FIRST ESSAY

What Can History Tell Us?

The past several years have marked a particularly tumultuous period in human affairs throughout the world, and the media have been filled with editorials and essays weighing the meaning of events or suggesting ways of understanding them. For your first essay, we would like you to write a short piece (about 500 words) for the Op-Ed page of the New York Times, arguing for the importance of studying the early history of Europe. What sorts of insights into the present can we gain from a knowledge of the past, even a seemingly distant past? What questions should be asking about the past, and what sorts of answers might we expect to find? Your essay must be succinct and persuasive, with a well structured argument that includes at least one concrete example illustrating your point.

The essay is due by 3:00 PM Monday, 22 September, in your preceptor's box in the History Department Office, 129 Dickinson Hall.