PDP1 - Why Study History?

Author Bio: The authors name is William H. McNeil and at the time had a PhD from Cornell and was an esteemed historian. He was elected the American Historical Association president the same year he wrote this essay. McNeil had the perspective of a highly educated and intelligent history buff who sees the faults in the American history system as well as seeing a emerging pattern in history repeating itself. For the author, the very core of his profession is at stake as children are less and less informed on the past. As well, I feel that he believes that the US should reference past events in making war-room decisions. The author is without a doubt credible and reliable as he attended a competitive school and is the president of the leading organization in history.

Data/ Context: This document was created to convince and make a case for studying history to understand the future. It was written in the United States of America in 1985, during the height of the Cold War where nuclear attacks were an omnipresent threat in American life. It slots into a place where the education system was becoming fractured with the massive variety of history courses available and a dramatic refocusing was necessary. 

Summary: McNeil's essay can be summarized to one sentence; history is necessary and important in creating worthy and intelligent citizens who can contribute to a positive future. He supports his argument by associating history with personal memories and the importance of having them to be a person. In addition, he also claims that experts should not be the only way of relaying history to the people and the lawmakers. This shows that at the time, there was limited public knowledge of history in America and the interest was also decreasing. This is document elaborates on secondary sources which do not provide the same insight and view of McNeil.

Key Quotation: "History, our collective memory, carefully codified and critically revised, makes us social, sharing ideas and ideals with others so as to form all sorts of different human groups. Each such group acts as it does largely because of shared ideas and beliefs about the past and about what the past, as understood and interpreted by the group in question, tells about the present and probable future".