Actually what Henry Ford said was that 'History is more or less bunk'. History students are well used to people asking what use the subject is. In some ways that is a question that does not even deserve a response, but if one had to, one could quote David McCulloch: 'History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.' One cannot fully understand the present without reference to the past. George Mason University, (where our old friend Roger Wilkins lectured, see March 12th blog), hosts one of many web sites that look at current issues with an historical eye through their History News Network.
Arnold Toynbee said, "History is a search for light on the nature and destiny of man." R.G. Collingwood wrote, "History is for human self-knowledge...the only clue to what man can do is what man has done. The value of history, then, is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is."
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