The first is that there’s positive feedback in learning history; the more history you know, the more easily & enjoyably you can learn even more. I think that’s most likely true.
The second is that history, of the sort history departments teach, is a rich source of broad, powerful, practical insights that demands study. I’m a bit sceptical. While learning history is salutary, I reckon the marginal gain per unit effort is low compared to other things one could begin to learn, like statistics, programming, psychology, economics, and probably anthropology. I suspect historians overrate the quantity & generalizability of the lessons we can learn from history of the sort history departments teach, and this post doesn’t make much of an opposing case.
Some history pretty obviously is useful to know, and I’ve cited it here myself over the years. The curious thing is that it’s rarely history of the monarchs-&-diplomats-&-battles sort the post touches on, but things like economic history or the history of publicopinion or the history of science, engineering & medicine. I don’t know how much that reflects my own idiosyncratic interests and how much reflects non-stereotypical history being more useful than stereotypical monarchs-&-diplomats-&-battles history. I’d guess a bit of both. (Maybe I should make a post about non-stereotypical history being potentially more informative?)
(Incidentally, taking up the example of Yugoslavia because I’ve read a bit about it lately, the most interesting inference I’ve seen derived from it came to me from the political scientist John Mueller rather than a historian. Mueller argues that the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s were not ethnic wars in the sense of being explosions of pre-existing, widely felt, militant ethnic hatreds. Ethnicity served primarily as an organizational device and rallying point for bands of criminals, mercenaries, and paramilitary gangs.)
I’m picking up two messages here.
The first is that there’s positive feedback in learning history; the more history you know, the more easily & enjoyably you can learn even more. I think that’s most likely true.
The second is that history, of the sort history departments teach, is a rich source of broad, powerful, practical insights that demands study. I’m a bit sceptical. While learning history is salutary, I reckon the marginal gain per unit effort is low compared to other things one could begin to learn, like statistics, programming, psychology, economics, and probably anthropology. I suspect historians overrate the quantity & generalizability of the lessons we can learn from history of the sort history departments teach, and this post doesn’t make much of an opposing case.
Some history pretty obviously is useful to know, and I’ve cited it here myself over the years. The curious thing is that it’s rarely history of the monarchs-&-diplomats-&-battles sort the post touches on, but things like economic history or the history of public opinion or the history of science, engineering & medicine. I don’t know how much that reflects my own idiosyncratic interests and how much reflects non-stereotypical history being more useful than stereotypical monarchs-&-diplomats-&-battles history. I’d guess a bit of both. (Maybe I should make a post about non-stereotypical history being potentially more informative?)
(Incidentally, taking up the example of Yugoslavia because I’ve read a bit about it lately, the most interesting inference I’ve seen derived from it came to me from the political scientist John Mueller rather than a historian. Mueller argues that the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s were not ethnic wars in the sense of being explosions of pre-existing, widely felt, militant ethnic hatreds. Ethnicity served primarily as an organizational device and rallying point for bands of criminals, mercenaries, and paramilitary gangs.)