From Perspectives on History, why read Why Learn History (when it’s already summarized in this article)? The oldest true stories in the world: Evidence gathered in recent years shows that some ancient narratives contain remarkably reliable records of real events. Reading “Theses on Theory and History” — a manifesto decrying the state of history as a discipline — left Scott McLemee feeling, in Yogi Berra's haunting words, “deja vu all over again”. Weird writers of history: If the English language had taken a different path, historians might not exist. The case for applied history: Can the study of the past really help us to understand the present?
The invention of world history: For most of history, different peoples, cultures and religious groups have lived according to their own calendars — then, in the 11th century, a Persian scholar attempted to create a single, universal timeline for all humanity. Our addiction to stories keeps us from understanding history: Angela Chen interviews Alex Rosenberg, author of How History Gets Things Wrong: The Neuroscience of Our Addiction to Stories (and more and more and more). How would you draw history? When cracks start to appear in the world order, the old textbook timeline just won’t do.
