What is History

eyes you look the view will change. The best way to study history is to look at it from as many perspectives as possible and understand who is writing the history to give us insight into how they see the world. History is more of a story about people’s lives rather than an objective description of events. Even the things that we feel certain transpired in the past one way, may have been way off from our expectations. The only way to truly know history is to actually live it. Otherwise you just have to take the words of all those who documented their lives and, like a puzzle, put all these stories together to see the big picture. Without history we would end up just like animals with no memory of past events. The only thing that separates us from the rest of living creatures is history. Voltaire said, “History is the lie commonly agreed upon.” This quote truly shows how history really is. History is just a whole bunch of opinions put together to formulate a broad view of what took place and then that view is commonly accepted and that is when it is written down and turned into “fact.” It is interesting how Voltaire considers history a lie, but history is more a series of bias statements that are recorded and make up what we think we know about the past. Just because something was not written down does not mean that it did not happen and we all know that just because a event was recorded as taking place a certain way that the story written down is always the truth.  Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "There is properly no history; only biography." This quote shows how history does not exist, as we believe it to be but rather it is just the biographies of many people put together to give us insight into the past and this helps us understand the events that took place to bring us to where we are. Although history may not always be true and is bias, we can still learn from history and use it in order to improve our future.                   Voltaire, (1753). What is History?. Retrieved August 25, 2009, from University of North Florida Web site: http://www.unf.edu/~clifford/craft/what.htm Emerson, R.W. (1836). What is History?. Retrieved August 25, 2009, from The History Guide Web site: http://www.historyguide.org/history.html Cespedes, J.R. (2009). IB-AP Syllabus. Retrieved August 25, 2009, from International Baccalaureate History Web site: http://drcespedes.teach-nology.com/