I have always loved history because when you really get into the description of it it's almost like you can see it unfold once more in your mind's eye. My favorite subject through my primary education was history because I felt like I knew the players. I recently realized that history lessons are the first stories we are ever told. Sometimes we hear the tall tales of Americana and other times we read key literary works such as The Great Gatsby which serve as a glimpse into specific periods. The fact is that history reveals that the greatest stories told are told by each and every individual.
I never met the founding fathers but I feel as though they were truly civilized gentlemen with enormous skills in the art of diplomacy, otherwise known as bullshit. A historical document such as the declaration of independence reveals an ardent desire for a new identity, great concern for proper linguistic correctitude, and a fierce need to prove intellectual superiority in certain respects. Then there are works like the bible which is referred to by many as the key work in literature. A story can either be an approximation of the truth, a play on fact, or a total fabrication of the imagination. Honestly it's history that serves as a basis for all of that.
George Orwell wrote 1984 over sixty years ago and while his concepts seemed to far fetched to be real they were realized and validated over the years. While Orwell's work was fiction there can be a safe assumption made that Orwell felt through research that Big Brother was not an unreal and purely fictional idea. Everyone has a view of the future but those that express it in print base it on certain historical study. I am not saying that every person that desires a career in writing must be a history bookworm but it helps to know history in order to avoid sounding like a complete jackass.
