Why is Living History Important?

Why is Living History Important?

Living History is the art and science of applied historical study that encompasses immersive historical learning, learning that aims at minimising the third person perspective, making history not only a theoretical but also a practical experience. Living History benefits its practitioners educationally, but also in the following way: respecting and taking within themselves their and others’ pasts through immersive activities and experiences. Without immersive techniques, the learner (and teacher), often unknowingly, distance themselves from the subject they study, teach, or both. Because of this, I believe Living History is not just a form of education, it is a completely new of way of understanding, seeing, and interpreting history.

The importance of immersion cannot be stressed enough when it comes to all aspects of education; to learn and teach should be to invoke the subject, in a sense, taking the subject within oneself. If one does not do this, one is limiting the full potential of the subject; an analogous equivalent would be forcing the world into a jar, or to hold a piece of earth and claim it is the world. This is the crucial aspect of Living History, as it looks at history from both an outside and inside perspective. One of the key principles of Living History – that one will notice I often address in this paper – is experience.

We rank experiences according to where they stand in their theoretical or practical categories. To learn about the experience of World War Two in the Pacific one would ask a veteran from that war or read his/her words (practical); however, to learn about the overarching logistical and tactical changes throughout the entirety of WW2 would most likely mean to read or speak with a modern expert (theoretical). One perspective, the veteran, took the experience within themselves (narrow scope yet great personal detail), the other perspective, a history professor for example, looked upon the experience from the outside (broad scope yet less personal detail). This, however, is where Living History serves its purpose. Look at it this way: there are two history professors, both very well read in a particular period of history; the one that follows the principles of Living History would then, after his theoretical research, utilise the accumulated knowledge to actively step into the period and learn from this experience, particularly as a fellow human being of those individuals that lived in that period. Living History does not deny the importance of theory, but its most important trait is that it does not stop at the accumulation of theoretical knowledge. It goes much deeper.

Men like Giambattista Vico rightly believed that one can learn more from a period in history by using that culture’s artefacts to look into the culture, rather than looking at the culture from our comparatively modern perspective and context. Vico believed that such artefacts were bridges into the culture that brought understanding beginning first from the inside to outside rather than the opposite. Authors such as Ian Mortimer speak of history in their books, such as The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England, by drawing the reader into the context rather than simply speaking about past events[1]; this technique tries its best at making historical study a personal experience as well, rather than purely an intellectual one. Living History, however, combines the application of both theoretical and practical techniques, uniting them through applied historical study.

I believe that practical experiences of a concept, when placed upon theoretical knowledge, provide a deeper understanding of said concept then if one just used theory. Does this mean theoretical experiences are not important and therefore useless? Of course not! But, I believe, as I aforementioned, that to learn something is to, in a sense, take it into oneself. I cannot experience WW2 for myself as a veteran did, but I can create my own context to find out what I can (this is much like the history professor example on pg3); such is the goal of Living History. Why does someone learn Chinese faster and more effectively in countries that speak it as a native language? Because practical experience teaches much more than theory (a textbook) ever could.

This means that, as humans, we are not purely theoretical like machines and we are, in fact, much more emotional and passionate creatures; we learn by taking things into our minds and our hearts. Why else would practical experiences speak louder to us than theoretical experiences? While the reasons for this vary, this fact is as clear as day: we humans attain deeper understanding of a concept when we do not just study about it, but experience it.

Sometimes, however, practical knowledge can seem to contradict theoretical knowledge, or vice versa. For example, a veteran from the Great War may say that they were not being resupplied during the Somme, whereas a theoretical study of logistics in that battle shows that all men were in fact being resupplied. I would argue, however, that there is still truth within the contradiction; the veteran may have been resupplied, but his experience of the battle felt as if he had not; perhaps his unit was out of reach of the supply lines and was, in fact, not resupplied. Therefore, the theoretical knowledge does not contradict the practical knowledge gained through experience.

As the Greek philosopher (Plato) believed, it was education’s duty to make virtuous people, and, as I will later explain, Living History accomplishes this task in the realm of historical study and application. Living History is not simply researching an item and putting it on display or wearing it; the difference between Living History and playing ‘dress-up’ is that, in Living History, there is a much deeper connection to the artefact the practitioner is using. This practice combines both practical and theoretical techniques, and looks at history both from the outside and from the inside. Living History is, in fact, a much deeper art and science than many think; it is practically applied historical learning through practical experience. This is something that a history textbook can never give you on its own.

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[1] ‘The very idea of travelling to the Middle Ages allows us to consider the past in greater breadth’. Ian Mortimer, The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England. (London, UK: Vintage, 2009) 1.