History is poetry, not chronology

It is unfortunate that many would probably agree with German satirist Ludwig Börne, who wrote that history serves no purpose other than to provide income to historians and book dealers.

To these people, history seems like little more than a catalog of mankind’s injustices and follies.

And this is understandable: The methodology of teaching history as a dismal leapfrog from tyranny to tyranny, war to collapse, has become so pervasive both in primary and secondary schools that it has done nothing to engender its appreciation.

But, if understood properly, history is much more than that.

It is the study of humanity, of our attrition despite thousands of years of varying degrees of growth and decline. Of our thankless labors that may not provide us riches, but nevertheless drive civilization forward.

And, of course, of our heroes — of those who make so lasting a contribution to human knowledge and invention that we can only provide our thanks in post-mortem reverence.

Because history is the study of humanity, its usefulness cannot be relegated to contemplating the past.

It is a laboratory crowded with a million experiments to understand 6,000 years of man’s impassioned motivations, which are the same passions that continue to motivate man today.

When our founders began drafting our Constitution, they understood it was not a constitution for the order of government but for the order of man.

And such an order cannot be successfully achieved without first properly understanding his nature.

For this, they looked to the laboratory of history and found Rome: the story of an empire whose trudge up and down the hills of greatness is unparalleled.

It was there that they came to understand the peril of professional armies, the nature of unchecked democracy, the malleability of unwritten law and the virtues of a strong, albeit limited, executive.

It was our founders’ enlightened understanding of history that propelled our nation to greatness in 150 short years — far fewer than it took their ancient exemplars to do the same.

And had this understanding of history also extended to our current leaders, perhaps our armies would not have begun their futile march into the mountains of Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires — a place not even Alexander the Great, warrior nonpareil, could pacify.

But more than mere political insight, history gives humanity reasons for hope.

After all, it is only a student of history who can paint the picture of relativity that reminds those who preach the gospel of decline and despair that it was not long ago that all of civilization was more or less confined to a few mountaintop monasteries in Europe.

If civilization can survive in such desolation, what in this present day do we have to fear?

For me — and so many other students of history who understand its true nature — the study of the past, echoing Jacob Burckhardt, is in large measure poetry.

Poetry that can be found in the unrequited love of Dante, the musings of Plato, the steadfastness of Thomas More and even ourselves, in which our heritage is inextricably tied and cannot be understood without.

So, next time you pick up a book of history, don’t think of it as a tragedy, but rather a comedy. Or poetry, in which the story of humanity is told and the future envisioned.

­— nperrino@indiana.edu