I was always one of those kids that really loved school.
Even outside of a classroom setting, I genuinely enjoy learning about new things.
Knowing that about myself, it’s interesting to think that I have always felt like history is kind of boring.
I never hated social studies or history classes, it was just nothing I felt super interested in or compelled to learn more outside of what was required by my teachers.
Until very recently, I have held this idea about myself that I just don’t really like history.
As 2021 came to a close, it struck me that almost every book I read was not just non-fiction but a historical account of some sort.
It started with a book called “Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland” by Patrick Radden O’Keefe.
After constantly seeing it displayed at bookstores, I finally took a look at it.
It was labeled as a national bestseller, it seemed like it had some mysterious elements and it was written by a journalist. So, I figured, why not give it a try?
As it turns out, it is a very detailed account of The Troubles, the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland that began in the late 1960s, and the rise of the Irish Republican Army.
I was reading about a very obscure aspect of international history and felt kind of embarrassed at first to tell friends what book I was reading at the moment.
As I got deeper into the book, I felt more and more invested in the themes: social justice, varying perceptions of good and evil and the fallibility of our memories.
I was shocked by how much I loved the book.
I was even more surprised by how relevant the book felt to someone living in the U.S. in 2021.
Later, I read “The Women of Copper Country” by Mary Doria Russell, which, to be fair, is a historical fiction novel.
Still, it’s based on the life of Annie Clements, a 25-year-old woman who organized a strike among tens of thousands of men against the copper mining company that owned the town of Calumet, Michigan in the early 1900s.
As someone who graduated high school in Michigan, I was amazed that I had never so much as heard this woman’s name.
Reading the book, I felt such admiration for a woman who was willing to stand up for what was right, especially in a time when women had nearly no rights and certainly no authority.
I found myself wondering how she felt in different scenarios and empathizing with the decisions she made.
It illuminated for me why history suddenly felt so interesting to me, when it generally didn’t resonate with me while growing up.
In school, history always felt very distant to me.
Sure, you learn names and facts about people whom the American public school system has deemed to be heroes or villains. You learn the things they did and memorize the dates that important events occurred.
When these people were boiled down to just answers on a multiple choice test, it felt like a chore to learn about them.
If they’re reflected as part of a larger narrative, though, I feel so much more aware that every person we learn about in history classes was just that – an actual person who lived a real life.
As crazy and cliché as it is, they’re people we can learn from, too.
Even though it took me until quite a few years after my history classes ended, I really do see why people are so committed to learning about the past.
It isn’t always just about tradition or ensuring that we’re good and patriotic citizens.
We have an opportunity to do things better in the present, if we look for the answers in our past.
Hopefully, if we read a little more, we might be able to find some of them.
–Kayleen Petrovia is a reporter for the Journal-Tribune.