History Has Little Or Nothing To Offer – Band 9 IELTS Essay Sample
Some people think history has little or nothing to offer while others say the study of the past helps us understand the present. Discuss both views and give your opinion.
Here is a band 9 IELTS essay on this topic. Need help with IELTS writing? Send your essay samples for a free band score estimate to manjusha_nambiar@yahoo.co.in
Band 9 IELTS essay sample
According to some people, history has nothing to offer. Others, however, insist that history continues to offer valuable life lessons and shape the world we live in today. In my opinion, history is still relevant and needs to be learned. Both views will be discussed in this essay.
On the one hand, people who claim that history is useless have their own reasons to believe so. For example, must of the history taught today is all about the names of dynasties and years of wars. Students are forced to memorize the names of events that happened many centuries or even millennia ago. Of course, this is useless information. Also, there are chapters in history that are no longer relevant today. For example, some of the threats that our forefathers faced no longer exist today. They lived in caves and had to struggle hard to protect themselves from the elements and beasts. Their survival strategies are not particularly useful to us who live in fortified concrete homes away from the jungle today.
This, however, does not mean that history is totally useless and has nothing to offer. Today, most of the countries in the world are democracies, colonization is now a thing of the past and slavery no longer exists. People ditched monarchies and embraced democracies because they learned from history how dangerous monarchies could be. Nations all over the world now realize the dangers of colonization and do not allow foreign powers to interfere in their internal matters. Today, there is widespread acceptance of human rights and we fully understand the importance of protecting our freedom of speech and expression. We are now fully aware that slavery was an evil practice. In less than a century ago, the world witnessed two major World Wars. While armed conflicts still exist in many parts of the world, nations are now wary of turning that into full fledged wars. These are all lessons we learned from history.
In short, it is true that some lessons from history have lost their value. However, this does not mean that the whole of history is useless. In fact, if history is not taught and learned, it is still possible for us to repeat many of the mistakes our forefathers committed. It is still possible for us to go back to the olden ages where only the mighty had the right to live. Hence, in my opinion, history is an important subject to learn as it continues to offer invaluable life lessons that shape our present.
