Why Is History Written?

[WotWotius]

Ok, here is a nice open-ended question for you all:

 

Why is History written?

 

My personal view is thus: It is a means for individuals to shock, inform or emphasise their interpretation of the past.

[Primus Pilus]

Because the written word can provide a static record of the past that may be open to interpretation, but is not subject to the dynamic nature of oral history.

 

More simply, there is written history because people have always found it and will continue to find it interesting. If nobody liked it, nobody would write it, and nobody would read it.

[DecimusCaesar]

History was written, if you consider what Herodotus wrote: 'in order to keep the memories and the deeds of our ancestors alive'. People study history because they are curious as what occured long before their own times and before the generation of their grandparents. Oddly enough most history taught in schools these days only expand back to our granparents generation and no further than the beginning of the 20th Century. One philosopher once wrote that the sign of a primitive people is 'those who cannot remember the past beyond their grandfather's time...' sadly most people these days cannot remember the events that took place during their own lifetime (I suppose I'm one of them).

 

I think one of the main reasons history is taught is that people throught the ages have wanted to be immortal, they wanted to be remembered for doing something. That is why, even today, people (even those who have no intrest in history) say that they want to make 'history' by doing something spectacular or unique. People are afraid that after the last member of their generation dies then their whole world will disappear with them and everything they knew and understood will be forgotten. Imagine if a 100 years from now nobody would remember anything of the events, people, culture, art, music etc of our own time. That is why history is written, so that the world we live in and the people who occupied it shall be remembered.

[M. Porcius Cato]

there is written history because people have always found it and will continue to find it interesting. If nobody liked it, nobody would write it, and nobody would read it.

 

Maybe, but isn't it possible that written histories are also motivated by the same force that leads people to write personal diaries? People like to bear witness to important events--to say to themselves and the universe, I'm not crazy, this thing really happened! I don't deny the social component, but historians aren't motivated simply by the desire to please the populace. Sometimes, they don't care a fig for what others think--they want to speak the truth (as they see it) for its own sake.

[Pertinax]

I suggest that man is impelled to communicate ,( in the present or by leaving the written word ) , indeed almost by compulsion-look at all of us here, we have hardly any real awareness of each other's daily lives - but we have formed a community, by desire to discuss ideas of and from history. Men write history because they must . Certainly we discuss because we must, if someone retrieves our words in a hundred years and analyses them (just as we now pore over fragmented texts and broken stones) how would we justify our disquisitions?

[Primus Pilus]

there is written history because people have always found it and will continue to find it interesting. If nobody liked it, nobody would write it, and nobody would read it.

 

Maybe, but isn't it possible that written histories are also motivated by the same force that leads people to write personal diaries? People like to bear witness to important events--to say to themselves and the universe, I'm not crazy, this thing really happened! I don't deny the social component, but historians aren't motivated simply by the desire to please the populace. Sometimes, they don't care a fig for what others think--they want to speak the truth (as they see it) for its own sake.

 

Agreed, by saying people find it interesting, I meant the writer as much as the reader. The writer may or may not care if anyone else finds his work interesting, but can personally still be interested enough to write it.

[phil25]

To explain who and what we are, how we came to be where we are. to seek to understand the possible causes and potential solutions of our contemporary problems.

 

To make sense of our past and seek to chart our future.

 

To justify an individuals, or groups actions, after the event.

 

For pleasure - because the past is a foreign country, exotic, different, intriguing, mysterious, enigmatic.

 

To throw light into dark places.

 

For political reasons - to seize and re0interpret past events in ones own favour.

 

By victors who thus show their moral worth over the vanguished.

 

There is no "objective history. All history is subjective - it is about perception and interpretation. cause and effect are constructs - in most cases we do not know that A caused B caused C. We have to identify possible causes and then analyse their relationships and effects. But that may involve imposition, not simply deduction.

 

Each generation re-interprets history in its own image, according to its own concerns.

 

Without history we are orphans, wanderers in the wild, rootless and unthinking, blind and destitute, without culture, stability, roots or vision.

 

History is the lifeblood of the living world.

 

Phil

[Andrew Dalby]

My answer is, because it might help us to understand the way people behave. If we're really lucky, it might therefore help us to solve problems more effectively and make a better future.

[WotWotius]

To conceal the mistakes of the past, and/or to make ignorance an avoidable mentality.

[Aphrodite]

Because we are all curious about where we comefrom, and associations with greatness!