23/06/09 Issue 221 1st version

GRE AW Archive Index

ISSUE221 - "The chief benefit of the study of history is to break down the illusion that people in one period of time are significantly different from people who lived at any other time in history.

1st version

Time used: 28 min for outline + 109 min for writing = total 137 min
Words: 489 with 13 spelling mistakes

Outline:

Openning: state the position
Body: - breaking down the illusion is one of the benefits
- illusion: people's thinking; technology change a lot
- Many things remain unchange
- This is not the chief benefit, the chief benefit is to learn
- WWI and WWII
- smart power
Conclusion: conclude position

Response

Learning history, we can truly find that there are still many things in common between the world in one period and the world in another. It is definately one of the benefits of studying history whereas it is not the chief one. The chief function of history studying is to learn experiences from history to solve today's problem.

Reviewing the history, people can get a direct impression that how different our living is from the past. Back to 19th, it was not surprising to see salves working in the field. Roughly a hundred years ago, people did not know they could fly in the sky which now was unimaginable for most people. In 1980, most people did not know the exsit of internet while now most people cannot live without it. Neverthless, when we study the hisory of human beings futhur, we will discover that few essential things behind these ostensible scenaries have changed. One of the examples is conflicts. From B.C to now, the conflicts between regions, countries and religons never stop. Different countries, different regions are fighting for profits all along human's history. By studying history, the illusion that people in different perionds will have huge differences externally can be broken down with seeing the core under the skin.

The breaking down of the false impression can benefit us with more clear view of human's history. But it is not the end of the profits, the much more valuable award of learning history is that people can learn to avoid mistakes or to practice the successful experience which will help improve the world nowadays. Comparing to the fact that the conflicts between people will never stop, the ways, whether successful or not, to settle down those conflicts can be more precious for that the latter one provide us with more useful lessons to solve the problems we meet in a later period. Learing from the fact that the harsh pulishment on Germany after World War One was one of the factors causing World War Two, after the Allies' vicotry in World War Two, Britain, United States and China did not require any payment from Axis Power to avoid such thing from happening again. Learning from the failure of the "carrot and stick" foreign policy, US government now, as Hillary Clinton put, wants to use "smart power" which is to balance hard power such as military and soft power like culture as a way to deal with their international relationship.

We human beings already have more than thousands of years' history recorded. The study of history is not simply to find out the facts and similarities among all time periods, what's more important is to seize the reasons for success and failure which can help us develop better. Whenver we review the past, we are planning for the future, therefore, the purpose or the chief benefits of studying history is to help the future by offering priceless experiences.