Essay about History Still Matters Questions

| I know in real life Henry Ford said something along those lines; “"History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history that we make today." (Chicago Tribune, 1916).

America has dealt with many things that shaped our history including major wars, fighting for freedoms of all people, and terrorist attacks, but they all give us a reason to continue strengthening our country. The events that we have encountered shaped our history today. In many ways, America has changed greatly for the best interest of the people.

As the professor James W Loewer, author of the book, referred that Americans have lost touch with their history. Our teachers and textbooks play important roles in our history study. However, it is their eliding and misrepresenting factoids that have been obstacles in our history studying. Because access to too much errors and distortion, many Americans can hardly understand the past of the country. As a result, we lack the ability to reflect on what’s going on right now and in the future.

History is something that we all have knowledge of. It may be family history, or even your own but we all know of an experience that happened in the past. These experiences make us who we are, and they determine how we think. Not only that but they determine our emotions towards certain topics. Through characters in the book, "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, " written by Jamie Ford, we learn that American identity is based on ones history and if we want America to become a stronger more united place everyone’s history must be accepted.

In the essay Haunted America, Patricia Nelson Limerick ponders whether or not there is any benefit for society to have historical knowledge. Limerick contradicts herself numerous times in her opinion on the usefulness of history. She implies that there are many lessons that can be learned from history. However, Limerick is disappointed in the human race because it fails to learn from the mistakes of others. She therefore wonders, "What do we gain besides a revival and restoration of the misery?" (Limerick, 473). Based on Limerick's examination of people and history, one can conclude that objectively history is useless, however, theoretically, people would be much better off if they learned from the lessons that the past presents.

Americas history is what defines us and who we are as a country. We were built on hard work, sacrifice, wanting to be free and independent to be who we want to. Now a-days, we seem to have fallen away from this. Everything is given to us so easily on our computer and through technology that we have no need to work hard anymore. This is the downfall in humanity because as we keep going, life will continue to get easier and we won’t want to do anything. History is our hope so that we can learn from what we did in our past and how things were done then.For starters, we can see what mistakes we did and make sure we don’t do them again. If we continue to the same thing over and over again, there’s no way for our society to improve from this. Our

To begin, a major flaw in the way American history courses are taught is due to the fact that textbooks do not allow students to form their own opinions, for everything is presented as “fact”. This is exemplified through the way early American life is taught. For example, a controversial topic is the specific destination of the Mayflower during the Pilgrim’s journey to America. Some historians believe their arrival in Massachusetts was on purpose to be far from Anglican control in Virginia, while others believe violent storms lead them off track, or there were just navigation errors. The flaw then arises for all textbooks only pick one, and present it as fact to their readers for they believe it is the students’ only way to “learn” about the past (81).

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “We are not makers of history. We are made of history.”

What I find ironically funny is the statement quote used for this essay topic, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it”. This is something our government needs to take heed to, because they are the ones repeating history. Right now as we speak banks are again selling houses to people that cannot really afford the payments, they are signing contracts without reading the fine print of the balloon rates that are going to make it impossible to keep their

While many critics deride Hanson for being a reactionary, or wanting to undo the social progress of his generation and return America to a 1950s ideal, I purpose that through Hanson, who may be several of the previously stated pejoratives, we can see just how much the work of history has changed during the twentieth century. History from below, or as it is also known as “people’s history” is usually seen as belonging to those concerned more with social history than military, but so too is Hanson.

Why is it that knowing our past history is so important to our society? Would it be easier to just leave what is meant to be in the past, in the past and focus on the present and future? These are questions that historians would never dare ask because history has formed what is considered our present, without it people would not know how ancient Greece came to be or when America was founded. It’s not every day that there is someone that has the courage to stand out in society, it’s usually about following the rules and falling in line with what is considered normal. When one steps out of line people will listen or wonder as to what it is for. History is made every single day from new laws being put into place to abnormal movements. We take

History is the totality of all past human events, and historiography is the written record of what is known about our lives and societies. In the recent past, history lessons were meant to convey a certain patriotism or to turn an immigrant into a “true American,” but today too many historians are using historical analysis for political purposes. This probably dates to the tumultuous times of the 1960s. Gordon Wood offers a prescription for the proper use of history. Shunning the ideologues of today, he believes historians should “seek to study past events not to make trans-historical generalizations about human behavior but to understand those events as they actually were, in all their peculiar contexts and circumstances.”

Moyers cites in this document reasons why Americans might not be interested in studying history. He said Americans are the people of future. Americans always look ahead, not behind. They spend more time on improving and developing for the future more than looking back to history. They consider study of history is going back, while their goal is coming up for the future. They don’t like they idea going backward, they learn to step forward. Moyers says that his mother, who is also American, said often to him, “be sure your headlights are brighter than your tail-lights.” Headlights are in the front and tail-lights, of course, are on the back. Americans believe in concept future is more important than history. They rely more on television rather

How does the way history is told have power in our understanding of the past and present?

There is no doubt that you cannot drive a car without looking in the rear view mirrors. In other words, in order to build a hopeful future you need to learn from the past and your mistakes. I wholeheartedly support the idea that learning about the past is vital for bettering ourselves for a fruitful future.