When everyone's going crazy, read history
6 brief arguments on why being a student of history is essential
Ladies and gentlemen,
For the last 2 years, things have been kinda weird. And terrifying.
A pandemic, a war, inflation, supply chain shocks, and now fears of a recession- it might seem like we’re living in the most bizarre times. ‘Unprecedented’ as everyone liked to yell when it all started.
Well, let me break it to you. It’s actually not that weird. At least that’s what some of the top global thinkers seem to be thinking.
This crap has happened in the past. Over and over again. What we’re seeing has been experienced by numerous people whose lives have now been relegated to mere factoids in the textbooks of history.
When the pandemic began, I read a few books and realized that while this was the first time I was going through something so shocking & unusual, it was not a rare occurrence at all. Humanity has been through countless such episodes when shit hit the fan and people got totally wrecked.
It was a humbling moment of realization. More than just the immediate reality of COVID-19, I understood one of the important lessons of history. As some wise uncle on an expensive armchair once remarked- “History rhymes”. That’s a boatload of insight packed into 2 words. The pinnacle of minimalist thinking, I say. But we digress.
If only we do ourselves a favor and dive deep into history, we can see that the same stories play themselves out over and over again. Well, not exactly the same stuff- but there are patterns. Similar situations arise due to similar causal factors. Similar ways of thinking lead people to do things that are similar to what people did in the past.
I’m not saying that it’s all pre-determined and predictable. But clear patterns do exist, and students of history are able to call them out. The really smart boys, like billionaire investor Ray Dalio, can probably even deploy those learnings in the world of investment and make a killing.
But why should you care about all this? Does all of this really affect you?
Well, it does, and in profound ways. In the few years that I have been actively researching our past, a few things have become clear. Here are a bunch of reasons why you’d do good to be an avid student of history:
1. Learning from mistakes is stupid. Why do that when we can literally learn from the mistakes that humans have made in millions of situations in the past? It’s like we have a ginormous to-not-do list because we know those things had terrible consequences- but we just don’t learn the lessons and prefer messing things up ourselves! For example, it’s natural for people to root for a populist leader who rebels against the elite, promises equality to the downtrodden masses, and promises to equalize things if only he can topple the existing powers. Sounds great on paper, but if you study the past, you’ll realize that these very people become the next dictators who forget all their promises and ideologies and make things even worse when they rise to power. This is what the French experienced with Robespierre when he came to power after the French revolution- going from a representative of the masses to a brutal tyrant who unleashed a reign of terror. History, with its numerous stories, teaches us to be mindful of such encounters, lest we are intoxicated by false promises that have never even once led to better outcomes.
2. A crucial idea that becomes clear while studying the long arc of history is how our present reality has been shaped by countless historical accidents that happened purely by chance. (We already explored the role of chance in life here). We may credit the British for building one of the biggest empires of the Industrial age but a study of the events of the last millennium reveals just how many accidents came about to make that happen. To take just one example, the Black Death, a pandemic that wiped out millions in the 14th century, marked a big turning point in the fates of Western and Eastern Europeans. While the Brits and Western Europeans saw the power of the lords fade and the peasants gain more power (probably due to labor scarcity which raised their value), the exact opposite happened in the East, which triggered an even harsher period of serfdom and subjugation by elites. This meant that the Brits were better suited to exploit the opportunities of 16th-Century world trade while the Russians languished. That’s just one tiny factor- there are numerous others (like the Magna Carta, the Glorious Revolution, and rule of law) that came together and gave the British the Industrial Revolution and accountable government, making them a dominant global power. Numerous factors which occurred purely by chance!
3. History allows us to gain a sense of perspective. We, Indians, feel like we’re the losers of history and that Westerners are inherently superior. But such ideas are misguided. As we already saw, our present is the product of the past- and culture, race, and nationality (which itself is a very recent concept) have very little to do with why we ended up being a poor nation while some Western powers flourished. Jared Diamond, the author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, suggests that the seeds of Eurasian prosperity were sown even farther back- more than 10,000 years ago. By virtue of its geography, Eurasia was perfectly suited for the emergence and spread of domesticated plants and animals- and this early lead in food production gave it a massive advantage in developing new technologies, political ideas, and the deadly weapon of pandemics: things that ultimately allowed it to capture a major share of the world’s wealth. It is sobering to realize that we’re all characters in a drama that is influenced by major factors, all beyond our control, that are many millennia old!
4. Our life isn’t all that novel. Somehow we end up deluded into thinking that all the technology, ideas, and institutions we encounter today are novel and wonder how our poor ancestors lived without them. The truth is that a lot of these ideas have long historical precedents and have been shaped over the centuries- something we’d know only if we care to look back. An example: with the rise of crypto and web3, ‘decentralization’ has become the hottest word in town. Many believe that that is what we need more than anything. To understand if that indeed is the remedy for our political ills, we must go back in time and understand how our current institutions (like democracy, oligarchy, and autocracy) emerged and the fundamental principles governing their structure, rise, and decay. Understanding these ideas is only possible by observing their developmental trajectory from the very first experiments to gradual mutations that came at crucial junctures. Moreover, one also realizes how these ideas are deeply rooted in human nature- which itself was shaped over hundreds of thousands of years. To change any institution, one must first understand why and how it originated in the first place.
5. If all this talk sounded a tad too intellectual and failed to convince you, the last two points would probably do the trick. For the practical-minded, learning the lessons of history can also help avert financial disaster. Studying the history of money, one quickly sees that of all the 700+ currencies that have existed in the last few centuries, almost all of them have collapsed. One sees clearly that every time a form of hard money came into being, it drove the existing softer forms of money into oblivion, thus causing massive swings in the fortunes of people. And, studying closely, one also realizes that events such as civil wars and hyperinflation aren’t really very uncommon- and when they do happen, the underprepared can barely manage to escape without having all their wealth totally destroyed. All sorts of nasty things happen in such cases, and reading about what has happened in Argentina, Zimbabwe and Lebanon can certainly help your prepare if you, too, live to face such an unfortunate day.
6. Finally, keeping the practical matters of wealth, wisdom, humility, and perspective aside, let me just say that reading history is a hell lot of fun. Don’t believe it? Give me 5 minutes and I’ll convince you with this little article. The past is full of unbelievable tales and stories of romance, adventure, progress, new ideas, experimentation, and accidents. It’s the accidents that really intrigue me. For instance, allowing women to have personal property originated in England more than 5 centuries ago: but it wasn’t because the Brits were fair-minded feminists. It is a story of selfish interests and unintended consequences. The church banned widowers from remarrying or adopting kids so that their land wouldn’t be passed on to any male heirs after death- and directly fall into the Church’s hands! A neat little trick to capture more riches accidentally resulted in women's rights and property ownership! These are the kinds of stories that really excite me, for so many things in the world that we take for granted have absolutely unexpected and crazy origins.
History is just so rich. It has so much to tell us. Only if we take some time out and experience the stories of the past can we expect to build a better future.
I hope I’ve convinced you to go buy a few history books and begin a journey that can change your life.
If you’re keen to read history, here are a few books that you can try:
- Homo Sapiens and Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
- The Origins of Political Order by Francis Fukuyama
- The Changing World Order by Ray Dalio
- Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
- The Sovereign Individual by William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson