People have different views about the importance of history; some point out that there is no use in learning the past, while others are of the opinion that history is crucial to better understand the life and succeed in it. In my opinion, the knowledge of history is essential as it can play an important role in building a prosperous society.
It is true that the inventions and technologies of the last few centuries have caused a dramatic change in our lives, thus most of the historical knowledge became redundant for today’s world. My grandfather can be taken as an example, although he has a tremendous amount of experience in agriculture and irrigating crop fields, his methods which used to be useful are now incompatible with the contemporary approaches and technology; this makes his knowledge usually impossible to apply. Furthermore, history was written by people who were definitely not infallible, hence there are vast records of history which have been affected by personal views of historians. As a result, historical facts are not necessarily reliable, this means our views of and conclusions from the history can be distorted.
Despite the arguments above, I personally believe that there are several benefits that we can derive from history. Firstly, the mistakes and achievements of the people who lived before us may be a huge lesson for making right resolutions for today, simply because present is the result of the past decisions. Secondly, history aids us to comprehend complex situations that are currently happening in the world. Therefore, by thoroughly analyzing historical events can we gain solutions for the problems such as geopolitical issues we are facing today. For example, the war between Russia and Ukraine could have already been stopped if the history were correctly interpreted. Finally, history keeps the national identity of people which is arguably very important factor in creating a strong social cohesion.
In conclusion, while there are valid points on both sides of the argument, I believe that, in spite of having some drawbacks, historical knowledge has a significant role in bettering and well-understanding our present.