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Why Is History Important And How Can It Benefit Your Future?

Updated: February 28, 2024

Published: July 1, 2020

History is a topic that many find boring to study or a waste of time. But there is more to studying history than meets the eye. Let’s answer the age-old question: “Why is history important?”

What Is History?

History is the knowledge of and study of the past. It is the story of the past and a form of collective memory. History is the story of who we are, where we come from, and can potentially reveal where we are headed.

Why Study History: The Importance

History is important to study because it is essential for all of us in understanding ourselves and the world around us. There is a history of every field and topic, from medicine, to music, to art. To know and understand history is absolutely necessary, even though the results of historical study are not as visible, and less immediate.

Allows You To Comprehend More

1. our world.

History gives us a very clear picture of how the various aspects of society — such as technology, governmental systems, and even society as a whole — worked in the past so we understand how it came to work the way it is now.

2. Society And Other People

Studying history allows us to observe and understand how people and societies behaved. For example, we are able to evaluate war, even when a nation is at peace, by looking back at previous events. History provides us with the data that is used to create laws, or theories about various aspects of society.

3. Identity

History can help provide us with a sense of identity. This is actually one of the main reasons that history is still taught in schools around the world. Historians have been able to learn about how countries, families, and groups were formed, and how they evolved and developed over time. When an individual takes it upon themselves to dive deep into their own family’s history, they can understand how their family interacted with larger historical change. Did family serve in major wars? Were they present for significant events?

4. Present-Day Issues

History helps us to understand present-day issues by asking deeper questions as to why things are the way they are. Why did wars in Europe in the 20th century matter to countries around the world? How did Hitler gain and maintain power for as long as he had? How has this had an effect on shaping our world and our global political system today?

5. The Process Of Change Over Time

If we want to truly understand why something happened — in any area or field, such as one political party winning the last election vs the other, or a major change in the number of smokers — you need to look for factors that took place earlier. Only through the study of history can people really see and grasp the reasons behind these changes, and only through history can we understand what elements of an institution or a society continue regardless of continual change.

Photo by Yusuf Dündar on Unsplash

You learn a clear lesson, 1. political intelligence.

History can help us become better informed citizens. It shows us who we are as a collective group, and being informed of this is a key element in maintaining a democratic society. This knowledge helps people take an active role in the political forum through educated debates and by refining people’s core beliefs. Through knowledge of history, citizens can even change their old belief systems.

2. History Teaches Morals And Values

By looking at specific stories of individuals and situations, you can test your own morals and values. You can compare it to some real and difficult situations individuals have had to face in trying times. Looking to people who have faced and overcome adversity can be inspiring. You can study the great people of history who successfully worked through moral dilemmas, and also ordinary people who teach us lessons in courage, persistence and protest.

3. Builds Better Citizenship

The study of history is a non-negotiable aspect of better citizenship. This is one of the main reasons why it is taught as a part of school curricular. People that push for citizenship history (relationship between a citizen and the state) just want to promote a strong national identity and even national loyalty through the teaching of lessons of individual and collective success.

4. Learn From The Past And Notice Clear Warning Signs

We learn from past atrocities against groups of people; genocides, wars, and attacks. Through this collective suffering, we have learned to pay attention to the warning signs leading up to such atrocities. Society has been able to take these warning signs and fight against them when they see them in the present day. Knowing what events led up to these various wars helps us better influence our future.

5. Gaining A Career Through History

The skills that are acquired through learning about history, such as critical thinking, research, assessing information, etc, are all useful skills that are sought by employers. Many employers see these skills as being an asset in their employees and will hire those with history degrees in various roles and industries.

6. Personal Growth And Appreciation

Understanding past events and how they impact the world today can bring about empathy and understanding for groups of people whose history may be different from the mainstream. You will also understand the suffering, joy, and chaos that were necessary for the present day to happen and appreciate all that you are able to benefit from past efforts today.

Photo by Giammarco Boscaro on Unsplash

Develop and refine your skills through studying history, 1. reading and writing.

You can refine your reading skills by reading texts from a wide array of time periods. Language has changed and evolved over time and so has the way people write and express themselves. You can also refine your writing skills through learning to not just repeat what someone else said, but to analyze information from multiple sources and come up with your own conclusions. It’s two birds with one stone — better writing and critical thinking!

2. Craft Your Own Opinions

There are so many sources of information out in the world. Finding a decisive truth for many topics just doesn’t exist. What was a victory for one group was a great loss for another — you get to create your own opinions of these events.

3. Decision-Making

History gives us the opportunity to learn from others’ past mistakes. It helps us understand the many reasons why people may behave the way they do. As a result, it helps us become more impartial as decision-makers.

4. How To Do Research

In the study of history you will need to conduct research . This gives you the opportunity to look at two kinds of sources — primary (written at the time) and secondary sources (written about a time period, after the fact). This practice can teach you how to decipher between reliable and unreliable sources.

5. Quantitative Analysis

There are numbers and data to be learned from history. In terms of patterns: patterns in population, desertions during times of war, and even in environmental factors. These patterns that are found help clarify why things happened as they did.

6. Qualitative Analysis

It’s incredibly important to learn to question the quality of the information and “history” you are learning. Keep these two questions in mind as you read through information: How do I know what I’m reading are facts and accurate information? Could they be the writer’s opinions?

Photo by Matteo Maretto on Unsplash

We are all living histories.

All people and cultures are living histories. The languages we speak are inherited from the past. Our cultures, traditions, and religions are all inherited from the past. We even inherit our genetic makeup from those that lived before us. Knowing these connections give you a basic understanding of the condition of being human.

History Is Fun

Learning about history can be a great deal of fun. We have the throngs of movies about our past to prove it. History is full of some of the most interesting and fascinating stories ever told, including pirates, treasure, mysteries, and adventures. On a regular basis new stories from the past keep emerging to the mainstream. Better yet, there is a history of every topic and field. Whatever you find fascinating there is a history to go along with it. Dive a bit deeper into any topic’s history and you will be surprised by what you might find in the process.

The subject of history can help you develop your skills and transform you to be a better version of yourself as a citizen, a student, and person overall.

If you are looking to develop more of yourself and skills for your future career, check out the degree programs that are offered by University of the People — a tuition-free, 100% online, U.S. accredited university.

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Why is history important? – Essay Example

It is said that history is the study of the past. It is the study of the people, the events, and the ideas that have shaped the world we live in today. But why is history important? 

There are many reasons why history is important. It helps us to understand the present and the future. It helps us to understand who we are and where we came from. It helps us to understand the world we live in and the people who live in it.

History is important because it helps us to understand the present. We can use history to understand the causes of the problems we face today and to find solutions to them. We can also use history to understand how the world has changed over time and how it is likely to change in the future.

History is also important because it helps us to understand who we are. We can use history to learn about our ancestors and the cultures they came from. We can also use history to learn about the events that have shaped our lives.

Finally, history is important because it helps us to understand the world we live in. We can use history to learn about the countries and cultures of the world. We can also use history to learn about the people who live in the world and the events that have shaped their lives. And if you ever find yourself lost, be sure to ask the best history essay writer for navigation!

Why Is Studying History Important for Our Present and Future? Essay

Introduction, works cited.

History is one of the most important studies which shapes our attitudes towards the past and structures our present and future. History matters because it helps people to understand the world around them and structure it in accordance with the past events and their outcomes. History works on factual material and data established with confidence. It is possible to assume that modern society would be unable to understand current events and processes without the knowledge of the past and analysis of its consequences for modern people.

Contested histories allow researchers to rewrite literature and political sciences as they place events and facts in a historical continuum shaped by certain ideologies and social principles. It is possible to say that we interpret social and political processes, works of literature and pedagogical issues through lens of historical environment and its meaning for the populace. Scientific data are not the only well-ascertained data (Gaddis 98). History constructs our identity defining it through the prism of historical significance and insignificance of certain events and processes. We perceive history as truth based on facts and scientific interpretations of data. History shapes our values and views, principles and national ideals. It supplies us we materials and arguments for thought. Then people see that these facts involve some comprehensible need founded in the nature of things and providing people with a reason (Carr 43).

Facts and historical interpretations are linked in order to have the objective content of history. The history of the US proves that people understand themselves and the others learning and interpreting historical events of the past. For instance, the Constitution and the Declaration of Human Rights created a new understanding of freedom and liberty (Roark et al 76). On the one hand people have an awareness of dignity and of the self-respect of the human person, a desire for freedom and friendship, a recognition of the law: government of the people, for the society and by the people, a growing importance for civil liberties and for justice, an declaration of power over nature (Carr 43).

History helps us to understand and construct bodily identity studying descriptions of Early Americans and social values of different historical periods. Thus the life of society advances and progresses so the psychical identity changes over time. Also, historical images can be degraded and dissolute by reason of the passivity of things. Furthermore, what is religious is above time and exempt from aging. In some historical epochs, moral and ethical principles prevailed material values, so modern society follows these ideals and values as the core principles of human relations. The period of colonization represents the age of strict values and principles most Americans are looking for; not when there is a national rage to identify and be identified with worldly and moral influence. Modern society views things as representative of the common impulse to allocate meaning and importance to everything in sight (Carr 65).

In sum, history matters because it helps people to reconstruct their past and predict their future. A number of historical facts are accumulated by history, and now from these historical facts related to a certain period of history ideals and thoughts are inductively abstracted by historians. History is by itself basically progressive. Thus, a being linked to reason must essentially be progressive. It means that historical facts are used as a framework for construction of social and political identities and interpretation of certain processes and events.

Carr, E.H. What Is History? Vintage, 1967.

Gaddis, J.L. The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past. Oxford University Press, USA, 2004.

Roark, J. L. et al. The American Promise, A History of the United States , Bedford/St. Martin’s; 2nd edition, 2002.

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• “Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen” and “Declaration of the rights of woman and the female citizen”
• The Declaration of Independence: Document Reaction
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• The Declaration of Sentiments
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• Declaration of Independence: Self-Evident Truths Now Open to Question
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• Colonization of Australia Review
• Enlightenment Age History Review: Cultural, Religious, and Intellectual Changes
• Religious Conflict in the History: The Key Causes of Conflicts
• World War Two Marked the End of Modern Age

Why Is History Important? Analysis

The importance of history is discussed by many people, including popular actors, musicians, politicians, writers, and other public figures. The question is somewhat controversial because when some deny the significance of history, others, on the contrary, promote this science as the essential knowledge of humankind. This essay will try to explain the essentiality of such science as history and elaborate its meaning in modern society.

Firstly, history is a record of human failures and successes, which one can learn from. As it is said, “history repeats itself”, it moves like a spiral and continuously repeats the past events. This science allows one to sense the pattern, understand it, and understand the present and, ideally, avoid repeating the same mistakes people did in the past (Tosh 7). For example, there were two world wars in humankind’s history, and they both started almost identically. If those people learned from their mistakes, maybe there would not be any armed conflicts. In addition to this, several pandemics started and lasted almost the same amount of time (plague, cholera, influenza, coronavirus). If one wishes to know why the world is in its current state, one must search for answers in history.

Moreover, one can observe economic models of the past and be able to predict the direction of development in which a country will move. For example, a lot of people know such a concept as a “Chinese economic miracle”. Chinese government turned to past experiences of emperors and other countries to create a beneficial model of development for China (Guariglia et.al). As a result, China became the capital of the world economy. All that happened because they effectively used their knowledge of the past and the experiences of other countries. One can also observe the Civil Rights movement to comprehend the gradual development of an equality system, which exists now in America.

If to speak about other aspects of history’s importance, it enables one to fathom a variety of cultures. Studying this science more closely provides one with the background of one’s people and increases cross-cultural awareness and helps one learn the peculiarities of other cultures (Tosh 110). However, the most important reason to study history is that it teaches one to think critically and comprehend the world around them. It also enables one to contemplate the experiences of people who came before, and it shows a person an essential quality in life – respect. Studying it makes humankind look at its reflection and learn from it to make the world a better place for future generations. Historians also regularly write, and to appeal to a specific audience, they have to possess the knowledge of the background of those people.

To conclude, studying history is very important in the modern world, whether it is military, religion, history of illnesses, and so forth. It enables a person to understand past experiences and learn from them to make the world a better place. If one desires to contemplate why the world is in its current state, one has to search for answers in history. What is more, if one wishes to make their country stronger economically, as the Chinese people did, one must look for answers in history. In addition to this, if one wants to understand different cultures, one must return to its people’s background. The most important reason to learn history is that it teaches a person to think critically.

Works Cited

Tosh, John. Why History Matters . Macmillan International Higher Education, 2019.

Guariglia, Alessandra, et al. “Chinese Capital Markets: the Importance of History for Modern Development.” The European Journal of Finance , vol. 24, no. 16, 2018. Web.

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Sure, We Teach History. But Do We Know Why It’s Important?

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In 1980, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians began hearing testimony from Japanese-Americans who, after the Pearl Harbor attack, were forced at gunpoint into prison camps throughout the desolate interior of the United States.

Initiated by Sen. Daniel Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat who lost an arm fighting the Nazis, the commission was largely conceived in order to establish a legal and political case in Congress against internment and for some kind of redress. But Nisei men and women, the children of Japanese immigrants who had kept virtually silent for decades due to a social code inherited from their ancestors, captured the moment. They used the hearings to share their stories of sorrow and humiliation. The intense emotion of these personal histories galvanized a political movement that succeeded in winning monetary reparations from the federal government for those who had been interned. It was an unprecedented event in the American experience.

As my father, the Japanese-American Citizens League’s volunteer chief legislative strategist who helped convince President Ronald Reagan to sign the redress bill in 1988, later recalled, “I saw all these old people crying, and that made me cry. I guess the whole community cried.”

When the nation feels not just divided, but divided in an unprecedented way, studying history serves as a guide. A nation that can see through and place the turbulent present in historical context is better empowered to grasp the present and decide on the best course of action ahead.

Those who work in classrooms and with students grasp this. In a recent survey of educators who were presented with two choices, 78 percent told EdWeek Research Center they believed the primary purpose of teaching history is “to prepare students to be active and informed citizens,” compared with 22 percent who said the primary purpose of teaching history is “to teach analytical, research, and critical thinking skills.” (We should not, of course, label the second group wrong.)

Therefore, we study and share history in part to give us the foundation for action. We build that foundation in part by learning and sharing stories of immigrant forebears and their legacies; the 1619 Project from the New York Times, which consists of a series of essays about the legacy of slavery, does something similar, but in a fashion that its creators want to be unsettling, if not excruciating for many.

Telling different stories within a single broader narrative, and using those stories to create empathy within an agreed-upon historical framework, are powerful skills. Indeed, one of the key strategies for Japanese-American redress activists in Washington was—to use my father’s metaphor—selling the same Ford Taurus sedan in two different ways.

For a liberal audience, the main argument went like this: These immigrants and their children were the victims of powerful white men who, in the name of national security, exploited wartime panic and longstanding anti-Asian bigotry among other whites to deprive Japanese-Americans of their civil liberties.

For conservatives, the tougher audience, it went this way: Japanese-Americans were content to obey the law and grow artichokes and strawberries. They were exemplary models of enterprise, the free market, and family values—until they were deprived of private property rights and denied due process by an overbearing federal government.

Together, these arguments succeeded because both narratives underscored the ideals that presumably governed American history, and how internment undermined those ideals.

78% of teachers identify preparing students for citizenship as the main reason to teach history."

This should not be confused with warping history as if for some kind of novelistic experiment, or perverting it for political control. In his 1946 essay “ The Prevention of Literature ,” George Orwell wrote that totalitarian governments approach history as “something to be created rather than learned.”

But in classrooms, it has always been a struggle to teach history in a way that resonates with students. The CEO of Baltimore City schools, Sonja Santelises, thinks she’s found a way to do that: Help them see themselves up close in their hometown’s history.

Motivated partially by Baltimore’s often-negative portrayal in the media, Santelises recently oversaw the implementation of BMore Me, a social studies curriculum. The basic idea is “using the city as a classroom.”

They’ve explored how local geography impacted the Industrial Revolution in Baltimore. They learn what the history of certain neighborhoods reveals about the nation’s history of red-lining black families away from valuable land and capital. And they’ve heard stories from a community elder about singer Billie Holiday, who grew up in Baltimore, and from D. Watkins, who went from dealing drugs in the city to teaching at the University of Baltimore.

Santelises said the city curriculum’s emphasis on this approach that allows students to see themselves in history puts their own lives and people they know at the center of what can feel detached and distant. The consequences for this approach, if done right, can be profound, she argued.

“What makes people proud to be American? Well, part of it is that you’re validating people’s stories,” Santelises told me. “You’re validating their role.”

What’s also central to this approach, Santelises says, is that it allows children to see complexity in history and not just (in the case of black Americans, for example) one long and painful struggle against oppression.

“We don’t have to have a perfect or one story,” Santelises said. “That’s not the goal.”

In 1945, a young Army captain spoke at a service honoring Kazuo Masuda, a Japanese-American soldier who died in combat in Italy and whose family had been interned. This Army captain said men like Masuda were heroes, distinguished by their sacrifice and love of country, not their race.

That captain’s name was Ronald Reagan. Decades later as president, he was initially opposed to redress for internment. But when Reagan was reminded of that moment, he changed his mind. It was crucial for Reagan to see himself as a character in a crucial moment in American history.

The arc of that narrative can be questioned. Why did it take this chance moment in history to shift Reagan’s views? Why did men like Masuda have to prove their loyalty to the land of their birth? What about those Japanese-Americans who out of principle resisted military service?

Trying to answer those questions adds to the story I just laid out rather than subverting it. Still, it’s one story. History doesn’t always provide such dramatic, clear narratives. Similarly, what if such historical inquiry like the kind Santelises supports for her city’s students can’t be scaled up or made to work well elsewhere?

To such questions, Santelises responds that the approach in general can apply in all sorts of places for all kinds of students.

“Once you’re grounded and validated in the power of your own story,” Santelises said, “that’s what makes you want to go and learn about other people.”

The story of how President Ronald Reagan approved monetary reparations for Japanese-Americans interned during World War II is a long and complicated one. Learn more about the story and the role that author Andrew Ujifusa’s father played in it in this Twitter thread . A version of this article appeared in the January 08, 2020 edition of Education Week as Why Do We Study History?

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History 101: What It Is and Why We Need It Now

Paulina L. Alberto and Farina Mir | Apr 2, 2018

In fall 2012, after faculty brainstorming sessions and a seminar-style pilot, we—one of us a historian of modern Latin America and the other a historian of modern South Asia—developed and co-taught a lecture version of History 101. Ian Moyer, a historian of ancient Greece and Egypt, participated in the initial course design and has since taken a turn as co-instructor. History 101 has doubled in size from its initial offering, currently enrolling 200 students from all years and a variety of fields and schools.

What does such a course even look like? Historians have no established canon. Nor do historians have a canonical method. One of the hallmarks of history today is its interdisciplinarity, varied theoretical approaches, and multiple subfields. Historians, moreover, are deeply situated in specific times and places. History 101 could hardly represent the discipline’s temporal, geographic, and methodological coverage. We therefore developed the course as a long-form answer to the question “What is history?” But to answer this question—and keep our audience—we learned to address another, more basic one: “Why history?”

Many students find it hard to understand why history is relevant to their lives, and in the context of coursework, they find it difficult to see the tools of historical thinking as skills that can be honed and employed in varied settings. We therefore begin by explaining precisely how history develops critical thinking, a skill fundamental to almost any career path and to contemporary global citizenship. Drawing on the AHA’s Tuning project, we underscore empathy as another crucial skill that this course (like all those in history) helps develop. We also try to empower students to start doing history from day one by demonstrating how they already employ many of historians’ key tools in their everyday lives, if unconsciously. Facebook and Instagram, for example, can show how historical thinking—including chronology, use of evidence, research, argumentation, archiving, and narration—structures life at different scales, from the individual to the global.

What does such a course even look like? Historians have no established canon or canonical method.

With the devaluation of the humanities in public discourse and our students’ deep insecurity about their postgraduation prospects in mind, our core mission in History 101 is to emphasize the idea that history matters . Throughout the course, we seek to instill a sense of “the critical role of historical thinking in public life” (to borrow the AHA’s eloquent phrase). We accomplish this by showing that history has real-­world stakes and by emphasizing the political implications of historicizing. When students see how histories are made in particular times and places, for particular purposes, within relations of power, they can question received narratives and feel empowered to effect change.

History 101 is not meant to be comprehensive, nor is it a linear course. Each of the four units in our syllabus takes one approach to the course’s core mission and to the question of what history is. Collectively, they produce a course that builds outward in concentric circles, pushing in new directions while reinforcing and reanimating acquired material.

Our first unit, “Foundations,” builds up a structure for understanding history and its methods, and pulls down (or at least unsettles) well-worn historical narratives. A lecture on time—a key building block of history—renders the familiar unfamiliar by illustrating the ways time has been constructed historically and across cultures. Building on R. G. Collingwood’s “Who Killed John Doe?” (in The Idea of History ), a lecture on evidence and narrative shows that these two aspects of the historian’s method are recursive, rather than being simply sequential. While examining foundations, students also consider the place of power in history-writing by analyzing Martin Bernal’s Black Athena (1987) and the reception of its controversial thesis that ancient Greece (and thus Western civilization) was indebted to African civilizations.

A second unit, “The Modern Discipline,” explains and critiques the Euro-American or “Western” tradition of history. Since historicizing is at the core of what historians do, an introductory course must historicize the discipline, even as we emphasize that our approach is just one of many possible “histories of history.” This unit allows students to learn how the discipline has changed over time—new and different histories being told by different people—and to understand how power informs history-writing. From ancient Greece through the development of a 19th-century “scientific” historical discipline, we examine how the writing of history (as distinct from other forms of narrative) claimed objectivity as its key ideal. This encourages students to explore how history became interlaced with the workings of nation- and empire-­building. Specifically, we examine how historians and their works upheld or subverted ideas about racial, ethnic, and cultural difference central to the politics of their time. In lectures on the British Empire in India and on the transnational history of the “Black Legend” of Spanish cruelty, for example, we show how discussing and writing about the past shaped the course of events. As we approach the discipline’s current state, we explore how cultural and social historians’ use of race and gender as categories of historical analysis transforms the way that major events, like the French and Haitian Revolutions, are understood.

Our third unit, “Outside the Book,” continues building outward to explore how history is made beyond the confines of traditional written sources. The students watch Le retour de Martin Guerre and team-debate what the medium of film can do that Natalie Zemon Davis’s classic microhistory cannot, and vice versa. The goal of this unit is to showcase diversity rather than create narrative continuity, so this unit provides an ideal opportunity to invite guest lecturers who can offer perspectives on unconventional sources or methods. Colleagues have lectured on music, ghost stories, art, spirit possession, fairy tales, and nonhuman biological entities (microbes, DNA, plants). These discussions encourage students to consider the potentials and limitations such sources bring to historical analysis, to think imaginatively about who or what is a historical agent, and to consider the differential value assigned to varying kinds of accounts of the past.

We have resisted the urge to march students through endless events, disembodied concepts, or subspecies of history.

Finally, “History in the Present” uses case studies that illustrate the power of history to stoke present-day conflicts and to produce peace. We examine South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a form of public history-making aimed at restorative justice, and how memories of Australian and New Zealander valor in World War I (the “ANZAC legend”) emphasize a coherent, masculine vision of the nation at the expense of national imaginaries that are more contentious. We end with a consideration of the future of our discipline, pointing to the possibilities (in Big History or Deep History, for example) for new understandings of our human predicament through expansive historical thought.

History 101 has been a huge success. Enrollment in the six iterations of the course (2012–17) totals 865 students, drawn almost equally from all four years. The overwhelming majority of students (89 percent) are from our College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA), while 11 percent are from other University of Michigan schools and colleges, such as Engineering, Kinesiology, and Nursing. Although 27 percent of students had not declared a major when they took the course—an important constituency of “undecideds” that we especially hope to reach—information on the remaining 631 students (who represent 60 different majors) illustrates the course’s reach beyond the humanities. Of the LSA students, 51 percent are social science majors and 13 percent are from STEM fields (although STEM student enrollment jumps to 19 percent when we include students from the School of Engineering). These numbers validate our conception of History 101 as a course that reaches out to new audiences and potential constituencies.

There is no one way to teach History 101. But if our version has succeeded in engaging larger numbers of students term after term, perhaps it is because we have resisted the urge to march students through endless events, disembodied concepts, or subspecies of history. The answer to “What is history?” should come in the form of a compelling story that is powerfully illustrated—and students must find themselves in it. The time is right, it seems, for our discipline to embrace a 101, a course that speaks boldly and broadly about our purpose and values as historians.

The authors are associate professors in the Department of History at the University of Michigan and recipients of the 2017 Matthews Underclass Teaching Award for their work on History 101. Their syllabus for History 101 is available here .

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How to Write a History Essay with Outline, Tips, Examples and More

Before we get into how to write a history essay, let's first understand what makes one good. Different people might have different ideas, but there are some basic rules that can help you do well in your studies. In this guide, we won't get into any fancy theories. Instead, we'll give you straightforward tips to help you with historical writing. So, if you're ready to sharpen your writing skills, let our history essay writing service explore how to craft an exceptional paper.

What is a History Essay?

A history essay is an academic assignment where we explore and analyze historical events from the past. We dig into historical stories, figures, and ideas to understand their importance and how they've shaped our world today. History essay writing involves researching, thinking critically, and presenting arguments based on evidence.

Moreover, history papers foster the development of writing proficiency and the ability to communicate complex ideas effectively. They also encourage students to engage with primary and secondary sources, enhancing their research skills and deepening their understanding of historical methodology.

History Essay Outline

The outline is there to guide you in organizing your thoughts and arguments in your essay about history. With a clear outline, you can explore and explain historical events better. Here's how to make one:

Introduction

• Hook: Start with an attention-grabbing opening sentence or anecdote related to your topic.
• Background Information: Provide context on the historical period, event, or theme you'll be discussing.
• Thesis Statement: Present your main argument or viewpoint, outlining the scope and purpose of your history essay.

Body paragraph 1: Introduction to the Historical Context

• Provide background information on the historical context of your topic.
• Highlight key events, figures, or developments leading up to the main focus of your history essay.

Body paragraphs 2-4 (or more): Main Arguments and Supporting Evidence

• Each paragraph should focus on a specific argument or aspect of your thesis.
• Present evidence from primary and secondary sources to support each argument.
• Analyze the significance of the evidence and its relevance to your history paper thesis.

Counterarguments (optional)

• Address potential counterarguments or alternative perspectives on your topic.
• Refute opposing viewpoints with evidence and logical reasoning.
• Summary of Main Points: Recap the main arguments presented in the body paragraphs.
• Restate Thesis: Reinforce your thesis statement, emphasizing its significance in light of the evidence presented.
• Reflection: Reflect on the broader implications of your arguments for understanding history.
• Closing Thought: End your history paper with a thought-provoking statement that leaves a lasting impression on the reader.

References/bibliography

• List all sources used in your research, formatted according to the citation style required by your instructor (e.g., MLA, APA, Chicago).
• Include both primary and secondary sources, arranged alphabetically by the author's last name.

Notes (if applicable)

• Include footnotes or endnotes to provide additional explanations, citations, or commentary on specific points within your history essay.

History Essay Format

Adhering to a specific format is crucial for clarity, coherence, and academic integrity. Here are the key components of a typical history essay format:

Font and Size

• Use a legible font such as Times New Roman, Arial, or Calibri.
• The recommended font size is usually 12 points. However, check your instructor's guidelines, as they may specify a different size.
• Set 1-inch margins on all sides of the page.
• Double-space the entire essay, including the title, headings, body paragraphs, and references.
• Avoid extra spacing between paragraphs unless specified otherwise.
• Align text to the left margin; avoid justifying the text or using a centered alignment.

Title Page (if required):

• If your instructor requires a title page, include the essay title, your name, the course title, the instructor's name, and the date.
• Center-align this information vertically and horizontally on the page.
• Include a header on each page (excluding the title page if applicable) with your last name and the page number, flush right.
• Some instructors may require a shortened title in the header, usually in all capital letters.
• Center-align the essay title at the top of the first page (if a title page is not required).
• Use standard capitalization (capitalize the first letter of each major word).
• Avoid underlining, italicizing, or bolding the title unless necessary for emphasis.

Paragraph Indentation:

• Indent the first line of each paragraph by 0.5 inches or use the tab key.
• Do not insert extra spaces between paragraphs unless instructed otherwise.

Citations and References:

• Follow the citation style specified by your instructor (e.g., MLA, APA, Chicago).
• Include in-text citations whenever you use information or ideas from external sources.
• Provide a bibliography or list of references at the end of your history essay, formatted according to the citation style guidelines.
• Typically, history essays range from 1000 to 2500 words, but this can vary depending on the assignment.

How to Write a History Essay?

Historical writing can be an exciting journey through time, but it requires careful planning and organization. In this section, we'll break down the process into simple steps to help you craft a compelling and well-structured history paper.

Analyze the Question

Before diving headfirst into writing, take a moment to dissect the essay question. Read it carefully, and then read it again. You want to get to the core of what it's asking. Look out for keywords that indicate what aspects of the topic you need to focus on. If you're unsure about anything, don't hesitate to ask your instructor for clarification. Remember, understanding how to start a history essay is half the battle won!

Now, let's break this step down:

• Read the question carefully and identify keywords or phrases.
• Consider what the question is asking you to do – are you being asked to analyze, compare, contrast, or evaluate?
• Pay attention to any specific instructions or requirements provided in the question.
• Take note of the time period or historical events mentioned in the question – this will give you a clue about the scope of your history essay.

Develop a Strategy

With a clear understanding of the essay question, it's time to map out your approach. Here's how to develop your historical writing strategy:

• Brainstorm ideas : Take a moment to jot down any initial thoughts or ideas that come to mind in response to the history paper question. This can help you generate a list of potential arguments, themes, or points you want to explore in your history essay.
• Create an outline : Once you have a list of ideas, organize them into a logical structure. Start with a clear introduction that introduces your topic and presents your thesis statement – the main argument or point you'll be making in your history essay. Then, outline the key points or arguments you'll be discussing in each paragraph of the body, making sure they relate back to your thesis. Finally, plan a conclusion that summarizes your main points and reinforces your history paper thesis.
• Research : Before diving into writing, gather evidence to support your arguments. Use reputable sources such as books, academic journals, and primary documents to gather historical evidence and examples. Take notes as you research, making sure to record the source of each piece of information for proper citation later on.
• Consider counterarguments : Anticipate potential counterarguments to your history paper thesis and think about how you'll address them in your essay. Acknowledging opposing viewpoints and refuting them strengthens your argument and demonstrates critical thinking.
• Set realistic goals : Be realistic about the scope of your history essay and the time you have available to complete it. Break down your writing process into manageable tasks, such as researching, drafting, and revising, and set deadlines for each stage to stay on track.

Start Your Research

Now that you've grasped the history essay topic and outlined your approach, it's time to dive into research. Here's how to start:

• Ask questions : What do you need to know? What are the key points to explore further? Write down your inquiries to guide your research.
• Explore diverse sources : Look beyond textbooks. Check academic journals, reliable websites, and primary sources like documents or artifacts.
• Consider perspectives : Think about different viewpoints on your topic. How have historians analyzed it? Are there controversies or differing interpretations?
• Take organized notes : Summarize key points, jot down quotes, and record your thoughts and questions. Stay organized using spreadsheets or note-taking apps.
• Evaluate sources : Consider the credibility and bias of each source. Are they peer-reviewed? Do they represent a particular viewpoint?

Establish a Viewpoint

By establishing a clear viewpoint and supporting arguments, you'll lay the foundation for your compelling historical writing:

• Review your research : Reflect on the information gathered. What patterns or themes emerge? Which perspectives resonate with you?
• Formulate a thesis statement : Based on your research, develop a clear and concise thesis that states your argument or interpretation of the topic.
• Consider counterarguments : Anticipate objections to your history paper thesis. Are there alternative viewpoints or evidence that you need to address?
• Craft supporting arguments : Outline the main points that support your thesis. Use evidence from your research to strengthen your arguments.
• Stay flexible : Be open to adjusting your viewpoint as you continue writing and researching. New information may challenge or refine your initial ideas.

Structure Your Essay

Now that you've delved into the depths of researching historical events and established your viewpoint, it's time to craft the skeleton of your essay: its structure. Think of your history essay outline as constructing a sturdy bridge between your ideas and your reader's understanding. How will you lead them from point A to point Z? Will you follow a chronological path through history or perhaps dissect themes that span across time periods?

And don't forget about the importance of your introduction and conclusion—are they framing your narrative effectively, enticing your audience to read your paper, and leaving them with lingering thoughts long after they've turned the final page? So, as you lay the bricks of your history essay's architecture, ask yourself: How can I best lead my audience through the maze of time and thought, leaving them enlightened and enriched on the other side?

Create an Engaging Introduction

Creating an engaging introduction is crucial for capturing your reader's interest right from the start. But how do you do it? Think about what makes your topic fascinating. Is there a surprising fact or a compelling story you can share? Maybe you could ask a thought-provoking question that gets people thinking. Consider why your topic matters—what lessons can we learn from history?

Also, remember to explain what your history essay will be about and why it's worth reading. What will grab your reader's attention and make them want to learn more? How can you make your essay relevant and intriguing right from the beginning?

Develop Coherent Paragraphs

Once you've established your introduction, the next step is to develop coherent paragraphs that effectively communicate your ideas. Each paragraph should focus on one main point or argument, supported by evidence or examples from your research. Start by introducing the main idea in a topic sentence, then provide supporting details or evidence to reinforce your point.

Make sure to use transition words and phrases to guide your reader smoothly from one idea to the next, creating a logical flow throughout your history essay. Additionally, consider the organization of your paragraphs—is there a clear progression of ideas that builds upon each other? Are your paragraphs unified around a central theme or argument?

Conclude Effectively

Concluding your history essay effectively is just as important as starting it off strong. In your conclusion, you want to wrap up your main points while leaving a lasting impression on your reader. Begin by summarizing the key points you've made throughout your history essay, reminding your reader of the main arguments and insights you've presented.

Then, consider the broader significance of your topic—what implications does it have for our understanding of history or for the world today? You might also want to reflect on any unanswered questions or areas for further exploration. Finally, end with a thought-provoking statement or a call to action that encourages your reader to continue thinking about the topic long after they've finished reading.

Reference Your Sources

Referencing your sources is essential for maintaining the integrity of your history essay and giving credit to the scholars and researchers who have contributed to your understanding of the topic. Depending on the citation style required (such as MLA, APA, or Chicago), you'll need to format your references accordingly. Start by compiling a list of all the sources you've consulted, including books, articles, websites, and any other materials used in your research.

Then, as you write your history essay, make sure to properly cite each source whenever you use information or ideas that are not your own. This includes direct quotations, paraphrases, and summaries. Remember to include all necessary information for each source, such as author names, publication dates, and page numbers, as required by your chosen citation style.

Review and Ask for Advice

As you near the completion of your history essay writing, it's crucial to take a step back and review your work with a critical eye. Reflect on the clarity and coherence of your arguments—are they logically organized and effectively supported by evidence? Consider the strength of your introduction and conclusion—do they effectively capture the reader's attention and leave a lasting impression? Take the time to carefully proofread your history essay for any grammatical errors or typos that may detract from your overall message.

Furthermore, seeking advice from peers, mentors, or instructors can provide valuable insights and help identify areas for improvement. Consider sharing your essay with someone whose feedback you trust and respect, and be open to constructive criticism. Ask specific questions about areas you're unsure about or where you feel your history essay may be lacking.

History Essay Example

In this section, we offer an example of a history essay examining the impact of the Industrial Revolution on society. This essay demonstrates how historical analysis and critical thinking are applied in academic writing. By exploring this specific event, you can observe how historical evidence is used to build a cohesive argument and draw meaningful conclusions.

FAQs about History Essay Writing

How to write a history essay introduction, how to write a conclusion for a history essay, how to write a good history essay.

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Why does history education matter?

Experienced teachers and leaders Rachel Ball and Alex Fairlamb, authors of What is history teaching, now? , John Catt Educational, discuss the importance of history education and why it continues to matter today

History is a booming industry. As a nation, we are obsessed with finding out about the past, uncovering new evidence and trying to solve historical mysteries. The wealth of documentaries, podcasts, books and even dedicated TV channels demonstrate that history is not just important; it is relevant. Our innate desire as humans is to know who we are as individuals and what forces and events have shaped our own and collective identities.

For teachers, history education can be relentless in the pursuit of ensuring that students feel history is vital to their lives. This is because history matters. If we want young people to be able to distil opinion from fact and then articulate reasoned arguments, if we want them to be empathetic to everyone in their communities or to understand their place in the world, then they must be given the opportunity to study history.

Macmillan (2009) reminds us that ‘history is not a ‘dead subject’. It is wiser to think of history not as a pile of dead leaves or a collection of dusty artefacts, but as a pool, sometimes benign, often sulphurous, that lies under the present, silently shaping out institutions, our ways of thought, our likes and dislikes.’ History is a verb – shifting in complex and confounding ways. Like a tide, with every new source uncovered and every interpretation that emerges, history shifts in unpredictable ways.

Diverse and representative history curriculums

In 2023, history teachers are changing the focus of their curriculums to ensure that they are diverse and representative, ensuring that silenced voices have been woven in. History teachers know the importance of history as a form of identity and belonging and its role in either dispelling or reinforcing myths and stereotypes. The history curriculum must be a kaleidoscope of lenses for this to happen. Resultantly, as architects of their curriculum, history teachers thoughtfully select diverse enquiries to be studied, weaving in broad ranges of sources and interpretations.

History teachers have worked tirelessly to put scholarship at the centre of the enquiries studied. By placing historical debate and arguments at the centre, this immerses the pupil into organic and evolutionary world that is history education and the work that historians do – helping them to appreciate that history is something which lives and breathes as a discipline and is not consigned to dusty tomes sat removed at the back of library shelves.

Historians such as Rubenhold, Kauffman, Olusoga, and Sanghera have empowered history teachers to achieve this. Through their ground-breaking work, they have transformed the study of commonly taught topics such as the Tudors and the British Empire by illuminating the many lenses and objects through which these periods could be studied. Their work is powerful in how it resonates with contemporary issues, such as racism, migration, misogyny and ableism.

Understanding historical events in education

For students to understand the significance of events like the toppling of Colston’s statue or the murder of George Floyd and the toppling of Colston’s statue and to be able to navigate through the myriad of polarised opinions which explode during such times, they need to understand how the past connects with the present.

Students need the knowledge and critical thinking skills to be able to dissect such events and frame them within the broader narrative of the past: the long history of migration and Black History, alongside Britain’s uncomfortable history of colonisation and its role in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

By doing so, students can engage in social justice debates and appreciate why, in modern times, issues such as systemic racism exist so prevalently. They can explore how and why politicians use migration and race as election dog whistles, and they can examine the range of Black civil rights movements.

This is strengthened by Counsell, who argues that ‘The historical consciousness of children matters because they are human beings. History teaches us the meaning of human-ness.’ (Counsell, 2007). This is why history education fosters critical thinking – an ability to infer from sources, evaluate differing interpretations, analyse change and continuity, and be able to form convincing written and oral arguments.

Digital technology in history education

History in 2023 is exciting. Digital technology has developed the examination of ruins and unearthed new evidence about the past. It has digitised sources, enabling greater access to previously inaccessible evidence. Revolutionary developments in science and technology (such as examining isotopes) have helped to unlock narratives in history, such as Ivory Bangle Lady and helped to foster new interpretations.

In the age of the internet, social media has added a new type of source to history education – including announcements from world leaders to their role in triggering global movements, such as the #MeToo movement. It has also created a channel through which historians and history teachers can engage with one another, strengthening the role of scholarship within the classroom.

That history is a dead subject could actually not, therefore, be further from the truth. history is more alive than it has ever been and is, therefore, an important part of each child’s education:

‘…History matters. It is not just ‘useful,’ it is essential’ – (Corfield, 2008)

• Counsell, C cited in Culpin, C The 2007 Medlicott Medical Lecture – What kind of History should School History Be? (Historical Association, 2007).
• Corfield, P (2008) All people are living histories, which is why History matters – Making History (online) found at https://archives.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/why_history_matters.html accessed 12 July 2023.
• Macmillan, M (2009) The Uses and Abuses of History, (Random House: New York), pg. 3.

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Why Study History?

For a great many people, history is a set of facts, a collection of events, a series of things that happened, one after another, in the past. In fact, history is far more than these things-- it is a way of thinking about and seeing the world.

T o genuinely make sense of the past, you need to learn how to see it on its own terms, how to make the strange and unfamiliar logical and comprehensible, and how to empathize with people who once thought so differently than we do today. If you learn how to do these things, you begin to cultivate a crucial set of skills that not only help navigate the past, but the present as well. Once you can see the things that history teaches you, once you know how to penetrate unfamiliar modes of thought and behavior and can understand their inner logic, it becomes easier to make sense of the modern world and the diverse peoples and ideas that you will confront within it.

It might seem counterintuitive that one of the best ways to illuminate the present is by studying the past, but that is precisely why history can be so important. When we appreciate that history is not, first and foremost, a body of knowledge, but rather a way of thinking, it becomes a particularly powerful tool.  Not everyone may choose to become a historian. Yet, whatever career you choose,  knowing how to think historically will help.  

By taking History courses at Stanford, you will develop

• critical, interpretive thinking skills through in-depth analysis of primary and secondary source materials.

the ability to identify different types of sources of historical knowledge.

analytical writing skills and close reading skills.

effective oral communication skills.

History coursework at Stanford is supported by mentorship from our world-class faculty and by unique research opportunities. These experiences enable undergraduate students to pursue successful careers in business, journalism, public service, law, education, government, medicine, and more.   Learn what Stanford History majors and minors are doing after graduation .

Undergraduate Program

We offer the following degree options to Stanford undergraduate students:

Undergraduate Major : Become a historian and chart your path through the B.A. in consultation with your major advisor. 

Honors in History :  Join a passionate group of History majors who conduct in-depth research with Stanford faculty.

Undergraduate Minor : Complete six eligible courses for a minor in History.

  Co-terminal Masters:   Join the selective group of Stanford undergraduates who explore their passion in History before entering graduate school or professional life.

How to Declare

The first step in becoming a History major is finding a Faculty Advisor.  The best way to find an advisor is simply to take a variety of History courses, drop in during faculty office hours, and introduce yourself as a prospective History major. Faculty are happy to suggest coursework and to offer counsel. You are also welcome to reach out to our undergraduate Peer Advisors about how to navigate Stanford History.  Learn more about how to declare .

Herodotus: An Undergraduate Journal

Herodotus is a student-run publication founded in 1986 by  the History Undergraduate Student Association (HUGSA). It bears the name of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, the 5th century BCE historian of the Greco-Persian Wars. Based on a rigorous, supportive peer-review process, the journal preserves and features the best undergraduate research conducted in the department. Browse Herodotus

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IELTS Preparation with Liz: Free IELTS Tips and Lessons, 2024

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IELTS Essay Ideas: Is History a Waste of Time

Below are ideas for the topic of history in IELTS writing task 2. This essay is about how important history is to learn. This can relate to the subject of history as a whole or children spending time learning history. You should use the ideas given below and adapt them to the specific essay question given by IELTS.

Sample IELTS Essay Question

Some people think that studying history is a waste of time while others think that it is essential to learn. Discuss both sides and give your opinion.

IELTS Essay Ideas

Below are ideas for both side of the argument. A useful definition of history is “it is the study of past events, particularly human affairs.”. It might be the study of a country or of a person in the past. It might involve a particular event or a general situation at a given time in the past.

History is a Waste of Time

• Most people memorise dates, names and facts when they study history. This information is not useful in everyday life or for the future.
• If we could actually learn from history, history wouldn’t be full of the same repeated mistakes. However, the same mistakes are made again and again which makes history irrelevant to learn for the future.
• History is a subject that is rarely used in people’s lives so it would be better to focus on science or technology which is more relevant to the future and today’s society.
• Each historical event has different perspectives. For this reason, it makes learning history a waste of time because events can also be interpreted in a different way which makes what we learn in history less valuable.
• Many school curriculum have been set and are rarely changed. That curriculum includes little current history which is the only type of history that helps people understand the world they currently live in.

History is Important

• History helps young people understand their own culture and how their culture and country have evolved.
• History gives identity and helps unify people. It gives people a sense of roots and belonging.
• History teaches people what their forefathers experienced and suffered in the past in order to make their country what it is today.
• History teaches us about travesties which have occurred in the past, such as the Holocaust. It is essential for both people in the past, present and future to never  forget such events in order to honour the memory of those lost and to ensure it never happens again.
• History helps us understand change. It records and helps people understand successes and failures. Through these studies people can learn about change and how others are affected by it.
• It shows patterns of behaviour or events in the past and their outcome which can help us avoid similar outcomes in the future.
• Learn about the past often gives a glimpse of the future. It shows a path of development that will continue past the present and into the future.
• Valuable information can often be found in history, such as traditional medicines. Learning about past lifestyles and techniques used by people in the past can hold the secrets to remedies or cures no longer used.

Recommended

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Thank you for providing this fantastic piece of knowledge. This one is very useful.

You’re welcome 🙂

some people believes that history is such a waste of time and boring but others argue that it is an important subject . In my opine,from the study of history there are a lot of beneficial factors that helps in better understanding of the past events.

There is a common opinion among people that learning history is important while some do not consider it as useful. Learning history is always useful in knowing about your culture and how the people have evolved with time. However history in the world of technology and innovations doesn’t have much impact nowadays. History is considered as the important part of any nation or country because it reflects the culture and traditions of a particular society. There are important events in the past that how people have evolved and changed their way of living. Also it mentions the important dates and people who had done something innovative/big in the past. History helps to modify our culture and things which needs to be amended. It also taches the history of noble families. It guides about the pattern of diseases that run-in families so we can take precautionary measures regarding them. It facilitates to create medicines/treatment for non-cured diseases of past. However, history is not useful nowadays because future of the world doesn’t depend on it. Today world is about new technologies and modern techniques which make it easier for people to learn. Remembering dates and events is not an easy task because every historical event has different perspective. Having past methods in present world doesn’t create much difference because people and their culture has evolved with the passage of time. In my opinion, studying history is important because that make us to understands about our culture and learn about change with time. It also reflects the important historical event that took place in the past. Upcoming generations will learn about their past and the change that has taken place to amend their present and future.

thanks so much for those introduction about writing task 2 especially.after, looking at your notes I could write en essay by my self , thanks so much .

Some people believe that history is such a boring subject and time consuming at school but other argue that it is an important part of subject to learning about many history events in past. In my opinion, Undoubtedly, from studying history can take a lot of beneficial views or criticises, and then helping children better understand about their life before making any mistakes. There should be a balance of time between studying history and other practical subject at school curriculum.

Firstly, one of the popular reasons why history is a great deal at school program is that studying history can help students to make a sure about mistakes at their present-days problems. It means that students become more aware of any mistakes in the future. Take medical operation as example, many medical students either at school or university would like studying and learning about studying history medicine that relate to mistakes or any misunderstanding.at the result that make then to be more open-eyes.

On the other hand, if teachers are more care about studying history, It would be more time consuming so it is better, there is a suitable time-balances between learning history forms and other subjects. For example, some students do not enjoy studying history events. because at the moment teenager are more interested in modern time rather than the studying in the past.

In conclusion, although it is common believe that studying history has a critical point to make new generation to be more awareness in the life ,it does make a sense of subject at school with spending a lot of time on it .

Hello lizy please can you help me out with this question”Discuss the crisis of historical relevance in our present day society is partly a product of social ignorance and largely the consequences of conservative and reactionary approach to the study of history by historians…”please help me out

That isn’t an IELTS essay question. Where did you find it? I suggest you are very careful about essay questions you find online. Stick to preparing essays using realistic or authentic questions.

Hi Liz, I am taking the paper-based IELTS exam next week, so I wonder if it is important that I write clean. My handwriting is not bad, but sometimes I need to make alterations that would require erasing words and sentences, then fitting the new phrase (which is usually longer than the previous one) in the same space. All these make my writing paper a bit messy. Would that be a problem? Thanks.

It’s only a problem if the examiner struggles to read it. Are you making alterations because you have new ideas and want to express them or because of language problems? Always plan your essay thoroughly before you start. Each sentence will be planned for ideas and content. When you start writing, all you need to do is focus on your grammar and vocab for each sentence. Errors ought to be minimal. Also consider doing the computer based test if possible because then you can delete and move chunks of writing around on the page.

Hi Liz, Again, I’d thank you for the valuable lessons and I’m going through them one by one so I can get corrected my mistakes.

What I want to know is, there are 5 points under why history is considered as a time waste and 8 points under why history is important. Can you please mention how much points are normally enough to write under each of the cases when I get this type of an opinion essay. Thanks!

The above isn’t an essay. It’s just a list of ideas. Normally you would have two or three body paragraphs in any essay.

I would deeply appreciate your Great effort towards valuable lessons 💪 I had got exactly the same above question in a computer based IELTS today. Thank you again 😍

That was lucky. Good luck with your results 🙂

Hi I am a 13 year old and thanks for the help Liz

Glad to meet you, Tujan. Take your time using all the pages and lessons on my site. Good luck 🙂

Hi Liz, for this particular topic, is it acceptable to state that I regard both are equally important subjects? Or, must I give a one-sided opinion? Thanks.

I took the computer-based exam yesterday and this was exactly my task 2.

That’s lucky! I hope you did well 🙂

Hi Liz I am your avid student and I am stuck at 6.5 in writing despite scoring band 9 in other modules. Can you please review my essay and give feedback? I have tried to pay heed to your advice.

The question of whether to prioritize history over science subjects in teaching curriculum is an old one. There are valid arguments on both sides but in my opinion, more stress should be placed on teaching science and technology to the students as compared to traditional subjects like history, as it is more beneficial to the society as well as more fun and interesting for students.

The proponents of teaching history argue that children should be familiarized with their ancestors and the ordeals that they went through to teach them important life lessons.For instance the study of Holocaust can help children in understanding the devastating consequences of human actions on the society. History also gives people a sense of identity and helps in unifying people. For example the recent addition of the subject of Egyptology was hailed as a positive development by most Egyptians and was the source of great national pride for them.

On the other hand,some people point out and I agree that science and technology should be the major focus in school curriculum as it will help students in benefiting the society. The advancements in these fields can help in betterment of present as well as future of the nations. For example the recent developments in the field of robotic surgery have revolutionized healthcare for terminal patients. Moreover science subjects are more interesting for students as there is less memorization and more practical work. According to a study published in world education journal, visual learning in science labs is 70% more effective than the traditional lectures in subjects like history.

In conclusion, more stress should be placed on teaching the practical science fields as compared to history as it will be more beneficial to humanity in addition to being more palatable for students.

This is a Discussion Essay. You have written it very well indeed. Did you get a Discussion Essay in your previous IELTS test?

Thank you, you encouragement means a lot to me. Last time I got a personal viewpoint essay topic….

With Opinion Essays it is easy to not fulfil the Task Response which can greatly affect your score. It might be worth getting my Opinion Essay Advanced Lesson to see if you are following the right techniques: https://elizabethferguson.podia.com/ . You also have to consider task 1. If you are taking the Academic test, there are again criteria that are easily overlooked. See this page: https://ieltsliz.com/ielts-writing-task-1-lessons-and-tips/ . Your English does contain errors which might affect hitting band 9. But with the right techniques, you should be able to hit 8 or more (depending on how your write on the day). Always aim for accuracy. The main difference between 8 and 9 is the degree of accuracy in your English writing – so never aim to impress.

Thank you so much for your marvellous help. I am your big fan. I am going for exam 2nd time. I hope I will get sufficient score this time and for that I required your blessings.

Thanks a lot. Amee.

Thanks a lot.

Hope you are doing well, I would to ask if do you know what are the topics given for the month of November. I will be taking the exam by December 15th and 16th, so I would like to have initial ideas to start things right. Looking forward to hear from you soon.

For speaking, topics and questions are used for about three months. But for writing, this isn’t necessarily true. The only way to prepare is to prepare all common topics: https://ieltsliz.com/100-ielts-essay-questions/ and recent topics: https://ieltsliz.com/recent-ielts-questions-and-topics/ .

Dear Liz, I am wondering if it is a typo in the sentence ” history gives identify ” or it should be ” identity” Thank you very much for all your valuable effort .

Thanks – I’ve altered it.

Thank You Liz . Thank You. 🌱

I know you will not put the band score, but please can you tell me is this essay enough to get a band score 7.

Traditional subjects such as History, Politics etc were taught in schools spending more time rather than spending on teaching interpersonal and soft skills which is of greater use for students to find a good employment opportunities in future. In my opinion, although spending a good time on teaching traditional subjects, but also giving an equal or more importance to the skills could be a key solution to find a good job.

Firstly, History as a traditional subjects , in addition schools are the best way that our child to get to know about the past tradition, culture, ancient methods, languages as well as about our ancestors, for this reasons, traditional subjects should give more importance like any other subjects in schools.Knowing more about our culture, tradition, history is the only way that we can uphold about our beliefs.

However, due to the increased demand for the skills namely interpersonal and soft skills such as mathematical, marketing etc which is required in all enterprises or in a job market, I admit that by contrast, it is primary to teach the students about the skills in school in addition to the subject history or arts. One clear example, to illustrate here is when we are going for an interview the employer mainly look over the skills that the employee have rather than his knowledge about the traditional subjects because obviously, the employer ‘s motive is the growth of the company.

To summarize, I firmly believe that in school the teachers should give equal or either more importance to teach their students about the skills as it is the most important factor to find a good job. Even though it is good to have knowledge about the tradition and culture.

Is it good enough to get a score of 7? Please if you have time point out my mistakes.

Sorry I don’t give feedback or scores. But I will say, avoid using “etc”. Just decide on two examples and that’s enough.

Hi Miss Liz! I have a question. Why should you not use “etc” in IELTS Writing? Thank you!

You want to showcase your English, so choose your examples carefully and no need to add “etc”. The letters “etc” means unknown, unstated examples – don’t do that in a language test.

Hi miss liz can you please give some variations of task one.

Go to the HOME page and access the main writing task 1 section of the website to find model answers for task 1.

hi mam, I am jumbled up, if the question is what extend you agree or disagree?, and am agreeing that what should my paragragraphs constitute? your earliest reply will be highly appreciated.

If you agree, then each paragraph gives one reason for your opinion.

Hi Liz, how are you?

I am Dario from Argentina and I will take the exam next Saturday. First of all I would like to thank you for all the material, tips and exercises of the web. Secondly, if possible, I would like to to have a look on my essay and tell me what you think.

Thanks in advance

So many times one can hear that the study of history is pointless. Luckily, they are not the majority and other people still believe that history is one of the essential knowledges.

Narrow-minded people may think that the past is gone and what we are living now or going to live in the future has no link with it. They focus on the future as it comes from another planet or suddenly appears from underneath a rock. They do not really see that what happens today is because something happened yesterday, which change the course of the things, made people to take other decisions and choose different things than the ones it would have chosen under other circumstances.

Alternatively, still the most of people support and study history. History is sometimes crucial to understand what is going to happen, but also to prevent some things to happen again, as the holocaust or wars. The same way everyone as individual makes mistakes, the society as a whole do it as well. History provides us the key to think and understand when, why, how and what happen anything and act consequently next time. It is also our collective memory, therefore historians have an important role in our society.

In conclusion, although a small group of people try to reduce the importance of history it can be easily argued and demonstrated that is groundless. In my opinion, history is one of the most important (and exciting) topics in human sciences.

Really that’s true and you helped me a lot through these points

Pliz help me madam,i have an assignment of history now i want u to help me on the same topic.why history as a subject should be taught in schools? Pliz i need some points

All the ideas are given on this page.

mam u need to give people ideas and help instead of just telling them that all the ideas are on the page

The entire page above is a list of ideas for a topic. Please read them.

Thankyou madam ..for everything..

thank you too

To study history is like to live in past.Situations and circumstances changes from time to time.What was considered right in the past may be perceived as wrong in the present circumstances.In the past nations were ruled by the king with absolute authority at their command and can be seen described as dictator. Dictator in present age are not considered acceptable,so why to study previous kings.

hello mam . provide me with the ideas in the recent topic of ielts “similarities are rising with same types of shops , products and brands all over the world . what are the merits and demerits of this ” this was the essay of ielts writing task 2 held on 26 th september 2015

Please see the recent questions page where some ideas have been shared. Liz

Hi Mam I’m blessed that I found your blog at last. I’ve already got Band score 6, but my goal is 8. I’m excited to have your advanced lessons, but unfortunately I’m not sure how I can pay for that from Bangladesh.

Could you please have a look on my Introduction and advise me, pointing the mistakes I made, what I should do?

Learning history is interesting and enjoyable. Studying history is prioritized by some as an effective subject although others argue against it as a waste of time. While studying history, it is possible to know about ancestors’ contribution on this modern world and the mistakes they made, although memorizing dates and names, and lack of science or technology has no usefulness in future.

https://ieltsliz.com/liz-notice-2015-2016/

Hi Liz, in writing, is it okay ti use contractions? Because in speaking, it contractions are preferred. And is it safe to use highfalutin vocabulary such as sojourn and etc for writing task 2?

No, never use contractions in IELTS writing. Only use vocabulary that you can use with complete accuracy. Liz

Hi Liz, If I don’t get wrong, there is a typo in the third idea in the viewpoint “History is important”. History teaches “us” instead of “use”.

You should think about charging for your proof reading services 🙂 Well spotted. Liz

Hi Liz, I want to write a balanced essay. Would this introduction will be fine?

People have different views about whether or not learning history is vital in our daily lives. In my opinion, studying history has a signicant importance not only in the present but also in the future generation of our society.

Please read my notice: https://ieltsliz.com/posting-writing/ Thanks Liz

I think that if you can not look back at history how can you make today’s age any better

June 13 writing task 2: the statement given went something like this – a huge number of accommodation and transportation facilities emerge in big cities nowadays thus the government is asking the business sectors to relocate their businesses in rural areas. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Thanks for sharing. Liz

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Home — Essay Samples — History — What Is History — The Importance of History

The Importance of History

• Categories: Knowledge What Is History

About this sample

Words: 527 |

Published: Oct 16, 2018

Words: 527 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

What is history, the importance of understanding history, works cited:.

• Boyne, J. (2006). The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Random House.
• Crowe, D. (2008). The Holocaust in the eyes of children. The English Journal, 97(4), 25-31.
• Edelman, L. (1995). The Ghetto Fights. Holocaust Library.
• Finkelstein, N. G. (2003). The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering. Verso Books.
• Gilroy, A. (2011). Ethnic and racial studies. Between camps: Race and culture in postmodernity, 34(3), 458-469.
• Gleeson-White, J. (2011). Double vision: The Holocaust and representation. Australian Humanities Review, (50), 89-102.
• Roth, J. K. (2006). Teaching about the Holocaust: essays by college and university teachers. University Press of America.
• Snyder, T. (2015). Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning. Crown/Archetype.
• Wistrich, R. S. (2003). Holocaust and genocide studies. The long road back: Jewish intellectual refugees in post-war Europe, 17(2), 180-199.
• Zuckerman, M. (1999). A dream undone: The integration of soldiers in World War II. University of California Press.

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Informative Essay — Purpose, Structure, and Examples

What is informative writing?

Informative writing educates the reader about a certain topic. An informative essay may explain new information, describe a process, or clarify a concept. The provided information is objective, meaning the writing focuses on presentation of fact and should not contain personal opinion or bias.

Informative writing includes description, process, cause and effect, comparison, and problems and possible solutions:

Describes a person, place, thing, or event using descriptive language that appeals to readers’ senses

Explains the process to do something or how something was created

Discusses the relationship between two things, determining how one ( cause ) leads to the other ( effect ); the effect needs to be based on fact and not an assumption

Identifies the similarities and differences between two things; does not indicate that one is better than the other

Details a problem and presents various possible solutions ; the writer does not suggest one solution is more effective than the others

Purpose of informative writing

The purpose of an informative essay depends upon the writer’s motivation, but may be to share new information, describe a process, clarify a concept, explain why or how, or detail a topic’s intricacies.

Informative essays may introduce readers to new information .

Summarizing a scientific/technological study

Outlining the various aspects of a religion

Providing information on a historical period

Describe a process or give step-by-step details of a procedure.

How to write an informational essay

How to construct an argument

How to apply for a job

Clarify a concept and offer details about complex ideas.

Explain why or how something works the way that it does.

Describe how the stock market impacts the economy

Illustrate why there are high and low tides

Detail how the heart functions

Offer information on the smaller aspects or intricacies of a larger topic.

Identify the importance of the individual bones in the body

Outlining the Dust Bowl in the context of the Great Depression

Explaining how bees impact the environment

How to write an informative essay

Regardless of the type of information, the informative essay structure typically consists of an introduction, body, and conclusion.

Introduction

Background information

Explanation of evidence

Restated thesis

Review of main ideas

Closing statement

Informative essay introduction

When composing the introductory paragraph(s) of an informative paper, include a hook, introduce the topic, provide background information, and develop a good thesis statement.

If the hook or introduction creates interest in the first paragraph, it will draw the readers’ attention and make them more receptive to the essay writer's ideas. Some of the most common techniques to accomplish this include the following:

Emphasize the topic’s importance by explaining the current interest in the topic or by indicating that the subject is influential.

Use pertinent statistics to give the paper an air of authority.

A surprising statement can be shocking; sometimes it is disgusting; sometimes it is joyful; sometimes it is surprising because of who said it.

An interesting incident or anecdote can act as a teaser to lure the reader into the remainder of the essay. Be sure that the device is appropriate for the informative essay topic and focus on what is to follow.

Directly introduce the topic of the essay.

Provide the reader with the background information necessary to understand the topic. Don’t repeat this information in the body of the essay; it should help the reader understand what follows.

Identify the overall purpose of the essay with the thesis (purpose statement). Writers can also include their support directly in the thesis, which outlines the structure of the essay for the reader.

Informative essay body paragraphs

Each body paragraph should contain a topic sentence, evidence, explanation of evidence, and a transition sentence.

A good topic sentence should identify what information the reader should expect in the paragraph and how it connects to the main purpose identified in the thesis.

Provide evidence that details the main point of the paragraph. This includes paraphrasing, summarizing, and directly quoting facts, statistics, and statements.

Explain how the evidence connects to the main purpose of the essay.

Place transitions at the end of each body paragraph, except the last. There is no need to transition from the last support to the conclusion. A transition should accomplish three goals:

Tell the reader where you were (current support)

Tell the reader where you are going (next support)

Relate the paper’s purpose

Informative essay conclusion

Incorporate a rephrased thesis, summary, and closing statement into the conclusion of an informative essay.

Rephrase the purpose of the essay. Do not just repeat the purpose statement from the thesis.

Summarize the main idea found in each body paragraph by rephrasing each topic sentence.

End with a clincher or closing statement that helps readers answer the question “so what?” What should the reader take away from the information provided in the essay? Why should they care about the topic?

Informative essay example

The following example illustrates a good informative essay format:

Transcript of video Why History is Important

Thank you all for coming out on a lovely sunny evening when you should be sitting on your deck somewhere enjoying the last of the summer.

I was fascinated to learn about Canada’s history, I mean, you’re doing such extraordinary work and long may it last. It’s filling a need, clearly, and you could fill more needs, I think, if you’ve got even more support, which I’m sure you will get so I think it’s doing a very, very important job, indeed.

I want to talk a bit about history, not surprisingly, and I was saying to someone earlier on one of the nicest things I can do is talk to people who are themselves interested in history so I don’t have to persuade you I think that history is important and not just a boring subject.

I remember once when I was teaching at the university formerly known as Ryerson that one of my students said to me, it must be so easy to teach history because you can just say the same things every year. I said, well actually it changes, and it changes depending on you know who you are, where you’re standing, and what has also happened in the world, which of course keeps it eternally interesting, I think.

We always, all of us, are finding new parts of history that we like, and are interested in, and want to know more about, never run out of subjects, it’s impossible.

So why do I think history is so important? I think it is important because it helps us to understand others and it also I think very importantly helps us to understand ourselves. Because we are all as groups of people just as individuals are produced by our own past. What has happened to us, what worlds we’ve grown up in, what experiences we’ve had, what disappointments we’ve had, what successes we’ve had, whether we’re an individual, or a group of people, or a nation, I think have helped to shape us into what we are.

So to understand what others have come through, what it is they remember, is I think to understand a very important part of them. Of course, we need to understand the sociology, we need to understand the demographics, we need to understand what geography has mattered to different groups of people, but I think understanding the history is a way into understanding those we’re dealing with.

And so, one of the things I think we’ve all been reflecting on recently, is that we should have been paying more attention to Putin’s history and his view of history.

I was on a very interesting zoom seminar about six months ago with Fiona Hill who was, for her pains, the advisor on Russia in the Trump White House, and she had some wonderful stories about that which she said we mustn’t tell anyone else, of course, we all rushed out and told everyone else.

She was dealing with a president who didn’t have the slightest interest in learning anything about those he was dealing with, and she said they had tried to give President Trump one page of information about, for example, North Korea, which he wouldn’t read. She said it was sometimes very frustrating, and what I really remember, apart from the revelations about the ways in which President Trump behaved, was that we had to understand — she is a Russian expert and that was her career before she went to the White House and to the National Security Council — she said Trump’s vision of history is different from the Western vision. He’s thinking in different centuries, he’s thinking back further than most western statesmen are thinking back.

[Putin] is thinking back and I think she believes that he means it, and I think the evidence is, he probably does, he’s thinking back to the foundations of what became Russia. He’s thinking back to Kyev [Keev], or Kyev [Ky-ev] as the Russians would call it, where the Russian peoples sense of themselves was initially born. Kyev, in Russia, was for many Russians, the birthplace of what later on became the state of Muscovine then became the Russia of today.

And he [Putin] is comparing himself with those great leaders, of the person he’s comparing himself to and thinking constantly of, those who increased the strength of Russia, who expanded its borders. So he thinks of Ivan the Terrible, he thinks of Peter the Great, he thinks of Catherine the Great, and this is the frame of history in which he’s thinking.

So for him, what has happened to Russia since the end of the Cold War has been a falling away from the glories of the past. I think he’s very much concerned to recreate those glories, and I think none of us in the west, or very few of us, took that history seriously enough. We thought he was probably just saying it.

The summer before he invaded Ukraine he wrote a very long essay called, I think it’s called (in English), “The Spiritual Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” in which he argues that there has always been something called the Russian people and that there’s never been something called the Ukrainian people. That Ukrainians are just Russians and those who don’t admit that they’re Russians are denying their heritage. That it is, therefore, essential that the peoples of Ukraine be part of this greater Russian grouping.

It isn’t, I would say, a very good essay and if I were grading and I probably would have given it a C- for trying. But it was, I think, a very important insight into his thinking. I think most people just thought, well he’s just doing that you know, he would say that he likes to think of himself as something of an intellectual. I think it was actually (and Fiona Hill said this and I was very impressed by this) I think it was actually a guide to what he was thinking, and how he could not accept the independent existence of Ukraine, and I think still cannot accept it, cannot accept that Ukrainians might have a different view.

What’s been interesting, you’ve probably noticed, is how the Russian official line on Ukraine has changed, but it’s still underneath that line is that Ukraine must and should be and always has been part of Russia. But the line has changed, because initially it was the helpless Ukrainians who were really Russian who had fallen into the hands of this drug and addled bunch of Nazis and anti-Semites in Kiev and that he and the Russians were going to save them. And when the Ukrainian people made it quite clear that they didn’t want to be saved, the Ukrainian people themselves have become Russians who’ve lost their way.

And one of the things he has been doing in the occupied areas, is bringing in school teachers and bringing in new textbooks, to teach the little Ukrainian children that they’re really Russian. His spokesmen are saying things like, it may take 30 years or more before we make Ukrainians understand who they really are. So to understand that history of Putin’s, I think, is to understand a very important part about him, and it is a history which has at least enough Russian support, certainly those around him support it, is a view of the world.

I think if we look at some of the great conflicts in the world, to understand how those peoples engage in them and are seeing each other, it is absolutely critical to understanding them. I think we can’t make sense of the conflict which has gone on for so long between Israelis and Palestinians without remembering how each of them see their history. They share a history of course, but they see it very differently. For the Israelis, 1948 is the foundation of the state of Israel. It’s a triumph. It’s the culmination of a long, dreadful and deeply painful struggle to preserve the Jewish nation. For the Palestinians, it’s the Naqba, it’s the catastrophe and to understand that gap, I think is to understand something of how difficult that conflict is, and how difficult it will be it be to overcome those different perceptions.

Same thing, I think, in the conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. They have a different history, each of them, and again I think, we as outsiders, and they, as people involved in that conflict, will understand better if they can understand the historical roots of it.

But I think history is also useful in understanding ourselves, because every people tells itself stories about itself. Canadians tell ourselves stories about what a kindly, and gentle, and mostly nice people we are, which I think we probably are, but not always and I think we need to recognize as Bruce MacLellan was saying earlier we need to recognize the times when we haven’t been so nice. We need to recognize the failings in our past. If we have a completely rosy view of what we’re like, we’re not going to be able to deal with some of the problems which we’ve inherited from the past. So history for understanding, I think, is extremely important for understanding others, for understanding ourselves, for understanding an issue. Sometimes, you know, I think we don’t understand enough why a particular issue is a problem and sometimes we can get it very badly wrong.

Let me give you an example of this, which nearly caused a serious catastrophe in the Cold War. At the end of the 1970s when Jimmy Carter was president, things had been going fairly well between the Soviet Union and the United States. There had been several important arms deals, there had been this period known as détente, there had been more communication between the two superpowers with their vast nuclear arsenals. But things were going sour by the end of the 1970s, the Soviets were advancing in Africa, they were building a much bigger blue water navy, a navy that was capable of projecting Soviet power further around the world.

There was concern in the United States and among the Western allies about this, and then reports began to circulate in Washington in the summer of 1979 that the Soviets had moved troops with their weapons into Cuba. And you can imagine this set off alarm signals because the Cuban Missile Crisis had been set off by precisely that. Part of the deal which had ended the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and possibly spared the world from a nuclear war between the two superpowers, part of the deal was the Soviets would withdraw certain types of equipment.

They’d withdraw the rockets, for example, that were capable of carrying nuclear bombs, they’d withdraw the aircraft that were capable of carrying nuclear bombs, they would withdraw a great deal of the military, both on land and in submarines, and surface vessels that they had placed in Cuba, and that was part of the deal. The Americans in return withdrew some of their missiles in Turkey very close to the Soviet borders and that had pretty much stuck.

But reports begin to circulate in the summer of 1979, that the Soviets have suddenly started to move troops back in. What does this mean? Is this part of a general passion of Soviet aggressiveness? Are they planning something? Is the United States going to have another crisis like the Cuban Missile Crisis? After reports of this the Americans begin to send U2 planes over to get photographs of what’s going on, and yes, they see a military installation, they see troops on the ground, they see what look like tracks, they see what looks like weapons.

Some of these reports now begin to come out into the press and at that point the Soviets are getting worried too because they actually haven’t as it turns out moved troops into Cuba and they wonder why the Americans are doing this? Are the Americans planning something? And when you have two adversaries who don’t trust each other you can see the potential for catastrophe.

At that point someone has the bright idea of calling in someone who’d been in the Kennedy administration during the Cuban Missile Crisis, I think it was Dean Rusk, I can’t remember who it was—one of the very high “ups” who’d been there in the discussions which had brought that crisis to an end. They said to him, look, we’re really concerned, there seems to be this Soviet brigade in Provincial Town in Cuba. Yeah, he said, that was always there. We told them they could allow one brigade for training purposes. It’s been there all along.

And so you see, if you don’t understand something of how things got to be where they are, you could badly misread the signals. At that point the Americans stood down on any sort of preparations they were making. They summoned the Soviet Ambassador in Washington and asked him to go to Moscow and say please tell them we didn’t mean it. And of course the Soviet Ambassador, the very experienced Anatoly Dobrynin, went back and said “the Americans didn’t mean it,” and he said he got a rather skeptical reply from people in the Kremlin who said “I’m sure they did, there is some deep plot here.”

So this is just one example, but I think it’s one that could have led to real catastrophe of how a failure to know the context and to know the history and to know how we got to a certain point, a failure to understand others who are shaped by their history can lead into very serious misunderstandings.

What I think is also important about history, and I think we need to do, and again I think the Ukrainian War has brought this home yet again, is we have to be able to challenge bad history. We like to think of history as a force for good, it’s a force of enlightenment, it’s a way of helping us to know more about the world and get a better grasp of how we got from there to here, and how our institutions and our values came to be what they are.

But it can also be used, as we know, be used for very evil purposes. It can be used to mobilize peoples against each other, a history can portray a particular people as always having been victimized by their neighbours, always having been in the right, and their neighbors is always determined to do them in. In history, as we know, can be used to portray a better world, if you follow this cause you will help to “Build a Better World,” we’ll help to recover something of the past. So often, those who try to mobilize people talk about the past, a golden past.

ISIS, Al-Qaeda did this, they talked about the Golden Age of Islam. In the first two centuries after Muhammad, when all Muslims lived in unity before the unity of the Muslim World began to be splintered and how that can be recovered. When the troubles began in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, after the end of the Cold War, the history became very important. The Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences produced histories which argued that Serbians had always been in the right, and that Bosnian Muslims were not truly Slavs at all, they were descendants of Turks or they were renegades who’d given up their own people in their own faith.

That helped, at least among Serbian nationalists, to demonize the Bosnian Muslims as not being truly part of their people, and therefore not being worthy of consideration, and therefore, in fact, had been killed. Bad histories, as we know, can mobilize peoples to do awful things. It can be a very powerful force and so I think part of what we all do if we care about history, and we should be doing it in the universities, we’ve been doing it in the schools, we should be doing it in our discussions, we should be challenging bad history. It’s not always easy.

Historians are not very popular sometimes when they say it didn’t actually happen like that, but I think that’s the sort of job that we have to do because history, as I say, can be such a powerful and sometimes very, very, dangerous force. It can also be powerful because it can be used as a basis for claims. I think we have to be able to challenge that history I think is becoming perhaps even more important than in the past century as a basis for claims for territory.

For example, in the 18th, 19th century you could claim territory if you conquered it, if you hung on to it long enough there’d usually be some sort of agreement that you could keep it, or territory would often be exchanged by dynastic marriages. The whole, very rich state of Bombay in India came into possession of the British because a British King married a Portuguese princess and she brought it with her as her dowry. So territory was parceled out, handed off, between one autocratic society and another, an autocratic government and another, without the locals being consulted. But as we became more aware of the rights of people as citizens, rather than subjects, as we became more aware and accepted the principle of self-determination, then it became illegitimate to take land by conquest. And certainly in the 20th century, certainly since 1945, there have been very few examples of land being taken by conquest and successfully maintained.

When Saddam Hussein took Kuwait in the first Gulf War at the beginning of the 1990s, he faced a coalition of powers who were determined to make him give Kuwait back. No one recognized that. And so I think we have lived in a world in which seizing territory by force, changing borders by force, has not been accepted. I think that’s changing now and I think the potential for more war is there and more conflict is there.

Putin has been, not just in Ukraine, we should have been paying more attention. Putin has been seizing territory, that he sees as properly Russian territory, since he came to power. He has seized parts of Georgia, he seized parts of Chechnya, he seized, of course, Ukraine and he seized Crimea. He’s seized large chunks of Ukraine in 2014, and he’s attempting now to seize, possibly, we don’t entirely know what his goals are, he’s attempting to seize the whole country. And so I think we have to be able to challenge those claims and say you have no right to take that territory. Because he will use, and others, will use history. Putin uses his history to say there’s no Ukraine, it is properly Russian territory, and the Chinese made the same claim with Tibet.

I’ve always thought their claims there were actually not based on very much at all. The Chinese claim was that Tibet had, for centuries, been part of China. In fact, the relationship between Tibet which was a remote and mountainous Kingdom, very hard to get to, and Beijing (or whatever capital of China there was and there were different ones over the centuries), was a very loose and tenuous one.

There was for long periods no direct Chinese presence in Lhasa, no direct Chinese control over Tibet, but the Chinese used, when they took over Tibet in 1954, they used history as a justification, as they are using history as a justification for incorporating Taiwan into China. As they are using history as a justification for claiming that the great part of the South China Sea is their territorial water, there’s no foundation for that last claim whatsoever, but we have to know enough history to be able to challenge it.

And I think we have to understand when claims are being made on the basis of bad history, because history has a power. People seem to trust it and it’s possibly because other things we don’t trust as much. Many countries, people no longer trust organized religion. In many countries, people don’t really trust their political leaders. But somehow history seems to have this validity, and solidity, and how often have we heard people say history will judge? As if there’s some impartial figure sitting there which will judge the good and the bad and sort them all out.

It’s, in a funny way, I think it’s almost replacing among certain of us, the notion of a Supreme Being or Supreme Beings who distinguish between those who’ve been good and bad. History, it is said, will do that.

Where, finally, I think history can help, and I think we can use it, but again, like all history with care, is helping us deal with the present. Because we always have to have some way of dealing with what are often very complex situations, with many things happening at once, and I think you know all periods of history have their own complexities, but I would say 2022 is perhaps a particularly turbulent period, certainly in the context of the last few years more turbulent I think than some.

We’re facing a number of crises which are unfolding simultaneously, strains put on societies by Covid, the challenges to globalization, in some cases, de-globalization. I think globalization will never be the same after what has been happening in the last few years. Facing challenges of climate change, facing instability in Europe, the threat of the war spreading at the heart of Europe, something that very few people had expected, the possibility of a major struggle and perhaps developing into a military one between China and the United States. Very bad relations between India and China. They were fighting on their common border just a year ago and I think do not trust each other at all. The possibility of states such as Pakistan, which possesses nuclear weapons, imploding and disintegrating as a state and the prospect of other failed states in the world. The prospect of famine, the prospect of mass migration driven by any number of these different causes. United States, whose politics seem to be more divided than they have been for some time, and what does that mean? Both for the United States: what does it mean for the democratic West, and what does it mean for us as Canadians living next door to this very large power?

And so it seems to me we are living through a time that presents a number of overlapping and simultaneous challenges and history, I think, can help. Not in the sense of providing answers. I don’t think history will provide very clear answers. I don’t think you can go to history and say, okay, quite a bit of a problem… what is the solution? Find me a case study from the past which will tell me what to do… because every historical period is different and every historical set of circumstances are different but I think what is important is to use the past as a way of asking questions.

If we can’t even ask the questions, then we’re not going to have much hope of actually trying to do something about the present. So history as a guide to formulating questions, the what-if questions. What if we don’t deal with this particular problem what’s likely to happen? What if we don’t deal with a debt crisis? What if we don’t deal with inflated values of stocks? What happened in 1929? Is there anything there that we should be looking at that might give us some indication of what we might perhaps do now to avoid something like that.

I think it was actually quite interesting that in the crisis of 2008, Ben Bernanke, who played such a part in trying to manage it, had done his doctoral thesis on the great crash of 1929 and so he had some sense of what happens when you get a bubble in stock markets, and what happens when you get a sudden crash and what that can mean when people have overloaded themselves with debt. And so I think what history can do, is help you to ask those what-if questions and further to say, well, what if we do such and such? What is likely to happen? What would be a sensible policy? What would not be a sensible policy?

Again, it won’t give us clear answers. But if we can only begin to ask the questions we at least have some hope of looking for the answers, and we often, I think, look for analogies, we look for similar situations in the past which may at least give us some of that sort of guidance.

To take, for example, the British and American invasion and occupation of Iraq after September 11th. I mean, this was this was a massive military operation, very little preparation was done, it now becomes clear, on finding out what the Iraqi people themselves might want, might think, and how they might react to foreigners coming in. And the state department, in fact, did a massive study of Iraq and they had experts and they consulted as many people as they could. Tony Blair was obliged to talk to his Iraq experts, which he did very reluctantly.

I talked to one of them, and he said you could see that Tony Blair didn’t want to be there, he sat with his arms folded looking out the window like this the whole time. Why the state department studied Iraq and what the Iraq experts in Britain… and for historical reasons Britain has a lot of people who study Iraq, what they warned was that, first of all, that you could not expect Iraq to suddenly become a functioning democracy because the Ba’ath party and Saddam Hussein had so destroyed the civic institutions of Iraq there was basically nothing left that was independent.

And that you shouldn’t, they warned, you should not get rid of the Ba’ath party because in fact they were the only people who knew how to do things like keep the water running. Anyone who got to any position of any importance in Iraq had to join the Ba’ath. It didn’t mean they were necessarily committed, although many of them were, but simply to abolish the Ba’ath party, to fire all those people, to dissolve the army, leaving a lot of people suddenly with no income and weapons, was not a sensible idea.

What these studies also said, and the experts also said, was look at what happened to the British when they created Iraq and took it over after the First World War. They immediately had rebellions; they immediately had trouble, because the Iraqis have very, very, strong regional and often tribal loyalties. [They] do not like, and as most people don’t like, foreigners coming in. Iraqis often had a deep suspicion, as they did with the British in the 1920s and 30s, and as they had with the occupation forces after 2003, a deep suspicion that foreigners want to come in and take their oil at a cut price rate. And so if you had wanted to make a mess of things in Iraq, I think you probably couldn’t have done a better job than the invasion and occupation did.

I mean they succeeded in overthrowing what was already a very weak government and a weakened army. Saddam Hussein basically had very little power left and then by dissolving the Ba’ath party they threw out of work a lot of people who actually made the country run. By dissolving the army they threw out people who could mobilize themselves, had the organization, and had the weapons, to make life very uncomfortable for them.

For the average Iraqi, the idea that they were going to welcome this change… as many of them said, you know, we loathed Saddam Hussein. He was a dictator, but we could send our children to school safely and now we can’t. We could turn on the tap, water would come out, and now it doesn’t. And so I think if those in charge had spent a bit more time looking at the history and tried to understand Iraq a bit better it wouldn’t have gone as badly wrong as it did.

What I think was too late, was once the military were in there, a number of the top generals apparently began to send back to their booksellers, presumably Amazon which I suppose delivers anywhere in the world, saying they would like copies of T.E Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom , which was written about that part of the world, before and just after the First World War. Perhaps not the best guide, but they were trying desperately to find out who it was they were dealing with.

So I think what knowing history can do is, as I say, help you formulate questions, ask what if? and also warn you where you might go badly wrong. And I think it’s the warnings that history can give that can be very important. I don’t think we should be trapped by history, but I think we are very foolish not to pay attention to it because we have very few ways of gauging the future. Unless we want to go back to doing what the Romans did and examining the entrails of geese. I think we should look at history, it’s probably more reliable than geese. Thank you.

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