History 107 Lecture 1

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History 107Lecture 1

• Introduction to Western Civilization

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What is History?

• History offers valuable lessons for today
• First among the studies I place History a
  subject which must not on any account be
  neglected by one who aspires to true cultivation
  For the careful study of the past enlarges our
  foresight in contemporary affairs and affords to
  citizens and to monarchs lessons in the ordering
  of public policy. From History, also, we draw
  our store of examples of moral precepts
• --Leonardo Bruni, Renaissance Humanist
• and Diplomat (1369-1444)

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What is History?

• An awareness of history is, in some respects, an
  awareness of how mysterious and vulnerable human
  society is
• The poetry of history lies in the
  quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth,
  on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men
  and women, as actual as we are today, thinking
  their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions,
  but now all gone, one generation vanishing after
  one another, gone as utterly as we ourselves
  shall shortly be gone like ghosts at cock-crow.
• -- G. M. Trevelyan

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What is History?

• An appreciation for history is related to an
  appreciation for life and how fragile and
  beautiful it is
• Only an awareness of the dangers menacing what
  we love allows us to sense the dimension of time
  and to feel in everything we see and touch the
  presence of past generations
• --Czeslaw Milosz, Polish poet