Everyone needs to read history, and some need to study history. It is because we all need to know some chronicles of primary history of the world, the main previous events of the world, so we can put many developments and events of our time into context and perspective. In our schools are there lessons of history to stimulate growing minds to know, learn and think about the things that have gone past. So, we are used to be growing up with some knowledge of history, and it is necessary. It is not possible to be detached from history, delinked with history and not read history. Be it in the form of school textbooks or children's fictions or newspapers and magazine articles, reading history and learning about many historical events is an essential characteristic of human being or education system. Even those who didn't get the chance to go through formal education by getting admitted to school for various reasons, and those who are unlettered, also acquire some knowledge of history by listening to radio, watching television and listening from others.
Thus almost all of us have some knowledge about history though there may be some distortions or factual errors.
History is an account of past events with analyses and interpretations of the events. So, it provides us not only the records of past things but also why and how those things happened and what would be the other things if certain things did not take place.
History is also a wider field of study that includes politics, geography, anthropology, archaeology, economics and religion. These subjects also have their individual history. There is a mingling or interaction of these subjects or areas in history. One can choose to focus on a specific area like economic history. Again, study in economic history also requires going through political and social history as without politics and society, economy cannot function. In other words various areas of human history are interlinked.
When someone chooses to delve deep into a particular area to study history, he or she may become an expert on the particular area of the history along with some strong common knowledge of general history.
This writeup attempts to find the answers to the question, mentioned at the beginning: 'Why do we all need to read history?' So, this piece is not emphasising studying history here and the key focus is the necessity to read history by all. A separate essay will try to deal with the question: 'Why do some people need to study history?' Distinguishing 'read' and 'study' is also critical to answering the questions.
Read and study: To read history means reading the various books, papers, journals, articles, and essays on history to gain some knowledge about the historical events. It may be both structural and non-structured. Textbooks of history in schools are structured way to read history. Students need to memorise some events with dates and have to reproduce in writing during tests and also sometimes orally. In these processes, they become able to acquire some ideas and knowledge about historical developments. Being structured, it is not always interesting to many and they sometimes try to skip the reading. Meanwhile, structured reading is necessary to build a foundation for studying history as the next phase of formal or higher education. That's why the structured reading is sometimes termed study.
Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary defines 'read' as 'to look at and understand the meaning of written or printed words or symbols'. It is a basic definition in brief and fits the current essay. The dictionary provides some other meanings of 'read', and they are not important at this moment except one which is 'to study a subject, especially at a university'. So, 'read' and 'study' can be used interchangeably in many cases. The dictionary also defines study as 'the activity of learning or gaining knowledge, either from books or by examining things in the world'. The primary definition of 'study' emphasises the activity of learning. There are some other definitions or meanings, like 'detailed examination.'
Thus the difference between 'read' and 'study' is now clear for the current essay. What is critical is that one needs to read first before going to study and during study reading along with writing is an essential task.
Defining History: Let's define 'history' now. The Reader's Digest Great Encyclopaedic Dictionary (The Reader's Digest Association, London, 1964) defines 'history' as a 'continuous methodical record, in order of time of important or public events'. It also says that history is a 'study of formation and growth of communities and nations.' It further says that history is a 'whole train of events connected with a particular country, person, thing etc.' Another general meaning of history is 'past events in general, a course of human affairs.'
According to the same dictionary, 'historian' is 'writer of history' and 'historic' means 'noted in history'. Again, 'historical' means 'of history' or 'belonging to history, not legend' or 'in connexion with history, from the historian's point of view' or 'belonging to the past, not of the present'.
Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 2003) defines history as 'all the events that happened in the past', or 'the past events concerned in the development of a particular place, subject etc.' More meanings stated in the dictionary that include (i) 'the study of past events as a subject at school or university' (ii) 'a written or spoken account of past events' (iii) 'a record of something happening frequently in the past life of a person, family or place' or (iv) 'the set of facts that are known about somebody's past life.'
According to the dictionary 'historic' is usually used to describe something that is so important that it is likely to be remembered, and 'historical' usually describes something that is connected with the past or with the study of history or something that really happened in the past.
So, the simple definition of history is a widely persistent record of past events with some analyses or interpretations. And it is also presumed that any standard literature of history is mostly objective or less-biased and largely free of factual errors.
There are some biases on narrating some events due to various reasons and interpreting those in the different context. Factual errors occurred mainly due to use of flawed and weak sources coupled with wrong selection of reading materials. Here comes the issue of studying history.
Two
World history is 'a single, indivisible, integral process' and not an abstract idea. Although history in the concrete is unfolded as the historical activities of particular countries or nations or regions, it is not possible to understand 'the historical process within the confines of a nation or country any more than it is possible to understand a multi-celled organism in terms of the functions of its isolated organs or cells.' (Ancient Indian History in a New Light by Abdul Halim; P-5; May 1978, Dhaka). Now 'this integral world history may be considered to have two aspects: history on a world scale and history on a national or regional scale. History on a world scale moves from one stage to a higher stage (as from Palaeolithic and Neolithic Tribalism to Bronze and Iron Age Slavery, then to Feudalism and subsequently to Capitalism). But histories of different regions develop through the interaction of local culture on the one hand and the emergent new culture on a world scale that infiltrates from the surrounding or external sources on the other hand. It is to be remembered that every nation or region starts its life initially on the basis of a culture that it inherits from the world culture at large.' [P-8, Halim, 1978; ibid]
In other words, by reading some elementary history of the world, mankind to be more precise, it is possible to acquire some knowledge about the development of mankind through the millions of ages. And it is also possible to feel that there is some common bonding among overlies which has been continuing since the prehistoric period. The period is connected with time in history before information was written down.
We are also able to know that mankind has to come over various stages of time in the world, and during their long journeys, our ancestors have to struggle a lot. For their existence, they had to invent new arts and artefacts. From the Old Stone Age to invention of agriculture and domestication of animals its Neolithic stage to 'large -scale collection of grains, harvesting, threshing, winnowing, preservation of grains in pity or banking, implements of harrowing, filling and harvesting, cooking, fermentation and breathing, cloth making, house building, pottery and a lot of other inventions were necessary for the successful working of the Neolithic society.' (P-12, Halim, 1978, Ibid)
Historians largely agreed that mankind passed through a number of succession stages of development. These are as follows: (1) Palaeolithic or Old Stone Age (lasted from 6,00,000 to 8,000 BC on a global scale). (2) Neolithic or New Stone Age: First arose in the Near East about 8,000 BC and from there gradually spread to different parts of Asia, Europe, Africa and some regions of America. (3) Bronze Age civilisation: first originated in Egypt and Mesopotamia in the 5th or 4th millennium BC and from there spread to other areas like west Asia, Crete, Persia etc (4) Iron Age Culture: first developed by the Phoenicians and other west Asian nations and later by the Greeks during 1200-500 BC. The Iron Age is marked by slavery. Marx defined it as the Age of Slavery. He also mentioned the pre-slavery period as the 'Primitive Egalitarian' age. (5) Feudalism spread to large parts of the old world during the period after 2nd century BC to the 10th century AD. (6) Capitalism first originated in Europe during the 16th-18th centuries and from there spread to the rest of the world. Last two stages are also endorsed by Marx.
Now, it is obvious that the course of world history does not move in a linear manner and reaches from one stage to another at a similar pace. The above-mentioned stages are a broader outline to capture the progress of mankind in a single frame. There is always uneven development of human societies as some parts or areas advance to higher stages or phases and other parts lag behind. People in some areas skip one or two stages when they come into contact with the nations of advanced phase. So, it is a complete web of development and one needs to keep it in mind.
THREE
We come to know the above-mentioned things by reading history. Without reading history -- written in books, journals, papers and articles -- there is no good way to know the events of the past. By reading history, one can make the time travel a reality although it is not possible to do so physically in this world. Going through the books of history, one can explore the various events of the past and try to understand the events into practice.
It is a learning process also. The more one reads, the more will one be able to know the things of the past: the lifestyles of people, their foods, culture, clothes, behaviours and struggles. Knowing these things also help to understand many things in current time and even provides some indication of the future course. Today becomes yesterday tomorrow and in this process today becomes a part of history.
Reading history is also an entertainment, it is a pleasure. When someone reads historical books and fictions, he or she goes through an entertaining time by exploring many unknown but fascinating things. The journey provides the reader with an ambiance of different times and places. It is not to learn or memorise for any exam, but only enjoy the past happenings in various dimensions. And such reading automatically generates and enhances some knowledge of history.
Someone who wants to know the history of Mughal Empire in India in detail after getting a brief introduction in a school or college textbooks may go through the six parts of 'Empire of the Moghul' by Alex Rutherford. It is a series of fictions depicting the times and works of six Mughal emperors: Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb. The six independent volumes are an absorbing chronicle of the rise and fall of the Mughal rulers of India. The books are fiction by genre, historical fiction to be exact, and the author has mined the resourceful historical material to tell a croaking tale. These books are more for readers who love historical fiction, less for those who want to study history. Nevertheless, those who study history may go through these books for reference.
Again, if you want to get some idea about Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore, from a critical viewpoint that doesn't glorify him with exaggeration, you need to go through Tim Hannigan's "Raffles and the British Invasion of Java". Though it is non-fiction, the book is written in a complaining manner and becomes a history-cum-biography of Raffles. The author unveiled a black/dark side of the long -celebrated hero, who 'crushed dissent, looked for places and incited massacres to further his own insatiable ambitions'. In 1811, among 10,000 British redcoats invaded Batavia (the former name of Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia) to conquer the Dutch colony of Java. They would remain there for five years only to sack and loot by attacking, wrecking, coning and humiliating the nation court in Java known as Yogykatra. Raffles did this to demonstrate the might of British power. Generally the episode is less-known in the history of Indonesia as well as South-East Asia. So, it is an interesting read, no doubt.
The bottom line is, one needs to read history for pleasure also. A pleasant read on history can provide more information than others. Though historical fictions cannot always depict actual or factual things, it provides many indications and reader may take a cue from those for further reading. Rutherford's 'Empire of the Moghul' series may instigate someone to go for a study on Mughal history in detail.
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