Sign-In
Cart
Of What Use Is History?
Paperback
Sports GeneralGeneral Political ScienceGeneral World History
ISBN13: 9789786135236
Publisher: Hoofbeatdotcom
Published: Jun 12 2025
Pages: 254
Weight: 0.79
Height: 0.58 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
Yesterday, I woke up to a 'debate' that clearly struggled to remain one on one of the Nigerian Nostalgia groups I belong to. But for the rules and intermittent reminder/threat of enforcement by the 'Administrator, things would have degenerated, as they often do here. Over what, you might ask. Over who is the lead-Oba among the Yorubas, if any? Many of the voices there were eminent Elders, passionate about development and unity. But, as is often the case, the little foxes have a way of just making the simple complicated.
Of what use is history? I follow discussions on these pages. There is so much to learn. I am afraid, so much also to provoke concern, and even fear. There is hardly a photograph from the past that does not elicit some off-handed comments, putting down one group or the other, on the basis of assumed superiority or the version of knowledge one person has. Hardly does the superiority of facts positively influence or repudiate previously assumed, but erroneous positions.
What use is History? To stoke the fire of hate and continue to serve as grounds to further divide? What is the place of history? Forging a future, in which a greater premium is placed around the need to bridge the divides we have forced upon ourselves and work harder on our sense of community, or is it something else?
Of what use is history? To reinforce our biases? To perpetuate our assumptions? To further the path to instability among our peoples? What is the point of history? To remind us of the mistakes and misdeeds of the past, so we can learn from them, build upon or reinforce them?
Of what use is history? To pick and choose for the purpose of inflaming passions and provoking further tension?
Often, people here make allusion to History having been taken off the curriculum at some point, as a reason for the misspeak that has become a common feature of public discourse. How much history was in the curriculum history, in the first place? I would think it is the erosion of the culture of reading broadly, especially with newspapers and magazines going extinct, that is more responsible for the lack of knowledge of current affairs. Many of us grew up, learning more about the past and present, people and country from the newspapers and news magazines, before taking to the books.
With the internet, there is ready access to so much, but the question here - To what intent and purpose do we put history? Do we learn so that we might put on the chains of our yesterday or do we learn so that we might learn from the mistakes of the past, or emboldened by the strides, to dream new dreams and fly on broader wings?
Of what use is history? A comforter for good or a trigger for evil? Something to hold us back or lift us forward? What do we do with history? Another tool in the arsenal for pushing us further to the brink or something to make us rethink, retreat, re-strategise, and see life differently?
Of what use is history? What are we doing with history?
Also in
General World History
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
Titanic: The Ship Magnificent - Volume Two: Interior Design and Fitting Out
Braunschweiger, Art
Hall, Steve
Beveridge, Bruce
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890-1960
Van Slyck, Abigail A.
Hardcover
Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal: A Food Science Nutrition History Book
Bittman, Mark
Hardcover
The Rise of Thomas Cromwell: Power and Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII, 1485-1534
Everett, Michael
Paperback
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Hardcover
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
Loewen, James W.
Paperback
The Allies: Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and the Unlikely Alliance That Won World War II
Groom, Winston
Paperback
Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World
McNeill, J. R.
Paperback
Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Cordingly, David
Paperback
Dangerous Games: Faces, Incidents, and Casualties of the Cold War
Wise, James E.
Baron, Scott
Hardcover
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
Green, John
Hardcover
The Wreck of the Mentor: A True Story of Death, Despair, and Deliverance in the Age of Sail
Dolin, Eric Jay
Hardcover
1873: The Rothschilds, the First Great Depression, and the Making of the Modern World
Ahamed, Liaquat
Hardcover
Obstinate Daughters: The Rebels, Writers, and Renegade Women Who Ignited the American Revolution
Kiernan, Denise
Hardcover
The Secret War Against Hate: American Resistance to Antisemitism and White Supremacy
Ross, Steven J.
Hardcover
100 Bible Verses That Made America: Defining Moments That Shaped Our Enduring Foundation of Faith
Morgan, Robert J.
Paperback
The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Mutiny, Love, and Adventure at the Bottom of the World
Mazzeo, Tilar J.
Hardcover
True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color--From Azure to Zinc Pink
Stamper, Kory
Hardcover
The Housewives Underground: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the JFK Assassination Our Most Enduring Mystery
Tiffany, Kaitlyn
Hardcover
1,000 Days in America: An Illustrated History of the Moments That Defined a Nation
National Geographic
Hardcover
How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our Words
Galer, Sophia Smith
Hardcover
Two Ships: Jamestown 1619, Plymouth 1620, and the Struggle for the Soul of America
Reynolds, David S.
Hardcover
The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery
Kara, Siddharth
Hardcover
Lightning Beneath the Sea: The Race to Wire the World and the Dawn of the Information Age
Tabor, James M.
Hardcover
American Pope: Leo XIV's Road from the South Side of Chicago to Vatican City
Detrow, Scott
Burke, Daniel
Hardcover
The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook
Sides, Hampton
Paperback
The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women's Magic
Stewart, Lindsey
Hardcover
Liberation Summer: The Moment That Changed the Women's Movement and the Future of American Politics
McElya, Micki
Hardcover
A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders: Surprising Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps
Elledge, Jonn
Paperback
The Nord Stream Conspiracy: The Inside Story of the Explosions That Shook the World
Pancevski, Bojan
Hardcover
No One's Coming: The Rogue Heroes Our Government Turns to When There's Nowhere Else to Turn
Hazzard, Kevin
Hardcover
Socialism: The Real History from Plato to the Present: How the Deep State Capitalizes on Crises to Consolidate Control [With Paperback Book]
Federer, William J.
Paperback
How to Kill a Witch: The Patriarchy's Guide to Silencing Women
Mitchell, Claire
Venditozzi, Zoe
Paperback
Captain's Dinner: A Shipwreck, an Act of Cannibalism, and a Murder Trial That Changed Legal History
Cohen, Adam
Hardcover
The Summer of Death: The Great Heat Wave of 1936 and the Making of Modern-Day America
Williams, Geoff
Hardcover
Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight Over Free Speech in Modern America
Loeffler, James
Hardcover
Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past, Present, and Future of the Self-Provisioning City
Brown, Kate
Hardcover
The Phantom: The Untold Story of the American Marine the Nazis Could Not Kill
Clavin, Tom
Drury, Bob
Hardcover
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Paperback
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
Egan, Timothy
Paperback
The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism Within Us Slave Culture
Woodard, Vincent
Paperback
The Long Run: Steve Prefontaine, Frank Shorter, Joan Benoit, Grete Waitz, and the Decade That Made the Marathon Cool
Dugard, Martin
Hardcover
King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation
Anderson, Scott
Hardcover
How to Build a Haunted House: The History of a Cultural Obsession
Blackwell Baines, Caitlin
Hardcover
Freedom's Daughters: How a Generation of Black Women Resisted Oppression Through Literacy and Education
Headlee, Celeste
Hardcover
The Women's History of the Modern World: How Radicals, Rebels, and Everywomen Revolutionized the Last 200 Years
Miles, Rosalind
Paperback
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
McGilchrist, Iain
Paperback