Embracing History's Lessons: What Every College Graduate Should Know [Paperback]

History is a composite of influences of: environment, life forms, great men and women, the common person, class struggle, excesses of leaders, conspiracies, manipulation, modifying events (acts of nature, disease, and so forth), wars, religious movements, and political actions. It is also a useful exposé of human nature, cultural fusions, idea evolution, technological developments, and a flow of events. A work over twenty years in the writing, Jay Allgood has produced a masterful analysis drawn from the finest minds of history, and has synthesized material from hundreds of sources. Surprisingly, few authors have attempted to delineate the "lessons" of history in a concise form where they can be easily examined, pondered, and evaluated - in relation to each other. Reading history can be interesting, but learning its underlying lessons will empower you. What you can expect to gain from this synthesis of knowledge of the ages: 1. What it means and takes to be educated. 2. What the requirements are for an optimal social system. 3. What constitutes overpopulation, and why the problem is so critical. 4. What constitutes the major sources of conflict and how related differences are best resolved. 5. How manipulative leaders control crowds and why you should avoid crowd contagion. 6. What the fundamental differences are in liberal versus conservative views of politics, education, and other aspects of social functioning. 7. What money is, its uses in the markets, and how it can free or enslave one. 8. Why fiat money and debt destroys nations. 9. What key factors influence decisions regarding belief. 10. Core lessons for helping steer one's life, nations, and world into the future.

Reading history is fascinating entertainment, but its lessons are the important thing in avoiding mistakes. As Vannevar Bush advised, "One should learn from the mistakes of others, you can’t live long enough to make them all yourself." That advice led to undertaking this work several decades ago after a literature review failed to yield a satisfying compilation on the lessons of history.

Widely used world history texts at that time failed to adequately focus on the lessons to be learned. As David Fromkin declared, "Too often history is taught as a meaningless recital of names, dates, and places resulting in oversight of the important underlying trends and lessons."

Too often events and methods are taught while ignoring the significance and consequences involved. A different agenda seemed desirable.

Thus, the approach in this volume has been to synthesize the more significant trends and lessons into a comprehensible form. The main motivation was to produce a work of value to a broad audience. That seemed desirable because the exponentially expanding knowledge base and the torrid pace of life leaves little time for most people to search out useful lessons on their own.

Over the years, I have repeatedly asked why historians had not done more to explicate the lessons of history. There are several possible reasons: for one, some historians felt that identifying specific lessons constituted an oversimplification of a complex record; a second probable reason is that searching the literature for key lessons is an enormous undertaking. Another likely reason is the era of relativism in academia left fear of severe criticism in anyone who dared to resort to common sense on the subject. (In essence, the concept of relativism holds that there is no truth nor facts only opinions and that history is an illusion.)

The relativism movement was subsequently expanded and joined by a group of theories sometimes classified under the labels "post-modernism" or "cultural studies." Those and companion ideas have been discounted by Keith Windshuttle in his book, The Killing of History.

Other reasons for lack of efforts to ferret out useful wisdom from the record include differing concepts of what constitutes history, and the notion that there is too little evidence to permit conclusions.

Admittedly, the history of man is too short for most lessons to be propounded with absolute certainty; however, we live in a probabilistic world where choosing the best of likely outcomes is necessary to improve the odds of making sound judgments and minimizing errors. It is those outcomes that are identified in the text as findings worth knowing.

Lessons given in the text have been drawn from the numerous books and articles whose authors are mentioned. The sources from which the majority of the information and ideas were drawn are given in the bibliography.

Primarily, my contribution has been to synthesize others’ thoughts, to honor their efforts by extracting lessons from their work, and to deduce germane implications in a useful form. Of necessity, it is organized differently from most other works.

Following Officer's Training in WW2, Mr. Allgood obtained his Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering degree from The Rice University, and taught there for two years before a stint in private industry. Thereafter, he obtained his Masters Degree in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Ohio State University, and went to work at a Navy research laboratory.

Mr. Allgood participated in several atomic tests at the Nevada Test Site, and came up with a concept for simulating blast loads in the laboratory. With the participation of others, the blast simulator was developed and used for testing various full-size structural elements. Jay was also involved with testing models and a 40-ft shallow rectangular-structural shell, among other projects.

Eventually, he did advanced study in theoretical mechanics at Stanford University under a Navy fellowship. He also served in various local organizations and in several national groups. Mr. Allgood is co-author of a monograph, author or co-author of over fifty technical papers and reports, plus being a recipient of several awards and patents. Jay resides in St. George, Utah, with his wife, Roberta. They have three living children, eleven grandchildren, and one great grandchild.

Mr. Allgood left engineering at age 48 to pursue other interests, including the study of history and the social sciences, which led to this book, his first non-technical publication.

History is a composite of influences of: environment, life forms, great men and women, the common person, class struggle, excesses of leaders, conspiracies, manipulation, modifying events (acts of nature, disease, and so forth), wars, religious movements, and political actions. It is also a useful exposé of human nature, cultural fusions, idea evolution, technological developments, and a flow of events.

As Eduard Meyer said, "All of human history is relevant to present and future human needs." He added, "World history is important that we may learn from past experience, cultural history is important that we may understand our social conditioning, and family history is important that we may feel connected." He might have added that personal history is important that we may perpetuate fundamental values.

James Burke remarked, "You can only know where you are going [in life] if you know where you have been." To compliment that observation, Newt Gingrich advised: "Combine the potential of the future with the lessons of the past to enrich the future." Doing so fortifies Disraeli’s conviction, "The more extensive a man’s knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do."

J. Kelly Sowards wrote, "History has revealed powerful ideas with revolutionary potential." We should know them and about them. Dominant positive ones relate to: morality, liberty, equality, freedom, and the concept of justice; negative ones to: class division, racism, greed, resentment, and the lust to dominate. Significant strides toward sublimating the negative concepts and emphasizing the positive ones have been made over time. That is evidenced in the progress of the principal phenomena of Western history (Anon):
1. Ideas — about morality, moderation, and reason; and doing no harm to others or ones self.
2. Events — evolution of belief systems, development of the scientific method, the Reformation, and the U.S. Constitution.
3. Trends — civilizing mankind; moving toward individual rights.
4. Customs — enhanced: ideals, traditions, and principles.
5. Constants — emotions, change, conflict, and progress.
6. Influences — writing, printing press, and microchips, etc.
7. Challenges — keeping technology, education, and society from turning on themselves.
8. Dangers — power brokers, unrestrained passions, terrorists, taxes, debt, fiat money, regulation, and concentration of wealth.

Positive aspects of these concepts have led to: literacy, government, technology, organized religion, city life, and widespread prosperity in developed countries. In the process, as Sumner noted, the evolution of civilization has emancipated many people from (mental and physical) poverty.