Past, Present, and Future
Studying History. The Past. I've heard all sorts of platitudes on why one should study History. I try to avoid uttering them myself, having my own reasons for doing so which may or may not be yours. But the Past? Keep in mind, that without further qualification, studying the Past means studying the economic, material, technological, intellectual, literary, artistic, and religious aspects of every society we have records for stretching back to the neolithic. That is a daunting task, beyond the scope of a human lifetime, or at least beyond mine. Think of it: from the artistic achievements of Çatal Hüyük to the Coronation of Empress Josephine, from the peace treaty between the Hittites and Egyptians in 1595 BC to the surrender at Appomattox. I list these only to make you think for a moment, the stupendous breadth of human existence. An Armenian peasant being enslaved by an Assyrian monarch could be just as important to answering a question as the powerlessness of the Emperor of Japan.
The point is that "to study the Past" is far too vague a goal for any historian to have. If you are like me, and you find answers to your questions in almost every age of History, then this mandates having very specific questions. Else you are merely collating data for future historians to draw meaning from. I should apologize; I should not say merely. They are the giants of scholarship we stand upon. Someone has to write the dictionaries and assemble the chronologies and read the diaries. If you are not asking questions you can put into words, rather than merely indulging curiosities, your success as a historian is enormously limited.
It's rather like being an archaeologist. If you like to dig, that's fine. It's good exercise. But if you take no thought as to where you dig, and just dig where whim sets you, you're very unlikely to find any lost cities anytime soon.
The point is that "to study the Past" is far too vague a goal for any historian to have. If you are like me, and you find answers to your questions in almost every age of History, then this mandates having very specific questions. Else you are merely collating data for future historians to draw meaning from. I should apologize; I should not say merely. They are the giants of scholarship we stand upon. Someone has to write the dictionaries and assemble the chronologies and read the diaries. If you are not asking questions you can put into words, rather than merely indulging curiosities, your success as a historian is enormously limited.
It's rather like being an archaeologist. If you like to dig, that's fine. It's good exercise. But if you take no thought as to where you dig, and just dig where whim sets you, you're very unlikely to find any lost cities anytime soon.