History is more than an answer to the question how did the world come to be as it is.
History opens the mind and broadens the view provided we are willing to go deeply enough and not merely recite events or worse, misconstrue them through the fog of our parochialism. I m sure it is easy for you, living in Italy to see this, for the many who have never spent a long time abroad the tendency is to assume people differ only in superficial manners and customs. As if it made no difference that a building collapsed because of faulty construction, an earthquake or a bomb.