People often ask me why I spend so much time reading history. After all, we already know how the story ends.
Rome falls.
Empires collapse.
Wars are fought.
Treaties are signed.
Nations gain independence.
Sometimes, only to be divided again.
Spoiler alert: nobody lives happily ever after.
Yet I keep returning to history—not because I want to memorise dates (which, I must confess, I am rather hopeless at), but because I want to understand people. Why did events unfold the way they did? What motivated individuals and nations to make the choices they did? And perhaps most interestingly, how have the interpretations of those events changed over time?
The more history I read, the more convinced I become that while technology changes every decade, human nature changes every few centuries… if it changes at all.
I often wonder when this fascination with history began. What I do know is that the more I read, the more I realise just how little I actually know. Every new book reminds me that what I have learnt is merely the tip of an enormous iceberg.
Whether it is the civilisational journey of India across the millennia, the rise and fall of the Mongols, European history, the two World Wars )it is a different matter that I call the first one just a “Great War” rather than a World War), East Asia, or the creation of modern nation states in West Asia, every subject reveals yet another layer waiting to be peeled. History, I have realised, is an onion with no end.
The reading list keeps growing. The Story of Civilization (an absolute must for any armchair critic like me), Revolusi, The Balkans, India: A Sacred Geography, The India They Saw, The Golden Road, A History of the Ancient Near East, A Line in the Sand, Jerusalem, Armies of Sand, along with biographies and autobiographies of Bose, Churchill, Deng Xiaoping, Gandhi, Nehru, Savarkar, Zhou Enlai and many others. Then there are books like An Era of Darkness and Imperial Twilight…
At this point, I have probably bought enough history books to qualify for honorary membership of several publishing houses. The challenge now is not buying them—it is finding enough years to finish reading them!
These books have done far more than teach me history. They have challenged assumptions I didn’t even know I held, while reinforcing others with greater conviction.
I am reminded of the African proverb:
“Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.”
Or George Orwell’s observation:
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
Every historian brings a perspective. Every generation asks different questions. As geopolitical realities evolve, so too do historical interpretations. Reading multiple viewpoints doesn’t necessarily tell us who is right; it helps us arrive at better-informed opinions.
History isn’t a museum exhibit or an artefact to admire from behind glass.
It is a mirror.
When we read about civilisations, leaders, revolutions or inventions, we are really reading about ordinary people making extraordinary decisions whose consequences continue to shape our present.
Then there are the irresistible “what ifs.”
What if Hulagu Khan had not been recalled while marching towards Egypt after sacking Baghdad?
What if Hitler had pushed on to Moscow differently?
What if Savarkar had successfully escaped at Marseilles?
What if Gandhi had not called off the Non-Cooperation Movement after Chauri Chaura?
History cannot answer these questions, but they certainly make for fascinating conversations.
Across all these centuries, the tools have changed.
Human emotions have not.
Fear.
Ambition.
Greed.
Hope.
Curiosity.
These have survived every civilisation.
One of the biggest lessons history has taught me is this: reading one book gives you information; reading five books gives you perspective.
Some historians admire empires.
Others dismantle them.
Neither is necessarily wrong.
Neither is ever complete.
The truth usually lies somewhere in the conversation between them.
History rewards curiosity, not certainty.
Whenever I finish a history book, I rarely come away with more answers.
Instead, I find myself with better questions.
And perhaps that is the real value of reading history.
I often wonder: is the past merely a reflection of the future, or is the future simply another chapter of the past?
I have stopped reading history to discover who was right.
I read it to understand why intelligent people, looking at the same facts, could sincerely arrive at completely different conclusions.
Perhaps if more of us did that, we would spend a little less time arguing about the past…
…and a little more time learning from it.
