History Professor Lizabeth Cohen, Head Tutor History is the study of the past. Students of history study individuals, groups, communities, and nations and they study them from every imaginable perspective using all the techniques of the humanities and social sciences to raise questions and probe for answers. There is no concentration more diverse than History and none more individualistic. One can choose to study any part of the world in any epoch.
History is as long ago as the most ancient civilizations or as current as yesterday's newspaper.
Every moment but the present moment is part of the past and each can be the object of historical study. The great Roman orator, Cicero, once said that the person who knows no history remains forever a child. As children grow, they gradually learn to make sense of the world around them and to understand how they have been shaped by their family, community, and nation. History allows us to extend vastly our natural memory into the remote past, to benefit from the experience, not only of our own lifetimes, but of humankind as a whole. It teaches us who we are, but at the same time, like foreign travel, it introduces us to the incredible variety of human behavior and human achievements.