If you do not learn from the past then you will continue to make the same mistakes. Thats a big reason to read history.................for me, its a part of who I am. I like to find the person behind the historical figure, I want to know them what makes them make the choices they did. We tend to judge people by our standards and the time we live in. You cant do that, you have to put them into perspective and the times they lived in and their history because it is their past that made them what they were.
I'm not so sure this generation is so different from years ago. Very few kids I went to school with liked history class. I feel most young students read history like the "begats" from the Bible...names and dates. History teachers seem to have a hard time having students analyze why historical figures made the decisions they did with the information they had at the time and to appreciate the difficulties they overcome to accomplish anything. The army transferred my dad to R.I. when I was in 5th grade and there I started my love of history because I was able to see the things I was studying in school. In many cases as the young get older, they come to appreciate what history has meant to us.
When i was in the 10th grade i had a history teacher that had a way of making history come alive. It wasnt just along boring lecture on history and having to read boring chapters in the school history books. He loved history and obviously had a passion for it and it came through to us. He would really get us involved with the characters from history. I remember learning about the American civil war and felt as though i were really there.
I think an interest in history is either there or not. I have noticed that people who are more interested in math, are interested in geography and science and those who like English subjects, like myself, enjoy learning about history. Maybe it is the old right brain, left brain syndrome?
The thing I like about history is that it can turn into an adventure. I started watching the Tudors, which led me to read Alison Weirs book about Lady Jane Grey, I've got a book reserved at the library about Anne Boleyn and have one now about Henry VIII. So as I read them I find that I want to go back further in history and then bounce forward. It's just amazing how all the things that happened link together. And the people were fascinating! I don't know how that can be boring to anyone!
I think I like the Tudor period the most. Wouldn't you like to know what Anne Boleyn really looked like and what she had that drove Henry to challenge Rome's rule? I also like the Plantaganent era, although you need a family tree to figure out who came after who. Shakespeare wrote his versions of history to please the Tudors, especially poor old Richard III. Did he or did he not, kill the Princes in the Tower?
I also love the Tudor period. Anne Boleyn is a favorite person of mine as is Lady Jane Grey hence my eons name. I would love to know what was so special about Anne that drove Henry mad with lust and love!
I don't believe that Richard killed the Princes. Never have.
I also love going further back to the medieval period and then jumping forward to the Victorian period.
I have always loved history. More the people of history than anything else. I love reading about their lives and what they did during their period of time. Some of these people were so brave and courageous.
I have often thought how very miserable we would have been actually living in those distant days. Even the aristocrats lived in cold, drafty rooms with very little privacy and the food was pretty bad. The poverty was dreadful, especially in Victorian times (see Charles Dickens and the Anne Perry books). Yes, I love to read about history, from the comfort of my centrally heated home before retiring to my comfortable mattress and quilt!
Yes that is so true Marianne K....we romanticise those periods of time and block out how dreadful they must really have been.
I pretty much agree with everyone else's reasoning in this thread. I, too, love the Medieval period through the Victorian era, with a special interest in Colonial America. I don't really know what started my fascination with history, but it was always one of my favorite subjects in school. As Marianne said, along with history, my other fav subjects were English and Literature...although I also loved Geography. Maybe it's also wanting to think that after we pass through this world, someone will remember us as they look back and visit places we now live. It's a connection...a thread that really does link all of us really. I think, for some, they find it boring because it doesn't seem real. Whereas to me, whenever I visit a historical site, I think of the people that once lived there and wonder about them...who were they? What did they do? Who did they love? What tragedies did they overcome, etc.? They seem very real to me and seeing where they actually lived makes them come alive even more. Perhaps it's the writer in me...I don't know!
