The article's argument seems to be semantical in nature. I don't think many people would argue that learning about history is useless. The author and I hold the exact same beliefs -- knowing that the Pilgrims landed in American in 1690 is useless, but knowing why they left, the rough state of colonization in America at the time, etc. is useful. But when people refer to "historical facts", they think of the former. It seems like he's just quibbling over the word "fact".<p>I would make a similar argument for geography. I don't really care where a particular country is and what borders it, unless it's in a broader context. Everyone should know that France borders Germany, if only because of WW2, or that India borders Pakistan. But I couldn't care less where Uganda is until something happens where its location is important. Then it stops being a fact and becomes important in context, so I'll look it up if I need to.
History helps shape our worldview and that in turn shapes our very thinking - how we see what is or is not important to our immediate society and to world developments.<p>The one thing I learned from my former life as a history major (wanting eventually to be a history professor) in my undergraduate days was the absolute primacy of original sources. We all make our mark as we go and we want to write about it. We know and understand the oral traditions of our own generation but what gets passed down from one generation to another is that which is put into writing (or that is otherwise preserved in some lasting form). And that is what is fascinating about history: seeing what the men and women living in a particular time and place had to say about what they were doing and why there were doing it. Such writings bring to life the world in which they found themselves - its problems and challenges, its hopes and fears, its expectations for the betterment of the society in which they lived. Thus, it is <i>contemporaneous</i> writings and chronologies, not necessarily written self-consciously as history, that make for a fascinating view of the human condition in any given age. And this in turn inspires or depresses, as the case may be, but inevitably offers lessons on how the world might be profitably viewed and shaped to those who are attuned to learning from those who have preceded them in facing life's challenges.<p>The more common approach to how history is taught is to wade through survey books done by academics who have tried to sum up ages long gone by while sitting in their remote seats of learning. This can work, depending on the imaginative strength of the historian, but it is inherently inferior (in my view) to a study of history based of immersing oneself in original materials from the era itself. The survey emphasizes "facts" as ends in themselves; the absorption of original materials, in contrast, gives one the sense of a living drama of life, where the "facts" are indeed important but only as woven into the desires and yearnings of the generation that lived out its challenges and then sat down to write about them.<p>History can be invaluable to our learning but, unless it is well taught, we can so easily miss its significance. The author of this piece emphasizes this point and is correct in it. But the "original source" idea adds an important dimension that is missing from his analysis, though it is, in my view, perhaps the most important piece of all.
The important thing in history isn't the who, the where, or the when, it's the what and in particular, the why. History classes almost never cover that, most important, part. Instead it's an exercise in rout memorization. If you focus on the why, everything else falls into place because it actually has meaning. If it doesn't have meaning, it's just a number that needs to be remembered for a few hours to be regurgitated on a piece of paper for a grade.
The two best books I've read, which provide the broad historical narrative more so than dates and trivia - Peter Watson's <i>A History from Fire to Freud</i> - <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ideas-history-Freud-Peter-Watson/dp/029760726X" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ideas-history-Freud-Peter-Watson/dp/...</a> and John Keegan's <i>A History of Warfare</i> - <a href="http://www.amazon.com/History-Warfare-John-Keegan/dp/0679730826" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/History-Warfare-John-Keegan/dp/0679730...</a><p>I don't think either is necessarily <i>the</i> best on the subject, they're just two I've found and found much value from. In addition to allowing me to provide historical stories to make relevant business observations, they (and a History major I suppose) allowed me to write my favourite ever HN comment - <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=812221" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=812221</a>
I, for one, could not agree with this article more. I was one of the kids who viewed the study of history as I knew it as completely superfluous to my life goals and have only recently (at the age of 22) started to appreciate the value of historical study as described by the author of this post.<p>I was almost proud to declare my contempt for the subject all the way through my high school years.
I definitely agree with the argument that historical perspective is important - but I think the author's pessimistic assessment of the American public school system, and its approach, is inaccurate.<p>For example, he references a poll by Strategic Vision LLC that purports to show the ignorance of students in Oklahoma - the poll in question was pretty thoroughly debunked here, three weeks before the blog post was published:<p><a href="http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/11/real-oklahoma-students-ace-citizenship.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/11/real-oklahoma-student...</a>
The same critique applies to all the disciplines that are currently taught at the undergraduate level in all universities and the part about smart students becoming cynical especially rings true.
Scott Powell, the guy who wrote this article, recorded a set of lectures covering the history of Western Civilization. They're available for purchase on his website here: <a href="http://www.powellhistory.com/1hfa.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.powellhistory.com/1hfa.html</a>. I'm too poor to purchase them, so I can't give a first-hand account, but I've heard good things.<p>Teller, from Penn & Teller, had good things to say: <a href="http://www.powellhistory.com/teller/" rel="nofollow">http://www.powellhistory.com/teller/</a>