<p>Prompt: What is your opinion of the claim that without adequate knowledge of the past, we cannot truly understand the present?</p>
<pre><code> History repeats itself. That’s a saying that we hear a lot. If that it is true, then knowledge of the past would help someone understand the present. A lot of people don’t believe this. Some of them unfortunately have to learn the hard way. Take Hitler as an example. If he knew enough of the past it would have prevented him from losing a lot of troops. Even in my own experience I had to learn the hard way. I could have prevented a current bruise by learning from the past.
Hitler was a conqueror and that is what he wanted to do when he invaded Russia in the winter. He led a lot of troops into battle only to find himself retreating. If only he had learned from history. I think a lot of people have heard of Napoleon. You know that short man who also was a conqueror. Well he also attacked Russian in the winter. What happened to him you may ask. He started out with about 400,000 troops and ended with about 40,000. That is a big difference and proves that you should not invade Russia during the wintertime. If Hitler had adequate knowledge of the past, he might not have that mistake.
Everyone is human and makes mistakes. Not only world leaders make mistakes, but even people who study them. I am referring to myself. I was about eight years old and it was spring time. The school day just ended and I got on my bike to ride around my neighborhood. I took a sharp turn around my block because it was fun. After about two more of these, I fell on the concrete floor and bruised my leg. Flash forward seven years later. Again the school day just ended and I got on my bike to go to the library. I felt like I needed some adventure so I decided to make sharp turns around the blocks. Again after about 10 minutes I fell off my bike and bruised my leg. I could have prevented this if I had adequate knowledge of the past. Although I knew that happened to me before, I did not understand it.
The past could be used as a tool to understand the present. But just knowing the past is not enough You have to understand what caused the past action or even to occur in order to understand the present. Maybe Hitler knew what happened to Napoleon, but he did not fully comprehend what happened to Napoleon in order to cause his defeat. I knew what happened in the past, but I did not put tow and two together and realize that the primary cause of me bruising myself was me doing sharp turns. Wow that was easy, if only all things in life were that easy.
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