3. HISTORY

Version 1.3 March 2013                                               (Previous Version)

History is fascinating, but complicated.

Most of us have a limited knowledge of history, focussed on our ethnicity, religion or nationality.  There are often great disputes over what historically occurred, which events are more important, and what lessons can be drawn.  Some will see the same events but draw different conclusions.

·       Many focus on politics and economics, using the past to support or oppose governments now.

·       Some conservatives invent an idealised time in the past that they think was better than today. 

·       Some religious people see in history the work of God, hundreds or thousands of years ago, or evidence for the divine, or proof that their sacred texts are true revelations, or prophecies.

·       Racists and nationalists interpret the history of their ethnic or national group as evidence of their moral superiority and that ancient atrocities show the descendents of old enemies are vile.

We begin our history by explaining how humans spread to all the continents, and the local geography influenced how civilisation developed in Eurasia (the Middle East, India and China) and the Americas (North and South), but struggled in Africa and didn’t arise in Australia.  We cover technological developments and the spread of knowledge, especially across Eurasia, the rise and fall of the colonial period, the slow advance of human rights, the world today, and future trends.

It is said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.  History provides lessons on what is likely to happen in some situations, but historical lessons are less certain even than those from science.

We look at history under the following headings, to see what is worth learning from each period:

History, like science, doesn’t tell us what we should do: it doesn’t lead directly to core values.  However, from history we learn that freedom and democracy are to be valued, as effecting values, because they promote core values of truth, diversity, life, love, responsibility, equality and hope.