History is a significant subject through which contemporary persons can understand what have happened in the past and learn from them, and hence facilitate the development of modern society. One of the benefits of learning history is to break down the illusion that people live in one era are essentially distinct from people who lived at past times. However, I would not agree with that this is the very chief benefit of the study of history; I think the value of history is far more than this.

As the statement above, it is surely one of the major functions of the study of history to break down the illusion that people are differ from others who live in different times. By learning history, myriad similar stories can be found out and many of them can even be stated as other visions of contemporary stories. Historians are all emphasizing that history is continuously repeating: generation by generation, family by family, one by one. Politic is a typical realm for observing this phenomenon. As we know, those political conflicts existed thousands of years ago in the Ancient Rome do exist in today’s world. Combination, alliances, ruling out those who hold opposite views, sexual scandals, subversions, and so on. Everything is so familiar in historical textbooks. Those who allege that contemporary humans are far better than our ancestors are just blindly confident of the modernization. Actually, other than forms, nothing has fundamentally changed.

Another significant function of study of history is the understanding of the eternal rules exists in human development. There is an old Chinese saying: "reading history enables one become more advisable". The differences between situations are not what actually decide how the ending would be like. Many people who do not understand the sense of history paid no attention on it; some even consider that what have happened before would not happen again. These people are always turned out to be wrong at last, realizing that realistic world is the same as the one before on the whole and stories are always recurring. The modern business largely distinct from old type of trading in form, however, the essence of both is basically the same. That is, trying to reach a mutual benefit through exchanging. Meanwhile, those qualities which are necessary in the realm of business have not change from the old time to now. Honesty, in other words, the credence, which is the core spirit of interaction between individuals, was the most important thing in business whether in the past or today. Without honesty, even sometimes may an enterprise or individual earns huge amount of benefit in short-term, can never succeed ultimately. Enron, famous for its financial scandal, used to be a most influential company specialize in energy, ruined itself by corruption and dishonesty. The similar cases can easily be found in history. Even if nation, figure, theme or products may differ, nevertheless, the cause and effect are clear.

It is exactly because of this unique character, history, seems useless at the first glance, actually can direct the whole human race to move forward on a correct way.

In most crucial circumstance, in which critical decisions are to be made, those rules we learned from history can be used to help do the trade-off. Especially when it comes to those factors regarding moral and justice, history can provide with our rulers experience of telling what kind of factors are more important and necessary in the long run. This enables us avoid the temporary confusion caused by some certain profits or rewards, which may be banes and would jeopardize ourselves in the future.

In summary, I think the speaker has oversimplified the benefit of the study of history, while what we may acquire from history are usually more than we expected. The worth of history cannot be acknowledged in a short-term, because in most cases pangs come before happiness, and general people may not have that insight to understand the meaning hide behind sacrifice. However, eventually, we would benefit from keeping act on the historical principle and thus making a right choice in a right time.