History: The Usefulness of the Useless

Abstract

This paper examines the relevance of history. It made use of inter-disciplinary methods specifically: historical approach and ethnography. The study is designed to address the significance of history in the following areas: that history provides identity, promotes and encourages good citizenship, serves as a guide to improve society and avoid past mistakes, and history also fosters national cohesion. This paper discovered that some people believed that history is obsolete or irrelevant. Thus this paper revealed that the study of the past will help us to learn from mistakes that were made before us so that we do not repeat them. It can help us to solve problems that we face today by seeing the solutions that were tried in the past. History provides a sense of identity. However, if we believe that studying history is useless, we admit that we are living lives which will become useless in future. Therefore, studying history should be encouraged at all costs.