Some Thoughts About How History Effects Us Today.

It may be true, as Mark Twain said, that, "To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man's character, one must judge it by the standards of his time not ours" .The lessons to be learned by the study of history are myriad and while 19th century philosopher, Leopold von Ranke wrote that: history is the reading of countless pages of lifeless paper ...are the remnants of the life of past ages. History survives to inform us how great thinkers and leaders solved (successfully or unsuccessfully) the great challenges of their times.

History teaches us that sometimes the loss of a battle can lead to the winning of the war (i.e. George Washington at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777 or the story of the Alamo).

History teaches us that the power of the human spirit can overcome incredible odds (i.e. the life and times of Mahatma Gandhi and the birth of the Passive Resistance Movement).

History teaches us that there are powers of evil and good loose in the world (i.e. the Rise of the Third Reich, and the discovery of the Polio vaccine).

History is our story, the story of the human race. Napoleon Bonaparte once said that history is nothing more than the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.... I think that Bonaparte would agree that history is often the story told by the winner (which he wasn't). Knowing history, we learn who we are, we acquire the knowledge of what we are capable of (both good and evil) and we learn, what may be the most important lesson of all, that at those times when things are darkest things change, they get better. We learn from the lessons of those older circumstances and develop eyes to see past the current into the deeper meanings of human destiny.

What does history teach us? History teaches us everything about being human.