Academic/General Training Module by Adam Smith First Published in 2015

The Importance of History in Our Own Lives 
These two fundamental reasons for studying history underlie more specific and quite 
diverse uses of history in our own lives. History well told is beautiful. Many of the 

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 IELTS
 JOURNAL 
 
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historians who most appeal to the general reading public know the importance of 
dramatic and skillful writing—as well as of accuracy. Biography and military history 
appeal in part because of the tales they contain. History as art and entertainment 
serves a real purpose, on aesthetic grounds but also on the level of human 
understanding. Stories well done are stories that reveal how people and societies have 
actually functioned, and they prompt thoughts about the human experience in other 
times and places. The same aesthetic and humanistic goals inspire people to immerse 
themselves in efforts to reconstruct quite remote pasts, far removed from immediate, 
present-day utility. Exploring what historians sometimes call the "pastness of the 
past"—the ways people in distant ages constructed their lives—involves a sense of 
beauty and excitement, and ultimately another perspective on human life and society. 
History Contributes to Moral Understanding 
History also provides a terrain for moral contemplation. Studying the stories of 
individuals and situations in the past allows a student of history to test his or her own 
moral sense, to hone it against some of the real complexities individuals have faced in 
difficult settings. People who have weathered adversity not just in some work of 
fiction, but in real, historical circumstances can provide inspiration. "History teaching 
by example" is one phrase that describes this use of a study of the past—a study not 
only of certifiable heroes, the great men and women of history who successfully 
worked through moral dilemmas, but also of more ordinary people who provide 
lessons in courage, diligence, or constructive protest.