The Study of History essays

The Study of History essays The study of history deals with human action. This means any actions performed by individuals and groups of individuals. The way that people live and the way that they react to any conditions play in effect. Human judgement, what guided them to their goal, what these men do in order to have ends meet, and the outcome of their actions are all subjects of this philosophy. History tends to deal with how man reacts to the state of his social and natural environment. Yet I believe that these environments that we react to are determined by the actions of previous generations. We are forced to give up our free will in a way. Thats when our past experiences make our decisions, not ourselves. We are all born in a defined social and natural setting. A person is not simply a man in this world. He is the product of all the experiences of which his ancestors and even himself were exposed to. Man lives as a member of his family, his race, his community, his country, his social group, his job, and his era. He is molded by religion, philosophy, metaphysics, and politics, which are all in his own interpretation. So that is how his actions are guided by all these ideologies that are obtained through his environment. Yet, these ideologies are products of our own minds and they change when new ideas are added. History can then go on without establishing the fact that it was produced by mans ideas and actions. Once again, these ideas and actions are caused by past experiences. A historian for example, can trace former ideas back to its present ones. Like he can also describe the environmental conditions to which actions took place. Ideas then become the necessary product for our geography, our habitat. The only factor that bothers me though, is that of which an idea can never be traced to its birth, and what or how it was inspired. If a historian refers to a fact, event, person or date in time, he is somehow or anothe ...