navigation/Community/Arcadia-and-THP-Blog/June-2016/Why-
It%E2%80%99s-Important-That-We-Study-History

THE VALUE OF HISTORY STATEMENT

 Download a PDF of the Value of History Statement

Interested in learning more about the characteristics of relevant history products? Download
our new resource, “Five Qualities of a Relevant History Experience.”

TO OURSELVES

IDENTITY » History nurtures personal and collective identity in a diverse world. People
discover their place in time through stories of their families, communities, and nation.
These stories of freedom and equality, injustice and struggle, loss and achievement, and
courage and triumph shape people’s personal values that guide them through life.

CRITICAL THINKING » History teaches vital skills. Historical thinking requires critical
approaches to evidence and argument and develops contextual understanding and
historical perspective, encouraging meaningful engagement with concepts like continuity,
change, and causation, and the ability to interpret and communicate complex ideas clearly
and coherently.

TO OUR COMMUNITIES

VIBRANT COMMUNITIES » History is the foundation for strong, vibrant communities. A

place becomes a community when wrapped in human memory as told through family
stories, tribal traditions, and civic commemorations as well as discussions about our roles
and responsibilities to each other and the places we call home.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT » History is a catalyst for economic growth. Communities

with cultural heritage institutions and a strong sense of historical character attract talent,
increase tourism revenues, enhance business development, and fortify local economies.

TO OUR FUTURE

ENGAGED CITIZENS » History helps people envision a better future. Democracy thrives
when individuals convene to express opinions, listen to others, and take action. Weaving
history into discussions about contemporary issues clarifies differing perspectives and
 misperceptions, reveals complexities, grounds competing views in evidence, and
introduces new ideas; all can lead to greater understanding and viable community
solutions.

LEADERSHIP » History inspires leaders. History provides today’s leaders with role models
as they navigate through the complexities of modern life. The stories of persons from the
past can offer direction to contemporary leaders and help clarify their values and ideals.

LEGACY » History, saved and preserved, is the foundation for future generations.
Historical knowledge is crucial to protecting democracy. By preserving authentic and
meaningful documents, artifacts, images, stories, and places, future generations have a
foundation on which to build and know what it means to be a member of the civic
community.

https://www.historyrelevance.com/value-history-statement

A Point Of View: What is history's role in

society?
• 8 October 2012
History is just as important as science and engineering when it comes to fostering innovation and
helping people to think analytically, says Sarah Dunant.

A few weeks ago, an exhibition opened in London's Royal Academy galleries. Called simply Bronze, it
celebrates a metal so important it has its own age of history attached to it, and so responsive to the
artist's skill that it breathes life into gods, humans, mythological creatures and animals with equal
success.

The first thing you see as you walk in is a male figure dancing in the air, athletic and graceful in equal
measure, despite the fact that he is missing both arms and one leg. Two and a half thousand years ago,
this dancing satyr would have been part of a group. His lost companions are probably still somewhere in
the ocean bed around Sicily from where he was dredged up by fishermen in 1998.

The exhibition is rich in similar moments of revelation - a 1st Century mask and helmet found by metal
detection in a field in Britain two years ago and a 4th Century BC head of a king unearthed in a tomb in
Bulgaria in 2004, the face so lifelike and belligerent that it makes you want to run for cover. It also has
historians of the early Hellenistic period re-evaluating the level of artistry in Thracian culture.

It is remarkable to think that had Bronze been mounted say 15 years ago, the portrait of the past that it
delivered would have been subtly different. History is very far from a done deal.

Of course, at one level we know that. Historians are always rewriting the past. The focus on what is or is
not important in history, is partly determined by the time they themselves live in and therefore the
questions that they ask.

The history I grew up with was largely still the long march of power - kings, queens, wars, governments,
the development of parliamentary democracy with some colourful characters thrown in and the whole
edifice backed up by shelf-loads of racy historical novels which coated dry dates with the honey of
romance.

In 1534, England leaves the Catholic Church - otherwise known as the "will she/won't she? courtship" of
Anne Boleyn. I, like many readers - not to mention the heroines themselves - succumbed to this (what
shall we call it?) droit du seigneur version of history.
 Image captionEric
Hobsbawm's writings influenced students and politicians across Europe

By the time I hit university things were already changing. Marxism had arrived into academic history,
bringing a heightened attention to the long arc of class and economics, for which among others we have
to thank the mighty Eric Hobsbawm who died at 95 this very week.

Then came another forceful -ism connected with women (excuse me, what exactly were half the
population, or rather those not born royal or married to Henry VIII doing in history?) followed by
equally powerful questions about race and racism. The idea of history as a procession of dead white
males written by live ones may sound ridiculous now, but the war inside academia to open up a wider
perspective was a real and often nasty one.

But oh, what wonders it unearthed. The practise of micro-history for example - the way you could
construct pictures of forgotten communities or individual lives from state, parish or court records
proved breath-taking.

Carlo Ginzburg and Natalie Zemon Davis are the acknowledged giants of this particular historical
revolution.

Ginzburg's most famous book The Cheese and the Worms was based on an inquisition case in 16th
Century Italy against a miller with a particularly novel version of Genesis. He believed the world was
formed out of chaos, as he saw cheese formed out of milk - with the angels, God one of them, - appearing
like worms inside the mixture. The story of how this largely uneducated but opinionated peasant stood
up for himself through a number of trials (he eventually ends up at the stake) is riveting.

Zemon Davis' iconic work The Return of Martin Guerre is better known, partly because it was taken up
by film. It, too, drew on a court case, this time in 16th Century France.

Eight years after a certain Martin Guerre disappears from his village and his marriage, a man claiming to
be him walks back into both. But is he really Martin Guerre? With no images or mirrors in such places
(how does that affect memory, and the construction of identity?) no-one can be sure. Except, surely, his
wife? Nathalie Baye's face in the movie when she refuses to denounce him in court (the him in this case
being Gerard Depardieu) is a heart-stopping moment, but also one that hints at a world hardest for
historians to penetrate - women's emotional life and what takes place behind the bedroom door.

These and many works like them have helped to revolutionise our view of the past, incorporating the
richness of the ordinary and the iconoclastic. Like a huge pointillist painting, the background to all those
well-known central figures is slowly but surely filling up with depth and colour from thousands of dots
of new historical knowledge.

Image captionThe
teaching of science and engineering has become increasingly important

All this exposes the current assault on the humanities within higher education as even more philistine.
As far as one can tell the thinking goes like this: the study of history, English, philosophy or art doesn't
really help anyone get a job and does not contribute to the economy to the same degree that science or
engineering or business studies obviously do.

Well, let's run a truck though that fast shall we? The humanities, alongside filling one in on human
history, teach people how to think analytically while at the same time noting and appreciating
innovation and creativity. Not a bad set of skills for most jobs wouldn't you say? As for the economy -
what about the billion pound industries of publishing, art, television, theatre, film - all of which draw on
our love of as well as our apparently insatiable appetite for stories, be they history or fiction?

One could wish that the history bit was sometimes more accurate. No-one would dare to mess with
science in the way they mess with history. Imagine an account of Newton where the apple goes up a few
feet before it started to fall.

But at least it keeps a sense of the past alive and dynamic.

And at its best the results can be stunning. Take historical fiction. Though there is no end in sight to bad
novels about the Tudors - in America you can hardly see the surface of the water for the feeding frenzy
of agents, publishers and writers producing more ruffs and bodices - there are also brilliant ones and I
am not just talking Hilary Mantel.

To balance one's view of America, consider the issues of race and slavery. Toni Morrison's Beloved grew
partly from this new historical focus - an imaginative tour de force that animated an inner life of slavery,
it pushed the modern reader past knee-jerk guilt to confront what felt at times like superior humanity.
Or Valerie Martin's award-winning novel Property which entered the same difficult history from a white
woman's perspective.

Image captionToni
Morrison explores the legacy of slavery in her work

Such fictional techniques - writing from inside created characters - are of course not open to historians,
but larger topics such as emotions or physical pain - their role and changing meanings within history -
are very much up for grabs with big studies on both taking place at Birkbeck and Queen Mary
universities in London. From the novelist's point of view the symbiosis between the two disciplines has
never been so close or creative.

I speak from personal experience here. Working as I do within the Italian Renaissance, I could simply
not have attempted the novels I have written 20 or even 15 years ago, since much of the material - the
lives of nuns or courtesans for instance - did not exist in the public domain. Like the unearthing of that
Thracian head this is history as a kind of archaeology - scholars mining their way through literally tons
of state, church, convent, records in order find the seams and nuggets of gold contained within.

These include as the visionary - and unpopular - abbess in the Italian city of Pescia who was spotted
shoving needles into her palms to fake her own stigmata. The Roman courtesan who writes
metaphysical treatises, or the Venetian one who defends herself in court against charges of witchcraft.

Or the musically talented nun in the same city who sneaks out of her convent during carnival to meet a
certain priest outside the walls. When she is caught, her defence (and all the evidence suggests it to be
true) is that the pleasure they shared was not carnal. They were going to the opera together. One could
not - dare not - make it up.

History. Any society that doesn't pay proper attention to it not only has dangerously shallow roots, but
also risks starving its own imagination.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19844685
The Importance of History
By David Crabtree|February 26th, 2001|Article, Society
History is important. In centuries past this statement would have seemed self-evident.
Ancient cultures devoted much time and effort to teaching their children family history. It
was thought that the past helps a child understand who he is. Modern society, however,
has turned its back on the past. We live in a time of rapid change, a time of progress.
We prefer to define ourselves in terms of where we are going, not where we come from.
Our ancestors hold no importance for us. They lived in times so different from our own
that they are incapable of shedding light on our experience. Man is so much smarter
now than he was even ten years ago that anything from the past is outdated and
irrelevant to us. Therefore the past, even the relatively recent past, is, in the minds of
most of us, enshrouded by mists and only very vaguely perceived. Our ignorance of the
past is not the result of a lack of information, but of indifference. We do not believe that
history matters.

But history does matter. It has been said that he who controls the past controls the
future. Our view of history shapes the way we view the present, and therefore it dictates
what answers we offer for existing problems. Let me offer a few examples to indicate
how this might be true.

One of my children comes running up to me, “Papa, Stefan hit me!” Another child
comes close on the heels of the first, “I did not. You hit me!” As a parent I have to
determine what happened. Usually I have to sort through conflicting testimony to get to
the truth of the matter. Part of my information is my knowledge of human beings in
general; part of my information is the knowledge I have assembled over the lifetimes of
these particular children. All of this is essentially history. It is knowledge about the past.
I must have a good understanding of the past in order to know how to deal wisely with
these children in the present. Any punishment or chastisement will depend on my
reconstruction of what actually happened. The children realize this, and thus they
present very selective histories of the event in an attempt to dictate my response. In
these kinds of situations, children very clearly understand that history matters.

When you go into a doctor’s office for the first time, you invariably have to fill out an
information sheet that asks about your medical history. Some of these forms are very
detailed, asking questions that require information from rarely accessed memory banks.
Why does a doctor ask these questions? The doctor is trying to construct an accurate
picture of your state of health. Your health is heavily influenced by the past. Your
heredity, past behaviors, past experiences are all important determinants and clues to
your present condition. Whenever you return to the doctor, he or she pulls out a file
which contains all the notes from past visits. This file is a history of your health. Doctors
understand very clearly that the past matters.

Some of you might be thinking that these examples are not very compelling because
they both deal with the very recent past—they are not what we think of when we think of
history. Let me give one final example that is more to the point. In 1917 the Communists
took control of Russia. They began to exercise control over how the history of their
country ought to be told. They depicted the tsar as oppressive and cruel. The leaders of
the revolution, on the other hand, were portrayed in a very positive light. The
Communist government insisted that these leaders, and in particular Lenin, understood
more clearly than any one else what Russia needed and what course of action the
government ought to follow. According to the official history, Lenin made no mistakes
and he passed his virtually infallible understanding on to the other leaders of the party.
The official history presented Lenin and Stalin as kind, compassionate, wise, nearly
divine leaders. Consequently, difficulties that people in the Soviet Union experienced
were all attributable to capitalism. The nation’s economic backwardness, the need for a
massive military and tight security, and domestic crime were all ultimately tied to the
influence of capitalistic countries. This is the perspective of history that was taught to
Soviet children for half a century.

In the seventies and eighties, several things happened to shake people’s confidence in
this view of history. One was the publication of Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago. This
work was the product of years of historical research by the author. He interviewed
scores of prisoners and did extensive research to chronicle the genesis and
development of the chain of labor camps that dotted the Soviet Union. His book
described the cruelty and injustice of the system in great detail; but most important of
all, he was able to show that Lenin and Stalin were active and knowing participants in
the formation of this brutal institution.

Solzhenitsyn’s depiction of these leaders was incompatible with the official history. And
if the official history was wrong, the legitimacy and justification for Soviet rule was all
brought into question. In 1979, a Soviet emigre, after having read Gulag Archipelago,
told me, “The impact of this book will be far more devastating to Soviet power than an
atomic bomb.” I am convinced that one of the reasons the Soviet Union disintegrated is
because people began to doubt the official history. Ask Gorbachev if history matters.

I. A DEFINITION OF HISTORY

So history matters, but what is history? My advisor in graduate school had a simple
definition that I have grown to appreciate: “History is a story about the past that is
significant and true.” This simple definition contains two words packed with meaning
which must be understood in order to understand history.

A. Significance

The first word is “significant.” No one could record everything that is true about an event
in the past: temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, soil type, molecules bouncing
around, hearts beating, lungs inflating and deflating, and so forth—there is no end to
what could be listed. History is the process of simplifying. Of all that could be said about
an event, what is most important or most significant? The goal of history is to tell a story
about the past which captures the essence of an event while omitting superfluous
details.

Significance is determined by the historian. The historian sorts through the evidence
and presents only that which, given his particular world view, is significant. What a
historian finds significant is not entirely a personal choice; it is largely shaped by his
training and his colleagues. In order for a historian to have his works published, he has
to receive the approval of his fellow historians. Therefore, the community of historians
has a large say in deciding what about the past is significant. But historians are just as
much a part of society as anyone else, and we are all greatly influenced by those
around us. As a result, the community of historians tends to share the same notion of
significance as is held by society as a whole. Therefore, historians tend to tell stories
which reflect the dominant values of the society in which they live.

This leads to a curious feature of historical narrative: the past is fixed—no one can
change what happened—but as the values of society change, the historians’ depiction
of the past changes also. It has been argued that history tells us more about the time in
which it is written than the time about which it is written. I recently did some reading
about the history of homosexuality. For a couple of decades in the middle of the
nineteenth century, historians viewed homosexuality as an immoral act and
consequently looked at the prevalence of homosexuality in ancient Greece as a sign of
its moral decadence and a precursor to the collapse of Greek civilization. Historians
then applied this same analysis to Roman society. In the latter part of the nineteenth
century, however, society began to question the existence of moral absolutes. As a
result, historians ceased to give credence to any connection between moral behavior
and the health of a civilization. Therefore, the search for a connection between moral
decline and the fall of empire ceased to hold any interest and was abandoned. Instead,
historians, interested in telling the story of the growth and development of liberty, saw
the open practice of homosexuality as a good thing, in that it demonstrated greater
social tolerance and, therefore, increased personal liberty. Notice that the first view
(based on moral absolutes) was not disproved; it was simply abandoned due to a
change in the values of society. This, in turn, produced a change in the way historians
depicted the past. The past does not change, but history changes with every
generation.

B. Truth

I said that history is a story about the past that is significant and true. I have talked
about the word “significant”; now I want to talk about the word “true.” What does it mean
to say that a historical account is true? Most modern historians would claim there is no
absolute truth. This would imply there is no basis for saying that one historical account
is true and another one false. I know of no historian, however, who actually operates
this way in practice. Most historians use the word “true” to mean any perspective well
supported by facts.
The tricky thing is that every historian uses facts to build his case. Rarely does an
historian consciously distort the facts; and although minor factual errors are common,
they seldom undermine the overall presentation. But even though most histories are
built on facts, the histories can be very different, even contradictory, because
falsehoods can be constructed solely with facts.

My parents once put in a new front lawn. Soon after it was planted, my mother
discovered bicycle tracks running across the yard. She had a pretty good idea who had
done it, so she asked this boy if he knew anything about the tracks. He said, “Yes, I do.
My sister’s bike did it.” This is a wonderfully crafted statement. It is built on facts, but it is
designed to create a false impression. We often refer to such statements as “half-
truths.” For history to be true, it must not only be based on facts, it must present those
facts in a balanced, well proportioned manner. Too often histories are half-truths.

I need to point out quickly that most historians do not intentionally distort history to serve
their purposes, as this boy did. The process is much less malicious, yet far more
insidious. Historians interpret evidence through the eyes of their own world view. This is
natural; we could not expect anything else. This has far reaching consequences,
however. Take, for example, a historian studying the story of Jonathan and David. If all
of the historian’s close same-sex relationships have been sexual, he will be unable to
conceive of Jonathan and David’s relationship as being anything else. Thus he will
conclude that David and Jonathan were homosexuals. Given his experience, he can not
imagine any other interpretation of the evidence. Therefore, the accuracy of an
historian’s version of past events depends greatly on the soundness of his world view.

I suspect this is contrary to most people’s image of history. People generally think of
history as a very objective discipline. This perspective dominated the field about a
century ago, and most of us were led to believe this in the course of our education. We
were taught that objective historians began to piece together a picture of the past, and
every new generation of historians discovers new facts which alter our understanding of
the past. With each generation, therefore, we get closer to the truth of history, but these
refinements do not significantly alter the assured findings of science.

This perspective would find few adherents today. It has become painfully obvious that
no researcher is a blank slate. We all start with some preconceived notions about what
is true and what is not. It should not and can not be otherwise. All history is, in this
sense, biased.

For the reasons I have listed, history is a value-laden discipline. Howard Zinn, the
author of a book to which we will return in a minute, makes the following statement:

It is not that the historian can avoid emphasis of some facts and not of others. This is as
natural to him as to the mapmaker, who, in order to produce a usable drawing for
practical purposes, must first flatten and distort the shape of the earth, then choose out
of the bewildering mass of geographic information those things needed for the purpose
of this or that particular map.
My argument cannot be against selection, simplification, emphasis, which are inevitable
for both cartographers and historians. But the mapmaker’s distortion is a technical
necessity for a common purpose shared by all people who need maps. The historian’s
distortion is more than technical, it is ideological; it is released into a world of contending
interests, where any chosen emphasis supports (whether the historian means to or not)
some kind of interest, whether economic or political or racial or national or
sexual.” (Note 1)

II. “HISTORY” EXAMPLES

History, by its very nature, does more than tell us about the past; it argues for an
ideology a world view.

1992 gave us an excellent opportunity to see a struggle between different groups each
trying to claim history in support of their cause. It was the 500th anniversary of
Columbus’s landing on American soil. Columbus, who had long enjoyed the status of
hero, came under heavy criticism. This historical event and the versions of history it
generated are a very good example of what I have been talking about. I would like to
look at two descriptions of this event and show how ideology infuses both accounts.
One account is found in The Light and the Glory by Peter Marshall and David Manuel.
(Note 2) The other is from A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn.

Both of these books were written at the end of the 1970s. For a quarter of a century
prior to this time, the most noted historian of the life of Columbus was Samuel Eliot
Morison. He wrote several books about Columbus, but the most widely read was
Christopher Columbus, Mariner. (Note 3) Until the late seventies, Morison’s depiction of
Columbus was considered the most authoritative. Since both Marshall’s and Zinn’s
books were written to correct Morison’s presentation, let me first describe Morison’s
perspective.

A. Morison: Columbus, the mariner

Morison was a naval officer (so I have heard) turned historian. His love of the sea and
appreciation for good seamanship is obvious in his history. Morison has enormous
respect and admiration for Columbus as a sailor and navigator. This and this alone was
Columbus’s greatness. At a time when all of Europe was trying to find economical
routes to Asia, Columbus was convinced that Asia could easily be reached by sailing
west across the Atlantic. Most scholars of the time believed that the world was round
and that Asia could be reached by sailing west, but they thought it was too far.
Columbus argued that the scholarly opinion greatly overestimated the distance and that
Asia was only about a three week voyage. As it turned out, the scholars were right; Asia
was too far away, but fortunately for Columbus, America was just about where he
thought Asia would be.

Columbus undertook the trip to prove that he was right. His superior sailing skills
enabled the expedition to reach America. Columbus thought he had landed in Asia, and
he spent the rest of his life trying to prove he was correct. This drove him to be in
constant search for gold and more geographical knowledge: since Asia was known to
be rich in gold, a vast amount of gold would suggest that the land was, in fact, Asia; and
since Marco Polo had written about the geography of Asia, Columbus felt further
exploration would demonstrate that he had found the land Marco Polo described.
Columbus’s constant exploration and search for gold led him to make some poor
decisions regarding the administration of the lands he discovered; his negligence
resulted in brutal treatment of the native population. Although Morison does not excuse
Columbus’s negligence, he does not want this flaw to detract from our appreciation for
Columbus’s skills as a seaman.

B. Peter Marshall: Columbus, the tool of God

Peter Marshall has a very different perspective. He sees Columbus as a key figure in
God’s grand plan to establish a very special country, unique in the history of the world.
Just as God selected Israel to be a special nation which He promised to bless as long
as the people were obedient to His commandments, God singled out the United States
for a similar purpose:

Could it be that we Americans, as a people, were meant to be a “light to lighten the

Gentiles” (Luke 2:23)—a demonstration to the world of how God intended His
children to live together under the Lordship of Christ? Was our vast divergence from
this blueprint, after such a promising beginning, the reason why we now seem to be
heading into a new dark age? (p. 19)
Marshall’s book, therefore, chronicles the indications of God’s special guidance of key
individuals in the history of the United States.

Columbus is one of those individuals. Marshall sees the hand of God behind
Columbus’s voyage from its very inception. He quotes from one of Columbus’s writings:

It was the Lord who put into my mind I could feel his hand upon me) the fact that it
would be possible to sail from here to the Indies. All who heard of my project rejected
it with laughter, ridiculing me. There is no question that the inspiration was from the
Holy Spirit, because He comforted me with rays of marvelous inspiration from the
Holy Scripture…. (p. 17)
Marshall is very sensitive to indications of God’s divine guidance and protection for
Columbus’s venture and Columbus’s personal relationship with God.

Marshall begins by pointing out that Columbus’s first name is Christopher, which means
“Christ-bearer.” He sees this as significant because one of the main reasons Columbus
gave for wanting to find Asia was to evangelize its inhabitants. Columbus’s name was,
therefore, prophetic.

Marshall describes the difficulty Columbus had in finding a sponsor for his expedition.
He tried but failed to get the king of Portugal to finance his trip. He got nowhere with the
king of England. He approached the king and queen of Spain, but they kept putting him
off. Having given up on the Spanish monarchs and at a point of desperation, he was
about to leave for France to ask the French king to finance his expedition when the
queen of Spain had a change of heart. Marshall points out that the queen’s confessor,
who was the head of the monastery where Columbus was staying, was instrumental in
convincing the queen of the value of the enterprise. Marshall imagines what might have
transpired between the monk and Columbus while Columbus was in despair over his
inability to find a sponsor.:

But in the cool stone cloister of the monastery, we can almost hear Father Perez as he
might have reminded Christopher that all of the things which had tormented him—the
elusive recognition, wealth and position which he wanted so desperately and which
always seemed just out of reach—these were the world’s inducements, not the things
that concerned the Lord Jesus. (p. 34)
[Let me take this opportunity to make a short digression. I do not think Marshall’s book
is accepted as a serious work of history. One of the reasons is because the author
occasionally inserts these imaginary scenes for which he has absolutely no evidence. I
would like to point out, however, that this criticism is a little unfair. The mind of any
historian is constantly at work trying to imagine the event under investigation. The
evidence is always less than complete, and the historian tries to fill in the missing
pieces, by drawing on his knowledge of reality and general human experience to
extrapolate what must have happened. So whereas Marshall has actually recorded his
imaginings, and serious historians do not, we must nevertheless acknowledge that all
historians use their imaginations to fill out the picture, and this affects the way they tell
the story.]

Marshall describes Columbus’s first crossing as a major test of Columbus’s faith in God.
Early on, the voyage went extremely well, but as the time went on with no land in sight,
the crew became very fearful. On October 9th, there was almost a mutiny, but
Columbus reached an agreement to sail west three more days before turning back. For
the next three days, the sailing conditions improved dramatically, and on the third day,
at the end of the day, they finally sighted land. Marshall’s description of this voyage puts
less emphasis on Columbus’s skills as a seaman and great emphasis on the indications
of providential guidance. From Marshall’s perspective, Columbus’s skill was just one
more instance of God’s blessing on the venture. Of infinitely more importance to
Marshall is how Columbus responded to this test of his faith, for the success or failure of
the mission hinged on this.
Marshall concluded that Columbus responded well to the test of his faith while at sea,
but after Columbus reached America he made two serious errors. The first mistake was
establishing a precedent for mistreatment of the Indians. While Columbus generally
treated the Indians fairly well, he did them one very serious injustice—he forcibly took
several Indians back to Spain with him to become interpreters. This set a very bad
precedent for the treatment of Indians, which became much more brutal with later
explorers. Marshall holds Columbus partially responsible for this. The other error
Columbus committed was to embark on a search for gold. From Marshall’s perspective,
Columbus became preoccupied with a thirst for gold and this corrupted him:

Gold—one can see the hand of the Devil here. Unable to overcome the faith of the
Christ-bearer by sowing fear and dissension in the hearts of his men or by paralyzing
him with despair, Satan had failed to keep the Light of Christ from establishing a
beachhead in practically the only part of the world in which he still reigned
unchallenged. So he now moved to destroy the army of holy invaders from within their
ranks. And he chose the one instrument which almost never failed: the love of
money. (p. 42)
Behind the scenes, Marshall sees a grand conflict between God and the godly and
Satan and his forces. Gold is the tool Satan used to distract Columbus from his divinely
appointed mission.

Columbus’s thirst for gold and his rejection of God’s mission for him caused God to
afflict Columbus with a series of tragedies. While Columbus went to Spain to report his
find, he left a small number of Spaniards in the New World. He returned to America only
to discover that these men had been massacred by the Indians who were exasperated
by the Spaniards’ cruel, greed-motivated treatment. The men he brought with him on
the second trip were even more consumed with a desire for gold; they not only fought
with Indians for gold, they fought with each other. When word of the chaos and
maladministration reached the king and queen, they sent a new governor and had
Columbus returned from his second trip in chains. The king and queen freed him from
his chains, but he was nevertheless humiliated. Later, he was afflicted with grandiose
illusions of being called by God to lead a crusade against the infidels in the Holy Land.
After several years, Columbus returned to America, but now he, too, was obsessed with
desire for gold. He finally found a major deposit of gold, but by this time Columbus was
almost out of touch with reality. Marshall writes: “It is doubtful that he who does what he
will in the world is going to be used to bring many souls to Paradise.” This particular
narrative goes on to reveal just how far off-center Columbus’s thinking had wandered:
“For by the same sort of weird, convoluted reasoning that earmarks Gnosticism and so
much of occult metaphysics, Columbus arrived at a monumental conclusion: he was
convinced that he had found King Solomon’s mines!” (p. 65) This dementia was divine
punishment for Columbus’s refusal to look constantly to God for deliverance from his
difficulties.
Finding a major source of gold opened a Pandora’s box of problems. It brought the
conquistadors to America. These men inflicted countless atrocities on the native
population, further proof of divine judgment on Columbus and his enterprise.

According to Marshall, God had a glorious role for Columbus to play in the history of
mankind, but Columbus was distracted by gold and nearly driven mad because he
refused to trust God. Marshall speculates, however, that Columbus, on his death bed,
was reconciled to God:

The old man brushed away the tears at the corners of his eyes, and perhaps he spoke
to God again then, for the first time in a long while.
“Father, it is over now, isn’t it?”

Yes, son, he might have heard in his heart.

“Father, I’m afraid I have not done well in carrying the Light of Your Son to the
West. I’m sorry. I pray that others will carry the light further.”

They will. You are forgiven.

“It’s time now, isn’t it?” Yes.
(p. 65-66)
C. Howard Zinn: Columbus, the oppressor

Howard Zinn’s portrayal of Columbus could scarcely be more different from Marshall’s.
His presentation is rooted in a very different understanding of the essence and value of
history. Zinn is outraged by the traditional practice of telling the history of a nation as
though all members of that nation shared the same interests. This illusion of cohesion
within a nation hides the reality that every society includes oppressors and the
oppressed. Zinn thinks history should tell the story of this all important struggle,
regardless of national divisions. He hopes we might learn from such a history how to
help the oppressed successfully rise up against their oppressors.

From this perspective, Columbus is the quintessential oppressor. From the outset of the
expedition Columbus was intent on extracting wealth from the native. Zinn
demonstrates Columbus’s malevolent motives by quoting Columbus’s words from the
log on the day he first saw the Indians:

They. . . brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things,
which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded
everything they owned . . . They were well built, with good bodies and handsome
features . . . They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a
sword; they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron.
Their spears are made of cane . . . . They would make fine servants . . . With fifty
men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want. (p. 1)
Zinn sees this as evidence that from the very beginning Columbus was eager to assess
the exploitability of the native inhabitants.

Columbus began to gather information from the natives. He took some of the natives by
force for this purpose. The object of his investigation was very focused: “The information
that Columbus wanted most was: Where is the gold?” (p. 1). Having this as his primary
goal, Columbus had no compunction about treating the Indians cruelly. All the Indians of
San Salvador were required to collect a certain amount of gold every three months.
Those who failed to do so had their hands cut off. When even these extreme methods
failed to squeeze enough gold out of the land, Columbus tried another approach: “When
it became clear that there was no gold left, the Indians were taken as slave labor on
huge estates, known later as encomiendas.” (p. 4). Zinn portrays Columbus as one who
would go to any length to extract wealth from the new-found land.

Zinn magnifies our sense of outrage by describing the innocence and nobility of the
natives who were so senselessly brutalized. He proves that the Indian culture treated its
women well, using the following quotation from a Spanish priest who accompanied
Columbus:

Marriage laws are non-existent: men and women alike choose their mates and leave
them as they please, without offense, jealousy or anger. They multiply in great
abundance; pregnant women work to the last minute and give birth almost painlessly;
up the next day, they bathe in the river and are as clean and healthy as before giving
birth. If they tire of their men, they give themselves abortions with herbs that force
stillbirths, covering their shameful parts with leaves or cotton cloth; although on the
whole, Indian men and women look upon total nakedness with as much casualness as
we look upon a man’s head or at his hands. (p. 5).
Zinn also notes the communal and non-capitalistic nature of Indian society:

They live in large communal bell-shaped buildings, housing up to 600 people at one
time. . . . They lack all manner of commerce, neither buying nor selling, and rely
exclusively on their natural environment for maintenance. They are extremely generous
with their possessions and by the same token covet the possessions of their friends and
expect the same degree of liberality. (p. 5)
From Zinn’s perspective, these qualities of Indian society made it superior to European
society; and yet the Europeans brutalized and, in some cases, exterminated whole
tribes in the name of Christianity, civilization, and progress. Columbus was but the first
of many such oppressors.

III. CAN WE LEARN FROM HISTORY?

Very briefly I have outlined two different stories of Columbus. You are probably asking
yourself, “How can the accounts be so different? Didn’t they read the same evidence?” I
am certain they both read many of the same sources. Two people can read the same
document, however, and interpret it very differently. One very obvious example of this is
the way the two historians handled Columbus’s religious motivations. When Columbus
talked about his desire to evangelize the natives, Marshall took him very seriously;
Marshall can identify with such desires and is willing to take Columbus at face value at
this point. Zinn, on the other hand, does not take these same statements at face value;
he dismisses them by saying, “He was full of religious talk. . . ” (p. 3), implying that
Columbus was not sincere. Although Zinn seems to be skeptical that anyone could be
sincerely religiously motivated, he does not trust Columbus because, more importantly,
Columbus was a scoundrel. So, although both authors look at the same words penned
by Columbus, one believes him and the other does not. And neither can prove that his
judgment on this matter is correct. When the two historians look at document after
document through their different perspectives, the end result is two entirely different
pictures of Columbus.

I hope you can see from these two versions of Columbus’s discovery of America that
history is much more subjective than we generally realize. Every historian tells a
different story, each one largely reflecting the historian’s own world view. This raises the
awkward question, “Can we learn from history?” If every historian reads his own world
view into the past, can the past ever break through and speak to us?

The answer is “yes.” The past speaks in a voice audible to those who want to hear and
to listen attentively. Establishing what really happened at a given point in history is
much like establishing the guilt or innocence of an accused criminal in a courtroom trial.
Evidence is presented and witnesses testify. Taken as a whole, the evidence is full of
inconsistencies and inexplicable gaps, and so a sorting process begins. Some
witnesses are suspected of being liars; their testimony is handled with suspicion. Some
apparent contradictions are found to be resolvable. The gaps are filled with plausible
conjecture. As this sorting process continues, a coherent picture begins to emerge. That
emerging picture, however, will be one of two very different kinds. If in the course of this
sorting procedure we have held tightly to our preconceived notions, the final picture will
be a reaffirmation of those prejudices. If, however, we have been willing to jettison
beliefs that did not seem to have adequate factual support, we may have our initial
suspicions rejected.

Can we learn from history? The short answer is yes—if we are willing to. But if we do
not sincerely seek to learn from the past, we will learn nothing. This is true of
professional historians as well as students.
CONCLUSION

History is important because it helps us to understand the present. If we will listen to

what history has to say, we can come to a sound understanding of the past that will tell
us much about the problems we now face. If we refuse to listen to history, we will find
ourselves fabricating a past that reinforces our understanding of current problems.

People tend to underestimate the power of history. If I want to convince you that
capitalism is evil, I could simply tell you that capitalism is evil, but this is likely to have
little effect on the skeptical. This frontal attack is too crude. If, however, I disinterestedly
tell you the history of capitalism, nonchalantly listing all the atrocities attributable to it, I
am much more likely to achieve my goal. I can leave a lasting impression that will evoke
revulsion at the mere mention of the word.

History teaches values. If it is true history, it teaches true values; if it is pseudo-history, it

teaches false values. The history taught to our children is playing a role in shaping their
values and beliefs—a much greater role than we may suspect.

https://gutenberg.edu/2001/02/the-importance-of-history/