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0 pointsthewebcount3y ago0 comments

I was fine with literature, but yeah, history, what a snooze-fest. Why do I care who fought what war 1,500 years ago and who won? It seemed like it mostly came down to a bunch of pompous elites having dick-measuring contests a lot of the time.

Then one day the teacher didn’t want to teach and instead showed an episode of Connections, and I was blown away. Learning about how and why our science and technology became what it is was something I could related to and seemed actually useful. I still don’t care for military history, though.

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2 comments · 2 top-level

UncleMeat3y ago

Even if there is no connection to our own time, history is one of the most effective teachers of the process of empathy out there. It requires you to be able to place yourself in another time, place, and context. I'll also note that military history and "elites having dick-measuring contests" is far from the trendy side of the last four or so decades of history research and writing. Cultural history, microhistory, and even history of science are all hot topics.

Balgair3y ago

Free to watch here:

https://archive.org/details/ConnectionsByJamesBurke

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