r/AskHistorians • u/yolo2546452 • 1d ago
Why Do We Study *All* History?
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/200ru9/why_do_we_study_history_i_am_at_a_loss/
From this post, certainly I agree that there is utility in studying history. We learn how to work from cause and effect, and make inferences about the future from how the past led to today. Furthermore, trends in human behaviour can give information on the human psyche. However, I was wondering why does this apply to studying all of history? If you have a case-study of the life of 20 soldiers in some war, why should you need a 100 more (beyond pedagogy)? If we know how medicine evolved from 1000CE to today, what utility is there in learning how medicine evolved before then?
Don't get me wrong. I certainly don't think that utility is the be-all and end-all metric to why we should do something. I'm just wondering what the reason is, whether it be philosophically aesthetic reason, utilitarian etc
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