I have to disagree with the statement here. It is important to build a future, but how can you build a future if you don’t know your past? By studying history, we see both the great accomplishments as well as the horrible mistakes of our forefathers. When you build a future, you want it to be better than the present and the past. How can this be accomplished if you don’t know the past to start with.

In school, we are often required to memorize facts in our studies of history. However, the facts are not particularly important. What is important is that history allows us to see, understand, and appreciate the world as it is today. History helps develop our thinking and analysis skills, which can benefit us in so many different ways in life.

In short, I think the study of history is extremely important.

To go somewhere significant you need to have three things, a vision of where you are going, knowledge of where you are, and an understanding of where you are coming from.

In fact, he who writes and controls history, will control or influence the future. Many of the things that we are building now are based on the enlightenment that the past has given us.

The United Nations nations and the way we are dealing with pockets of errant behavior in certain leaders is a direct derivative of the understanding we have of WWII and also the times of the cold war.

We do need to build the future, because that is all we can really influence but a wise person takes into account the experiences of others.

Our future is based on our present, which is based on our past. Without a concept of history with which to learn from we doom ourselves to repeat the mistakes made before. Example: You need to get something for dinner tonight, the grocery store is four miles away, but a chicken shack is only one mile away. Your feeling tired from a hard day, and don’t want to wait, so you go to the chicken place. As luck would have it, you end up with food poisioning as a result. Are you going to go to the same place for chicken again tomorrow night? Hopefully not. It might be a fluke though, right? Maybe it was just a bad case of chicken, maybe it’ll never happen again. Maybe the chicken that was kind enough to provide your three piece dinner wasn’t the brightest chicken in the coop, and happened to consume a chunk of radioactive material, that just so happened to be lying out at the farm he came from. Maybe…. Or perhaps it would be a wiser choice to ask around, a couple of friends that frequent the place perhaps. Ask them about their experience there. You could call the Better Buisness Bureau and see what they know. Heck, you could even search around on the internet to see what people know. At that point, my friend, you are studying history. You are searching out past experience, to help you maintain a future free from stomach cramps, vomiting, and an*l leackage. Or, you could just roll the dice and see what happens next time at the chicken shack. Up to you. Some people (historians), prefer to study the past, so that in the future, they don’t have to worry about the present/future so much. Or about the leakage thing. 🙂

History is vitally important. We learn from what was successful and what wasn’t. However, I believe your beef with history is the way it is presented in schools. Schools teach the facts and hardly allows for open discussion and what is to gain from studying such things. Instead of knowing the battles of the Revolutionary War, wouldn’t it be more advantageous to discuss what would have happened if Britain won or what was Britain perception of it or something like that.

How can you build a future if you have no past to build from???? Just about everything we do today was established or changed due to history. You have to have a past to have a future.

Studying history is VITAL to future success and survival. Otherwise….history will repeat itself if noone learns from others mistakes.

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!

We Must always study history in order to prevent repeating the mistakes made in history. Also, in order to have a future we must know about our past.

maybe my answer is not related to history but read it anyway

there is a say says:

– the idiot is someone who made the same mistake multiple times

– usual person is who made the mistake one time and never repeated it

– the smart is who learns from others mistakes and never falls into mistake!!!

Several centuries ago, perhaps much longer than that, I don’t know, they invented spelling. Some cultures caught right on to it – others not so much.