Anybody else notice that historians and people that are true history buffs are a bit on the strange side? Freely admitting that I fall into that category, don’t they (or we) seem a bit . . . I don’t know . . . obsessed? It’s almost like you can’t have a normal conversation about anything without it turning into a fifth-grade history lesson on some obscure item that may—or may not—have been mentioned. What makes historians so intensely focused on things that happened so long ago?
I’ve had a chance to reflect on that over the Christmas and New Year’s holiday season and I can’t help coming back again and again to the absolute continuity of history that I think captivates we history buffs. Since history is at its core simply the story of humanity, I find the linkages, all these little episodes that connect ancient Assyrian chariots to modern iPhones, absolutely fascinating. For me, one personal “discovery” leads to the next in a way that can be oddly intoxicating, and it’s not at all limited to the development of technology.
Take the Romans, for example. Many of you are aware I’m currently working on my second novel set in Republican Rome during Hannibal’s invasion of Italy, 216 BC. However, to truly understand why the Romans acted the way they did—in ways that can otherwise shock and perplex the “modern mind”—one has to understand the circumstances in which they came of age, so-to-speak.
The Romans grew up, you could say, in a Greek-dominated world forever altered by the short but fantastically impactful life of a single Macedonian, Alexander the Great. Perhaps you’ve heard of him . . . looked a lot like Colin Farrell? But understanding what Alexander did is all but impossible without comprehending the Greek and Persian cultures and the line along which those two consistently rubbed each another the wrong way. Yet you can’t begin to understand what the Achaemenid Persians were all about unless you can grasp the incredible thousand-year Assyrian Empire the Persians and Medes toppled in the first place to become Alexander’s nemesis.
See how the history can snowball on you? Do you see, perhaps how an historian searching for root causes to describe later observable effects might get sucked into a line of research that seems so off the track of what he or she set out to study? Can you comprehend how somebody who has chased these research dominoes might lose themselves completely upon discovery of a seemingly minor object found at an historical site? It means something to them because they understand why it is where it is and how it came to be there. The connections are suddenly more than just words on paper, the history has come alive, and the historian in that moment feels connected with a people that lived hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years ago. It’s a powerful feeling and has left me, at times, in a daze, virtually oblivious to the world around me.
A case in point. Years ago, upon my first visit to Okinawa, I was completely ignorant of the island’s history beyond the battle there in World War II. My interest in East Asian history had yet to be awakened, and I, like many of you I’m guessing, simply assumed the islands had always been part of Japan. Arriving there and discovering quickly that the original inhabitants were not ethnically Japanese was interesting. That the tiny island once hosted three separate kingdoms that fought one another for years before unifying and then being invaded by Japan was phenomenal!
Thus began a week of what I can only describe as castle-mania! I quickly researched and then visited every Okinawan castle I could find, one after another, on a brutal schedule that allowed little time for food or sleep, but left me astounded by what I found. Then one day as I was returning to my hotel, I noticed a rocky outcrop on the top of a distant hill. I made my way as close as I could and parked at the base of the hill near what appeared to be a small trail head. There’d been no historical site indicated on the map, no road sign, but the outline appeared to be another fortification, so I hopped out and hiked up the hill. That climb took only about fifteen minutes.
Now, it was getting late, but I could clearly make out the trail all the way up, appreciating the scenic beauty of the nearby beaches as I climbed. After spending who knows how long at this un-restored ruin—utterly fantastic, by the way—and taking an insane number of digital pictures, I turned to leave. It was then I noticed for the first time that it was dark. Not darkening, but pitch-black dark! Took me the better part of an hour to find the trail and make my way back to the car, but I’d “discovered” something and so didn’t really mind, virtually skipping all the way down the hill. Got back to the hotel and connected my first-generation digital camera to the laptop to see what I’d captured . . . and was shocked to find nothing but a succession of black picture frames. All black. No discernible images. Black dog swimming in oil black!
Fact is it was probably dark already by the time I’d reached the castle ruin. In my excitement I just hadn’t noticed. At all! These days, recognizing the potentially dangerous and compromising position this places me in while I’m roaming around in an historically-induced stupor, I usually only visit historical sites with other people. And for the price of a good meal and bit of adventure at whatever end-of-the-earth location I’ve taken her to, my wife generally provides that “adult supervision” to make sure I notice little things like . . . well . . . the sun setting.
But for me, that’s how it works. The fascination, the sense of connectivity with people long dead and things long gone is like a drug, and fuels some of my other hobbies; historical wargaming and traditional Korean archery to name but a couple. And these pursuits in turn feed back into my basic interest in history, more specifically, the history of human conflict. Having learned to shoot a Korean bow, the feel of the wood, the flight of the arrow, the angle with which the missile strikes the target, have all changed how I perceive standing atop medieval Korean walls at a place like Namhansanseong. Not just the perception, it changes the entire experience of any visit to a place like that.
All this to say, perhaps, that instead of dismissing the historian or radical history buff as crazy—not to say I’m not—consider for a moment dipping your toes into that water and see if it doesn’t change your perception. Hold a Roman gladius in your hand. Feel the draw of an English longbow. Squeeze the trigger of an old crossbow and feel the recoil as the bolt lets fly. Gaze down from the heights of any of thousands of locations on this earth of ours that humans have fortified against attack. Take a personal view, seek historical experience don’t just check the block, and you may find yourself “seeing” these places in an entirely different light.
The experience can alter how you view history. May even change your perception of humanity. It might—just might—affect how you see yourself. The stories are all connected, and the folks who did the things we read about in history are essentially us . . . they’re just us with fewer stories in the background.
M. G. Haynes