With out a thorough grasp of where we come from how can we possibly hope to appreciate what we have or to plan for tomorrow.

Growing up in a society that seems to be solely focused in education upon the teaching of science and mathematics this quote strikes a sensitive chord.  Ever since I wrote a paper on the importance of history in the 10th grade I have been an adamant voice for teaching history in public education at the grade school, middle school and high school levels.  The reason that I think that history is so important is encompassed in the prompt which by the way is a quote from Jacques Barzun’s book called, The Culture We Deserve.
My favorite part of the quote is this, “Not that studying history imparts formulas and recipes; it develops connoisseurship in human affairs, the intuition of what is likely and what is important.”  Barzun is simply but sophisticatedly saying that although one cannot tell the future by studying history they can more easily decode what is currently happening, what’s going to happen next and also are able to watch for certain historically repeated warning signs or indications of opportunities.  For instance if Hitler had been more of a student of history he might of won WWII by not trying to invade Russia with only 3 months to winter… DUH!  Another great example is the economy, for instance if someone in power had studied Americas historical spending trends and were able to find some indications of the exorbitant spending and lending in the 1920’s and what that led too they would of possible been able to see the current recession before it hit.  Also the fact that we are trying to “win” in the conventional sense in Afghanistan is a joke.  If Bush or Obama just got on the phone with the British or Russians and asked them about how their attempts went to tame Afghanistan we might learn from their mistakes and not make the EXACT same ones.
Although there was only room for these three examples I could of continued on for another couple pages solely on political and military mistakes that keep happening through out history.  History tends to repeat itself if the same mistakes are made and I do not believe our society or education system put nearly enough importance on the study and understanding of both national and international history.  With out a thorough grasp of where we come from how can we possibly hope to appreciate what we have or to plan for tomorrow.