Have you ever wondered what Thomas Jefferson was like as a college student? When he stepped on the campus of William & Mary, was he a shy, bookish type? Was he the life of the pre-revolutionary party? What subjects was he studying that gave him the material to write the Declaration of Independence and be one of the leading lights of his generation and our nation’s history? What about others?
These are not things that most of us learn or think about in high school history. What I remember of my AP U.S. History course was focused on dates, places, and names. We knew about the major battles of various wars, but nothing about the individual soldiers. We learned about paradigm shifts in society, yet not about the people who brought about the change. We heard about cities, but not the conditions that led to a particular city becoming a major metropolis. Which is probably why I found history boring at the time. Now, however, at least half of what I read would be classified as “history.”
History can take many forms, and it has for millennia. There’s a pseudo-debate among scholars about whether Herodotus or Thucydides was the better ancient Greek historian. Born about 25 years apart in the 400s (B.C., that is), they both chronicled many important events of their time. This is a gross generalization, but Thucydides focused more on major events while Herodotus wrote about the individuals involved in the events. Thucydides is apt to talk about a “soldier” in a generic way when talking about war, while Herodotus will talk about an individual as an individual. Determining which one of these methods of recounting history is better is a central part of the debate.
A recent historian, the late David McCullough, says that “[h]istory isn’t just something that ought to be taught, read, or encouraged only because it will make us better citizens. It will make us a better citizen and it will make us more thoughtful and understanding human beings.” McCullough, The American Spirit, 113. That is, there is something in history that transcends a particular country or community. Reading history taps into something more fundamentally human. In reading history, we come to learn—and appreciate—that “[w]e are all part of a larger stream of events, past, present, and future. We are all the beneficiaries of those who went before us—who built the cathedrals, who braved the unknown, who gave of their time and service, and who kept faith in the possibilities of the mind and the human spirit.” The American Spirit, 57.
Those who went before us still have something to offer us today. G.K. Chesterton wrote in Orthodoxy that “Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.” The past is valuable and still has something to teach us. Eschewing history in favor of a passing Tik Tok fad or shiny new object misses the point. And if your major exposure to modern history is Billy Joel, then there is something missing in your education. Being rooted in history means being grounded in events and experiences that are uniquely human.
But history is often dull and boring. It should be interesting in itself because it contains our origin story, not only of our own families and society, but entire countries and cultures. There have been some recent successes in making history come alive. That’s the genius of Lin-Manuel Miranda. He was inspired to write Hamilton by reading Ron Chernow’s book. I like Chernow, and particularly his book on John D. Rockefeller, Sr. But his books are intense, 800-page works of copious research and intense detail. But Miranda took the material from Chernow and told Hamilton’s story a different way. And people today probably know more about Alexander Hamilton via the musical than generations of high school history students.
Another way to make history interesting is to give the broader cultural and geopolitical context to people and events. This is particularly true of something like the Bible. If you read a story in the Old Testament, it may just sound like a bunch of names and warring factions. But if you read a commentary or study that gives you the political and geographical context of the time, then the story becomes much richer.
Jacques Barzun’s From Dawn to Decadence is a great example of this. He may discuss what was happening in Boston in 1750, but he will go on to tell you what was also happening at the same time in Paris, Rome, and elsewhere on the continent. While we may study in high school history the events in the 1840s and 1850s leading to the Civil War in the United States, it turns out there was a lot of history being made elsewhere—a regime-changing revolt in Paris, an economic depression throughout Europe, the Irish famine. Barzun expands our view of history to encompass many countries and cultures, which often demonstrate common themes expressed in different ways. Around 1848, for example, after people were used to the Industrial Revolution, workers everywhere were clamoring for greater rights and protections, what Barzun calls “the spontaneous awakening of working-class solidarity.” From Dawn to Decadence, 547. At the time in the United States, there were several crises beyond the Supreme Court’s terrible Dred Scott v. Sandford decision in 1857. In fact, there’s an entire book about them: America in 1857 by Kenneth Stampp.
You may not want to read a 331-page book about a single year in American history, but I’d encourage reading Barzun. His work is the intriguing, storytelling kind of history that David McCullough also wrote, explaining not only major historical events, but also the latest fashions, what people were reading and listening to, and other cultural notes that help shed light on the character of the age and a particular country or person. It makes history come alive.
Barzun wrote From Dawn to Decadence when he was 93(!) years old after a lifetime of study. In some ways, it may take that long to reflect on these ideas and events to see how they come together in a coherent historical whole. But even if we are a bit younger, we should still try to do the same.
Read history. Learn about the people who came before and shaped who and what we are today. And don’t learn just about the people you have already heard of. Everyone has an intriguing story to tell, and their lives somehow contributed to the life we live now. We do well to honor their legacy by learning more about them.