What's the point of history?

The other day, my son, who was struggling with his homework, asked me: “What's the point of history?” I would have liked another question, but felt I had to have a stab at an answer. I told him that it was a resource people used to justify their actions in the present. Unimpressed, he said he would ask his teacher. I imagine his teacher fed him the old line about history being important because we learn not to make the same mistakes.

I've always been a fan of history – so many great stories, unbelievable characters, hints about why we live the way we do today. Yet, I've never bought the line that history is a road map for the present, because the cyclical nature of history shows that far from preventing us from committing the same errors, more often than not it provides a blueprint for how to go about having another crack at it.Often with the same disastrous results.

If history served as a warning to humanity, war would now be (ahem) history. No doubt history serves a number of purposes, but one of them is as a way of justifying our position today. There are tons of examples. This year is the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, when Saxon England was conquered by the Normans, who repressed the local language and culture and stole all the land. After almost a thousand years, the English still sneer at the French. Yet, Saxon England has as little to do with the UK today as the land of the pharaohs has with present-day Egypt.

In 1415, it was the English under Henry V who were conquering France, thanks to victory at Agincourt. Henry's expedition was to reclaim his French crown (which went back to the Normans, who weren't even French but Vikings). Another example. When the Serbs in Kosovo began slaughtering Albanians in the 1990s, they were carrying on a war that began in the 14th century! And let's not get started on Al-Qaeda or ISIS, who go so far as to claim divine approval of their murderous actions.

Given the geopolitical situation of Catalonia, it is not surprising that Catalans too are prone to reaching back to justify their present stance as a nation. Exactly 300 years ago, the first Bourbon King of Spain (who was French) deprived the Catalans of their historic rights. Three centuries later, they still want them back. I encourage you to read all about it on pages 40/41. But, looking back three centuries is really no more than an intellectual exercise, though a valuable and fascinating one. If you feel strongly about changing the way you live, then that is justification enough, and there is little need to resort to myth-making.