The Past Speaks

In a way, all humans are historians. Every decision we make is framed on the basis of what we believe to be true about the past. The key, of course, is for us to be good historians, knowing true and useful things about the past, or at the very least having a method that explicitly seeks that as its goal. All of the disciplines benefit then by working alongside history, to increase their stock of evidence on which to draw, and to ensure the validity and reliability of that evidence.

That’s from a great interview with MIT historian Anne McCants.  Anyone who is interested in how people use history for sensemaking should read the entire interview.