The Art of Learning History

When I was younger I thought history was all about dates and place-names. And genealogies. I remember sitting in a college history class as the professor lectured and we were all taking notes. Suddenly he stopped and said, "You're writing down dates. Don't do that."

I thought that was odd but figured it was just the one professor. And then I went to my OTHER history class and the professor there said the same thing. Nearly all my history professors taught us to stop writing down dates.

Dates can be looked up. History is not about dates and names. History is about why things happen, plain and simple. Why did the English colonists settle in America (and ultimately all over the world)? They didn't do it because of dates on a calendar. They did it for economic reasons. They wanted to make better futures for their children.

The details of history change the names and the locations of the events but the reasons things happen are more subtle. When the Roman empire was invaded by German tribes the Romans drove the barbarians back into northern Europe -- or enslaved them. But when the Germans were driven into Rome's arms by the more powerful Huns the Romans allied themselves with the Germans.

History teaches us that the Roman alliance with the Germans saved Rome but only for a while. Once the German tribes saw the wealth and splendor of the Roman empire they didn't want to return to their former lands. They wanted to be part of the empire but the old Roman families did not want German tribes living near them.

The Germans' struggles to find new homelands that were safe from invasion ultimately led to the fall of the Roman empire because the Germans became mercenaries who served in Rome's armies. Whoever commanded the German mercenaries could carve out an imperial place for himself. The empire gradually eroded from within because of civil wars and corruption.

We know these lessons about Roman history without having to worry about dates. And we compare the gradual decline of the Roman empire with the decline of other empires, such as ancient Egypt. These comparisons make it easy to understand why great empires crumble and vanish. History provides us with insight that cannot be gleaned from dates and names.

So the real art of learning history is the art of learning stories. History is all about stories. We prefer true stories or stories that seem to be true; the difference between history and legend is that the historian looks for evidence to support the stories. Thus historians sift through old documents and they turn to archaeology and the physical sciences to find trace evidence of past events mentioned in documents.

The historian is thus a story-teller but also a lie detector. The historian must learn to tell the difference between verifiable facts and everything else, but everything else can be broken down into probable facts, possible facts, and outright fabrications. And yet even the fabrications may be part of history if they play a role in the unfolding of true stories.

A lucky historian might uncover the truth about why a people undertook a long and dangerous migration. They might have been inspired by a legend, even a lie spread as propaganda by their enemies. More than one army has marched to its doom on the basis of false information. The dates and places of such miserable experiences don't matter nearly as much as our knowledge that they happened.

So the next time you're struggling with history remember that it's important to look for the story and to pick out the best story that fits the most facts. The historian's job is to help us remember the past and to learn from it, and we do that with stories.