Many people ask this question in an attempt to answer the other: “What is the use of History?”. Well, we could say, initially, that the word “history”, for the ancient Greeks (who created it), meant “research”, “investigation”, that is, it implied the search for the vestiges of past events, the glories and tragedies experienced by the men and women who preceded us. This search for the reconstruction of these facts was aimed at not letting the memory of a people, a nation, a civilization or humanity as a whole die.
When some curiosity about history comes to mind, we are always wanting to revive that memory and never let it perish. That's why History has always been present in all civilizations. When we ask “what is greek civilization?” or "what is the french revolution?” or yet, "what is the march to the west of the united states?”, we are asking about things that, when elucidated, help us to better understand the meaning of human presence on Earth, even though they do not directly concern our lives. See an example:
A 15-year-old who lives in Brazil sees a report on the news on the Civil War in Syria. Throughout the article, there are references to "Sunni rebel groups”. The question that immediately comes to this guy's mind is: “what is sunni”? As he is not directly connected to the Syrian population, this young man's interest in a current event leads him to ask a question that needs historical explanation. Hence, to understand the aforementioned war, he will have to know not only what is Sunni, but also what is shiite, what is islam, what is islamic radicalism etc. A question referring to a curiosity that involves History always generates one more question, and one more, and so on.
Another possible example would be a person passing through the central region of Germany's capital, Berlin, without know well the recent history of this country and see fragments of a wall that, it seems to him, surrounded much of the City. The question that person would instantly ask is "What wall is this?" or, more precisely, "what is the berlin wall?”. As soon as I received the first information, other questions would come, such as: "what is the cold war?” and "what is the reunification of germany?”
These examples help us to think about how history can meet our needs to understand the world. History does not necessarily have a functional utility character, like some sciences - Chemistry, for example, which is used to solve practical problems: medicine production, oil refining etc. History is useful in that it gives us the basis to build meaning, that is, to be able to understand how things that happen in the current world are connected with past events. This sense, invariably, is constructed through a narrative, of a story, in the sense of narration itself. That's why a lot of people who like to read fiction (novels and short stories) also like history books, because narrative is the basis for both.
Thus, History serves to situate us in time, not to leave us disoriented, without past references and without perspectives for the future anchored in these references. Therefore, if you want to know more deeply what history is, as well as the multiple curiosities it arouses,stay tuned for the texts listed in the links below.
By Me. Cláudio Fernandes