History Is A Record Of Human Choices
Reading history is about reading human beings of the past. A good historian does not merely bring an era alive but also brings the people of that era to the surface. Much of interesting history is nothing more than a record of human blunders. There were people driven by selfishness, who leveraged someone else’s desperation and took advantage of it. “Might is right” is a recurring example of humans exploiting others. When we read history, we are essentially witnessing the full spectrum of human behaviour on display.
For instance, if you read the history of the Middle East from the fall of the Ottoman Empire to the creation of the modern region, you will realise that the people responsible for carving countries out of a continent barely understood the land. In many cases, they did not even have accurate maps. As a result, many of the problems we see in the Middle East today exist because those who drew the borders cared more about their own interests than about what would minimise conflict. That is why the history of the Middle East is so bloody, yet so compelling to read.
Every time we visit old cathedrals or ancient temples, especially in India, we stand mesmerised by the architecture. More than the structures themselves, we are in awe of the sheer bravado of ancient architects who dared to build such marvels without modern tools. Every time we read history, we imagine the people behind it. Ashoka, Caesar, Napoleon, Shivaji, and many others cease to be names and begin to feel human.
Reading world history is one of the few ways to truly understand how much a human being is willing to endure, how far he is willing to go for his nation or for himself, and how small decisions can snowball into enormous catastrophes. When you read history, you are reading about humans and their choices. You see what kinds of choices lead to what kinds of consequences, and what else they might have done had they possessed the benefit of hindsight. If we ever find ourselves in similar moments of pressure, there is much to learn from their experiences.
You cannot learn everything by making your own mistakes. That is why books exist, so we can learn from the mistakes of others. History is an encyclopaedia of human decisions, showing which choices work and which do not. The next time you open a history book, remember that you are not just reading a story. You are reading about real humans who made real mistakes, and the modern world is, in many ways, the result of those mistakes.