What Does History Teach?

Blackie, John Stuart, 1809-1895Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 127K words
Chapters: 13

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.What Does History Teach? by John Stuart BlackieAuthor: Blackie, John Stuart, 1809-1895,Language: English, Class: D: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere, Release Date: Aug 14, 2017

Editor's review

This is an English lecture-style text by John Stuart Blackie, centered on the question "What does history teach us?" Blackie was a nineteenth-century British scholar, and his style carries the rhythm of Victorian expository prose: frequent parallelism and rhetorical questions, with argumentation leaning toward drawing moral and political lessons rather than modern historical methodology. Its value lies in showing how nineteenth-century intellectuals viewed the educational function of history; it can be read as material for intellectual history and the history of historiography. It is not long, suitable for reading through in one sitting and then revisiting the structure of the argument. Note that its examples and view of history bear the limitations of their era; readers should read critically and distinguish "lessons of history" from "forcing history to fit a point."

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in historiography and the philosophy of history
Students of nineteenth-century British thought and lecture prose
Advanced readers who want to practice reading argumentative essays in English short pieces
Book-club members who need to discuss the question “What is history for?”

Not a good fit for

Readers looking for concrete facts about national or period history
Beginners expecting modern historical methodology
Readers whose English reading is still labored and who need sentence-by-sentence translation and notes

Reading tips

Read through once and mark the central thesis, then check paragraph by paragraph whether the evidence supports the conclusion.
While reading, compare with contemporary views of history and note which claims reflect the limitations of their era.
Suitable as book club material; organize discussion around "can history provide lessons?"
English learners can select one paragraph for close reading and analyze the rhetorical role of rhetorical questions and parallelism.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

What is this text mainly about?

It develops around the theme "what can history teach us?" and is expository and lecture-like in nature. The author starts from the educational function of history and discusses the significance of historical experience for individuals and society, focusing on distilling viewpoints rather than laying out historical facts.

What is the author Blackie's background?

According to the information, John Stuart Blackie lived from 1809 to 1895 and was a nineteenth-century English-language author. His writing has the characteristics of the expository prose of that era; readers should not judge his mode of argument by the standards of modern academic papers.

Do I need prior historical knowledge to read this book?

Systematic historical knowledge is not necessary, but a basic understanding of European history is best; otherwise it is hard to judge whether the examples in the text are appropriate. If the goal is to learn English argumentative prose, you can also read the structure of the text first and then fill in background knowledge.

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About the author

Blackie, John Stuart, 1809-1895 Author

John Stuart Blackie (1809–1895) was a nineteenth-century Scottish scholar and writer. Public information about his life is limited, and Chinese readers mainly know him through two of his works. The two titles held in our catalogue, What Does History Teach? and Four Phases of Morals: Socrates, Aristotle, Christianity, Utilitarianism, show his concern with the meaning of history and with comparative moral philosophy. In style, he tended to set out the development of ideas in an accessible, lecture-like manner, discussing abstract ethical questions through particular figures and historical contexts, with clear prose and a argumentative tone. This subject matter and style gave his books a place among nineteenth-century British popular writings on ideas, and they can still serve as an introductory reference for understanding moral philosophy debates of that period.