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Value Of Studying History Essay

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What is the value, if any, of studying history?

It is often claimed that the value of studying history is that it allows us to make decisions and predictions regarding the present and future based on the mistakes of the past. Indeed, Edmund Burke stated as early as 1790 that “In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind."1 However, in this essay I will show that this is not necessarily the case, and will argue instead that the value of history is that it allows us to frame our present in the context of the past, and therefore better understand ourselves as a species and as a society. To illustrate this I will be using the examples of the 2008 financial crisis in relation to the UK housing market, and the current conflict in Afghanistan in relation to previous wars in that country.

The UK housing market has long been renowned for being “intrinsically volatile”2. As seen in the graph below, since the early 1970s it has experienced four distinct periods of 'boom and bust ' which are marked each time by an increase in consumer credit (blue line M4).3

This graph clearly shows that each “...bust followed an unsustainable credit-induced boom.”4 Therefore I would argue that lessons from history have not been learned in this case as the cycle of boom and bust has been repeated four times already and will most likely continue ad infinitum, despite numerous economists5 and

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