History

‘History is no more than a study of human folly.’ Is this a fair comment?
There is a famous proverb, ‘Let bygones be bygones’ which essentially means: forget the past; do not worry about it anymore.   Moreover, since the outcome of our past actions cannot be changed however hard we try at present, forgetting them has no alternative. On the other hand, focusing on future events can enable us to influence their outcomes. Therefore, remembering the past events and musing over them at present might not only seem to be unimportant but also ridiculous. Since, history too does the same, that is, rejuvenating the bygones, its study too seems to be futile. However, this is only one side of the story. What if a person forgets his mistakes of the past and repeats them? Again, what about the pleasant memories of the past which can be constructive rather than destructive?
History is more worthy than it seems to be, as a subject of study and it is in no way a mere study of human folly but that of aggregate human activities which hold special importance to the generations that follow. In other words, it is the collection of the events and real stories which can provide the knowledge to the descendants from both the good and bad deeds committed by the deceased. Therefore, history is clearly worth studying given its various useful implications in our daily life.
First of all, history explains our origins. The systematic study of the human activities in a chronological order provides us the basis to know about our ancestors and, more specifically, how we evolved into the present state. That study can be very useful to analyze our present. For example, discrimination on the basis of caste started not long ago in the Hindu society. For some hundred years, people believed whatever their ancestors said and continued the tradition of discrimination on the ground of caste. However, the careful study of history revealed that the caste system was developed on the ground of occupation and...