Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

History (from Greek ἱστορία - historia, meaning "inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation") is the study of the human past. Scholars who write about history are called historians. It is a field of research which uses a narrative to examine and analyse the sequence of events, and it sometimes attempts to investigate objectively the patterns of cause and effect that determine events. Historians debate the nature of history and its usefulness. This includes discussing the study of the discipline as an end in itself and as a way of providing "perspective" on the problems of the present. The stories common to a particular culture, but not supported by external sources (such as the legends surrounding King Arthur) are usually classified as cultural heritage rather than the "disinterested investigation" needed by the discipline of history. Events of the past prior to written record are considered prehistory.

History is the study of human behavior through time. When used as the name of a field of study, history refers to the study and interpretation of past humans, families and societies as preserved primarily through written sources.

Sourced

• The end of history is, alas, also the end of the dustbins of history. There are no longer any dustbins for disposing of old ideologies, old regimes, old values. Where are we going to throw Marxism, which actually invented the dustbins of history? (Yet there is some justice here since the very people who invented them have fallen in.) Conclusion: if there are no more dustbins of history, this is because History itself has become a dustbin. It has become its own dustbin, just as the planet itself is becoming its own dustbin.
  • Jean Baudrillard, The Illusion of the End (1992), "The Event Strike", p. 26

• Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn from what happened this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long view.
  • John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

• Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum.
  • Not to know what happened before you were born is to remain forever a child.
  • Cicero, M. Tulli Ciceronis Orator Ad M. Brutum (46 B.C.)

• I don’t know much about history, and I wouldn’t give a nickel for all the history in the world. It means nothing to me. History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today.
  • Henry Ford, Interview in Chicago Tribune (25 May 1916)

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Wed Jul 28 08:17:34 2010