25/06/09 Issue 221 2nd version

221The 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.

Outline:

Position:
Study of history can indeed break down the illusion, but it is not the chief benefit. The main function of history is to avoid the same mistakes in the future.

Openning:
State the position

Body:
1. Brieflly state that how history study can break the illusion
2. Transitian: breaking the illusion is important, but more important is...(this paragraph is important)
2.1 future and now are more important than the past -> the application is more important than its facts (ex: knowing the fact .
3. Why we can avoid mistakes in the future: from similarities to experiences

Example: an extended example: financial crisis and great depression in 1929

Conclusion:Restate the position

Response:

Reviewing history, it is easy to find out that people in one period of time are not more or less the same in more fundamental areas such as the political systems. Breaking down the illusion that world in different periods are significantly different is undeniable one of the benefits of the study of history. Nonetheless, the chief benefit of history goes beyond simply breaking down the false impression it is the experience like how to avoid similar mistakes in the future we learned from history that can be viewed as the chief benefit of the study of history.

People often view contemporary as more advanced than other periods in the past for that we have the most advanced hi-tech products, most convenient transportation ever and fastest communication channel in all times. The fact that many foundations behind the flourish of modern time have changed little can only be revealed by carefully history learning. One example is that we often encounter similar problems. Back to 1929, U.S as well as the whole world experienced Great Depression. Lots of people lost both their jobs and confidence in economy Today, The global is suffering financial crisis in which thousands of workers became unemployed and investors were pessimistic on the economy full state the example to show the similarity History presents us similarities of different periods and helps reveal the essence of human's development.

Finding the fact that there are not many differences between periods is indeed a benefit of learning history for that we gain a better understanding of human's development though it is far from a chief function. Present and future are more important than the past since we can never change the past but there are still many things we can change the present and affect the future. Obtaining the experiences from history of how to solve the problems can help us improve the society we are living now and will live in the future. Therefore, One of the chief functions of study of history is obtaining those valuable lessons we generated from history since with these experiences, we can make a change of today’s world. Simply Knowing the fact that we are facing similar situation today as the people in 1930s faced during Great Depression can contribute nothing to solving today’s problem. The true benefit of the studying the history of Great Depression is the next step: how to stimulate the economy now with the lessons we obtained from the history.

Human’s development is like a scientific experiment which is a process of trial and error. Scientific experiment aims at finding an answer while the purpose of human’s development is improving everybody’s living standard. During experiment, scientists make notes of both failure and success in order to improve future experiment. Men also keep records of failure and success which we call history to be able to achieve the goal finally. We keep meeting with similar problems such as conflicts, crisis, natural disasters, and so on from time to time. Each time we tried somewhat different ways to solve them, and leave the experiences to the future. In that way, we make our history. From the study of the Great Depression history, economists concluded that the Fed’s failure to intervene in the market when the economy began going downward was one of the factors causing Great Depression. Hence, in the current financial crisis, the Fed actively tried to save the market to avoid the same mistakes in 1930s. But no matter whether U.S government can get rid of the financial crisis or not, it will definitely be precious experiences to the future.

We can view our history as a book of experience. Finding similarities between different periods is a premise of using the book. But more importantly, is that we can apply the experience in the book to build a better future. Learning from history to avoid similar mistakes in the future is surely the chief function of study of history.

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