21 Answers

  1. I love history, but soberly and rationally-I see all the shortcomings (as without them). So, somewhat annoying:

    1. Its unpredictability. Here you are looking for something, but either you don't find it, or you don't find what you were looking for, or when you go deeper into the topic, it expands and your eyes run away, you don't know what to grab and which path to choose (like in some movie about ancient branched dungeons). This is actually cool, but not always on time. And in general, the historical search is similar to gold mining – you can wash so much sand until you find a grain!

    2. Its inconvenience. You start the search with one view, and often end it with another-the overall picture or pole changes (from plus to minus. Especially if you do genealogy). Or you make discoveries in your field, refute everything previously written by would-be researchers (were they even in the archives?!) myths, you feel like a hero – and ordinary people either don't notice this and continue to refer to myths, or they don't believe it and prove their case.

    3. Its popularity. Now anyone calls themselves a historian and writes pseudoscientific treatises, they are massively published and they are littered with shelves of bookstores. Decent people already react warily to the word “historian”, you need to manage to show unobtrusively competence (if you want a reputation, of course). The other side of this unpleasant situation is that people read this rubbish and believe in it (it would be better to know the history of Dumas, Akunin, Senkevich), or vaguely remember something from a school textbook and on this flimsy basis think they are Klyuchevsky and Herodotus.

    4. Its groundlessness. Our people need an indispensable application of knowledge in the national economy, and historians for some are natural slackers and losers, because this is not physics/chemistry,or a sport.

  2. Ah times perishing called… (with) Urodonal.

    I love history. It's interesting. It is especially interesting to compare sources and draw conclusions… Think about what might have happened if…

    But again, there are interesting periods, there are less interesting ones, yes. Purely subjective

  3. I'm not interested in the story, so I don't like it. I see no reason why I should be impressed by the fact that Ivan the Terrible ascended to the throne in the nth year and what he did during his reign. Just as I would absolutely not be interested in reading the biography of Vladimir Vladimirovich right now.�

    Although I admit that the whole problem is only in the terribly tedious presentation of historical facts in textbooks, because historical films often fascinate me.

  4. If history is a collection of facts, dates, and memorable events, then it is a mediocre simplification of the context, meanings, and words floating in the air of time.
    Probably, the decision to treat history as a description of events, facts, and specific dates was made so that people could get the most insignificant idea. And then he could reason with a meager supply of facts in his pocket. Of course, it's easy to reason.

    If history is the identification of patterns, the search for the meaning of history, then this is a ridiculous set of human categories, the interpretation of facts for the sake of one's own interest.

  5. I love history very much: from it you can learn how people used to live, what events took place not only in a particular country, but also in the world as a whole, and, in general, how to dislike history? This is the Bible of all times and peoples, without history we can not go anywhere

  6. I love history very much, and it was one of my favorite subjects at school, not least because of the teacher. However, I mostly communicate with so-called techies, and their history is not held in high esteem for several reasons: it operates with facts and dates, numerous riddles are not covered at school, there are few opportunities for independent research; this is an inaccurate science, there are many opinions on various issues; nothing can be verified experimentally.
    And I perfectly understand this desire to put everything in its place once and for all and the inability to do this with history. But I still love her just because.

  7. Everyone who writes that they don't like the Story almost always says one thing: cramming dates and surnames is not interesting. It's also why I didn't care about history at school. But here at the university for me (and ironically, I study history), another story opened up, in which there is no rote learning – you remember important dates and surnames automatically when you come across them again and again in the archive or historiography.

    I know, because I myself also occasionally conduct open lessons in schools, literally several history teachers who can really get involved in their discipline. Everyone else just retells the paragraph and occasionally conducts tests for knowledge of dates and surnames. They can be justified by low salaries – they, along with the need to plow every lesson, if you want to have a great time, eat up all the enthusiasm. But we must get out of this vicious system – that is my opinion.

    Actually, as part of one of my student projects, I do what I try to show students: history is not about cramming at all, it is much broader, deeper and more interesting than a school course. And there will be more good history teachers – there will be fewer explanatory answers to the question ” Why don't you like history?”

  8. Because history is written by states, and the state considers history as part of propaganda, this spoils the study of history:
    – the state loves to find “ancient birch bark letters”, which contain extremely important information on which historical science and historical textbooks are based (yes, it often happens that there is only one source, and this source is another” found ” letter);
    – passion for aging. The state really wants to be more ancient, so any research that contributes a little bit to this is sponsored, and research that proves the country's youth is covered up. The apotheosis here can be considered China – after familiarizing themselves with the European principles of writing selfie stories, the Chinese have already spent 5000 years and almost all the inventions, but why not;
    – secrecy, taboos, secrets. For the “wrong” study of the history of the twentieth century, you can really go to prison. What is this supposed to mean? A lot of information is constantly withheld, the terms of secrecy are extended. That is, people even with the twentieth century could not really understand what to say about other centuries;
    – emotionality, ethics, complexes. A person can't just sit down and study history from the purely academic side. He will look through the prism of his worldview: if there was slavery in the society under study, the historian will describe it as “bad, backward”, simply because in the given period of time in which he lives, slavery is prohibited. Etc. The historian is still a slave to the prevailing beliefs in society and cannot study history “in a vacuum.”

    Such are the cases.

  9. It is unforgivable not to love history as an ancestral experience. And here it is not so important to remember dates or names, as a causal relationship: the ruler made a choice and turned out what we now study as history. History is necessary as a source of empirical data, but, alas, few people know it well enough not to make the same mistakes as our ancestors. Well, or they hope that this time everything will turn out differently 🙂

    What I don't like about history is its one – sidedness. “History is written by winners” means that none of us will ever know the whole truth about past events. And the further away we are from the period we are interested in, the higher the probability that this or that person in power “edited” the history of this or that event in their own interests. Or maybe more than one person.
    As an example, I will cite the Battle of Kadesh. Until the Hittite script was deciphered, all historians believed the Egyptian records, which narrated the heavy but heroic victory of Pharaoh Ramses II over the Hittite army. But in fact, the battle ended in a draw, and largely due to the luck of the Egyptians and the presence of their similarity to the Greek phalanxes, because the Hittites defeated 1 of the 4 corps of Ramses ' army before the official start of the battle,and the 4th corps of the Egyptians arrived on the battlefield after it ended.
    Of course, there is a so-called “alternative history”, but as already mentioned in the answers, it is more often used as a means of propaganda than as a basis for revising the canonical history. And no one is immune from forgeries: the further science goes, the more and more sophisticated methods of falsifying history and artifacts are found by interested parties. Of course, with the help of science, such forgeries are also exposed, but this process is very long, and sometimes even famous academicians fall under the influence of theories based on false artefacts.

  10. History and physics are very similar. Don't be so surprised, I'll explain it now. In these sciences, only a few things are interesting. For example, I am very interested in why a black hole is so black, how huge the universe is, why I see red here and green there, and I am also interested in all sorts of tricks that were taken in wars, examples of human cruelty, and so on. What happened before? why did people come to equality? Estates seem like a cool thing, but what are estates? It is interesting and teaches you to live, not to repeat other people's mistakes. But God, how uninteresting is the course of some war with the heropluys in the 12th century, some killed people, others killed people, this will not teach me anything, absolutely useless and boring information, it can not be applied anywhere except in the history exam. This is the main problem of my terrible dislike for this subject. The very essence of it, the whole of it, is not interesting to me, like physics with a million formulas, about these formulas, of course, you can not say that they are useless, but that they are boring, yes.�

    Here's the thing: History is a subject whose minor aspects are not interesting, which means that it is boring to delve into it, but you have to force yourself, because we have history in schools and universities(even in technical specialties). So much for disliking the fact that you are learning this subject against your will.

  11. Why don't I like history?

    Because mistakes are learned not from other people's examples, but from their own. The exception, of course, is big mistakes like the Caribbean Crisis or the October Revolution. Another thing is that history is such a biased thing, shrouded in a lot of really unsolvable riddles that kitchen experts in LiveJournal are struggling with. The past is gone, the time I spent writing the previous lines is gone forever. All my actions disappear under the pressure of time. There is only the present. There's no point in studying the past, so what if you know what the third ruler of Babylon was like? He's gone, never will be, and his bones are gone – live in the present.

    History serves as an excuse for our laziness, our behavior. For example, thanks to the victory in the Great Patriotic War, our people still consider themselves chosen, standing above all others, although this greatness has long been gone. Those who possessed it are long gone – they are tired of putting up with us.

    P.S. Read less existentialists.

  12. and here's how I can answer the question “why I don't like history” if I love it.
    you know, history gives us many answers and examples. without history, there would be no us, no evolution, no science!
    therefore, the story is very important and interesting.�
    but the fact is that the history is not recorded. any fact can be proved by one scientist and refuted by another. or it can be changed in the future if new information becomes available.
    as a subject, I don't like it when we study (as I did at school) events as facts – when and where the battle took place, who and in what year won this and that… and they didn't pay much attention to why this battle took place or why that ruler wanted to conquer that particular territory.
    but most of all, I don't like it when people appeal to history in matters unrelated to it. For example, when arguing about the legalization of abortions, for some reason they often use the argument that under Ivan the Terrible they were executed for abortion. (in such cases, this is simply stupid and irrelevant to the subject of the dispute)

  13. I love you very much. The bottom line is that the story is different. For example, the history of the CPSU. Or the history of Zimbabwe's political parties. Or the history of Marxism-Leninism.

    And there is a story that is really interesting, because it is written by people not “for show”, but for the purpose of serious study of the processes in society. Or in order to introduce the reader to how people of past eras lived and thought. THAT's the story.

  14. I can't answer your question, unfortunately, because I love history. Even very much, I went to the Olympics at school and passed the Unified State Exam))

    I know for a fact that an unsuccessful teacher can ruin your interest in studying history in the bud. According to my mother, after their history teacher retired (an emotional, passionate person who not only told stories, but sparked interest in the students), they were given a boring old grandfather who mumbled to himself in a monotone voice. I did the same thing with physics, so here it is…

    Those who do not remember their past are doomed to relive it. Anyone who does not learn history is doomed to repeat it. © George Santayana

  15. It seems to me that history cannot be loved or disliked. History is a given! (it is clear that a lot can be said about the myths of history, about variability..)
    As a school subject-yes, I didn't like it. Because I didn't realize the significance. Now I really regret it

  16. Well, first of all, it is very subjective, and secondly, there is a beautiful phrase “History teaches us what it does not teach us”, so its knowledge only shows humanity how often it can step on the same rake. But these are the disadvantages that you asked me to write about, but there are also advantages, but this is an answer to another question)

  17. Perhaps my attitude to the subject was partly influenced by a teacher at school, but for as long as I can remember, I've never been a fan of remembering all these dates and names, events, causes, effects, and so on. I have never attached much importance to history as a subject. I preferred literature, English, and mathematics, especially geometry. Therefore, the story somehow did not work out at all, and I generally do not regret it: to each his own

  18. Because of the introduction in the history textbook, where it was written in plain text that it, as a science, serves the interests of the current state system.

  19. It was very strange to receive this question in your address. I love history, even very much, I entered the history department and even passed, but I didn't want to be a teacher of the same history, so I left this idea.
    I never considered history from the side of its “sacred meaning”, they say, so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past, I did not think about the propaganda tool, etc. I just liked her when I was in high school: it was interesting for me to think, ” How many things did he do, how much time did he have? Was it really possible that it was so-and-so?” I think the same interest is felt by those who read “Overheard” every day, only here interesting stories from life are not limited to the time frame of this century.

  20. Why don't I personally like it? Well, the story seems boring to me. And I loved the history of the Ancient World as a child and at the Institute, but the rest of history was not so fascinating. Then I could never study what I wasn't interested in, and all sorts of battles and military captures never interested me, so I read about the life of all sorts of rulers on the sidelines))) and about changes in culture and art, without focusing on the main historical milestones. At the institute, only the history of art fascinated from and to, that is, only what is suitable for me to work, and everything else-wars there, politics, economics-oh, I can't do it straight, it's very boring. And then I am not particularly interested in constantly discussing what is already in the past, I am interested in the present and what will happen next. And the story – well, that was what it was, and okay, we need to continue somehow puffing.

  21. Why don't I like history? I love you, even very much. Another thing is that I can't quite remember names and dates, “only logical patterns” – not only when it comes to history, but in general. This is partly due to the choice of profession – in mathematics, everything can be deduced anew.

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