Defintition of History
Uploaded by lkaram16 on May 28, 2000
The statement “ History is nothing more than a collection of the static facts of the past; people who say history changes are terribly misguided” is incorrect. History is more than just static facts when ideas and concepts involved in history are understood and applied in life. Also, history changes when new applications of ideas found in past history are put to use and when new facts about happenings in the past are discovered.
The statement is only taking into account the basic facts of history, which are definite things that occurred in the past and is not looking beyond the facts. Beyond just static facts is where true history lies. History is tale of mistakes and successes made by man that all people can learn from, it retells stories of human kind’s past and why things are the way they are today. To understand a concept in history such as World War II a person just can not know the name Hitler or the place Pearl Harbor, they must understand the motivations behind Hitler’s moves, where he came from, and why countries reacted the way they did. Every person that learns the facts that occurred in history makes choices in their minds on how they compare the things that happened in the past to things that happen in their lives and their time.
History does change. It changes for everyone that learns about it. History changes every time a new comparison is made or another lesson is learned. These lessons are constantly being learned in every situation a person is met with. For instance, a young child could touch a flame and be burned, the next time they see the flame they would remember the burn and relate the flame to the last situation and thus make the choice of whether to touch it again. The choices man makes with what he has learned from the past changes history and makes history. Also not every fact of history has been discovered and when a new fact is discovered it again changes history. People who can not see beyond the static facts of history and understand concepts and ideas discovered from events in the past are terribly misguided.