History is one of the subjects many people profess to hate most. It’s boring, it’s static, it’s just learning about a bunch of dead white guys, and on and on.

To a certain extent, I agree. History (the way that it is taught to students today) is immensely boring. In school, history is taught primarily through lectures and textbook readings. But if you want to experience the true dynamism (I really did just use that word) that is history, you need to find a motivation to study history. I can easily teach you how to be successful studying history in a school setting, but would that really be worth it if you never gained a lasting appreciation and interest in history? I think not.

LEARNING HISTORY

Let me set something straight: don’t try to learn history by memorizing everything — that would be stupid and unwise, not to mention painful. There is simply too much information to memorize. Instead, approach learning history as listening to a story — a huge story, but a story nonetheless. People love a great story, so why shouldn’t we like learning about history?

ANCHOR POINTS

The previously referenced misunderstanding is due to the assumption that given a lot of information, that we must commit all of history to heart. Just like when you learn a story, you internalize the beginning, the turn, the climax, the denouement, and the conclusion — you don’t need to memorize every single fact. In the same vein, you only need to memorize a few things in history; I call these moments in history “anchor points.” Anchor points are your historical foundations — they include the watershed moments in history, upon which the rest of your knowledge lies. Here are a few examples of anchor points that I use (in various historical disciplines):

-333 BCE: Battle of Gaugamela, ushering in the fall of the Persian Achaemenid Dynasty

-44 BCE: Assassination of Caesar

-711: Muslim conquest of Spain

-1100s: Genghis Khan

-1492: Columbus sails the ocean blue

-1517: Martin Luther’s 95 Theses

-1685: J.S. Bach is born

-1776: America!

-1914-1918: WWI

-December 7th, 1941: “Day of Infamy”, the bombing of Pearl Harbor

-1941-1945: American involvement in WWII

-June 2012: LeBron James wins his first NBA championship

-Sunday, January 26th, 2014: Stanislas Wawrinka defeats Rafael Nadal in four sets at the Australian Open final

I also have more specific “mini-anchor points” within historical disciplines, which helps further contextualize my knowledge. For example, in US history: July 4th, 1776; the Revolution of 1800, October 29, 1929 (Black Tuesday); and so on.

The function of anchor points is to quite literally “anchor” the rest of your historical knowledge, and to orient yourself in the historical landscape. Let’s say that someone asks me about the bombing of Nagasaki during World War II. Here is my thought process:

I know the bombing of Nagasaki was at the tail-end of World War II, which means that it was in 1945 (anchor point). The bombing of Nagasaki came three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, which was on August 6, 1945 (mini-anchor point); therefore the bombing of Nagasaki came on August 9, 1945. Then I proceed to give a brief introduction of the events in WWII leading up to the bombing, and then talk about the actual bombing of Nagasaki.

Ultimately, using historical anchor points simplifies the recall process of historical events, which makes history much easier to learn and appreciate. Without historical anchor points, we would drift out and become lost in the expansive historical ocean.

READ THE TEXTBOOK

Whenever people ask me how I study for history tests, I always respond: “I read the textbook.” I always get the most incredulous stares, but I maintain that this is the truth: the best way to study for history tests is to read the textbook. In fact, one of the best ways to learn history, is through reading textbooks.

Well-written history textbooks guide you through the story of history, allowing your mind to piece together the historical framework. The beauty of a well-written history textbook is that it allows you to create a mental model of history, one where you understand the chronological flow of the people, places, events, and ideas. Once you have this mental framework established, then the smaller details are easier to remember, because you’ve already spent time orienting yourself.

This is why learning history through rote memorization is so difficult — without a solid understanding of the flow of history, the facts are just a deluge of independent, trivial facts.

When I read, I don’t like to take notes. This is a personal preference, but I feel that constantly switching between the text and my notes ruins my concentration. I typically read textbooks twice — the first time to establish my mental model, and the second time to clarify details and solidify understanding. Even though my personal system does not require notes (I find that I never look back at the notes that I previously took), writing notes is an excellent way to check your understanding, as notetaking forces you to synthesize and digest the material. Instead of checking my understanding with this method of notetaking, I like to explain a chapter of reading to a friend or draw a mind map representing the highlights of the chapter (learn more about mind maps here).

If you adhere to this technique, studying for a history test will merely consist of reviewing the textbook (to refresh your mental model of the history) and perhaps checking your understanding of the material by discussing it with a friend. It’s that simple.

BECOME AN EXPERT

Now, it’s all fine and good to be able to be successful at “classroom history” and to be able to read a textbook, but if you want to be “good at history,” it first requires that you foster an interest in a few historical areas. The reasoning behind this is as follows: history is an interconnected web; if you have an intimate understanding of a few areas, you also have an indirect knowledge of the rest of history.

As an example, let’s use my knowledge of classical music history. In my years learning about classical music history, I’ve amassed quite a bit of knowledge about the history of western civilization too. For those of you non-musicians: a crucial fact about classical music history is that there is immense “greater” historical significance that fuels these compositions.

Here’s three seemingly trivial facts about a few non-trivial works of music:

  1. Palestrina’s Pope Marcellus Mass legendarily convinced the Catholic Church not to ban polyphony (multiple voices) in music.
  2. Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony was originally dedicated to Napoleon; Beethoven angrily scratched out the dedication once he heard that Napoleon had crowned himself emperor.
  3. According to legend, Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude was composed as a tribute to the failed Polish 1831 November uprising.

Even just looking at these three “random” facts, we can see how much understanding of history you hold, if you comprehend their context and significance. Consider the first fact: if you know about the Pope Marcellus Mass, you must know about the Council of Trent, so you must know about the history of Catholicism in Europe. If you know about Beethoven’s “Eroica” symphony, you must know about Napoleon and his conquests of Europe, and conversely, you must know about the political events that led to his rise. If you know about Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude, then you must know about Poland’s history of uprising against Russia, and by extension, you must know about imperial Russia’s conquests. And if you become an expert in classical music history, you’ll definitely know more than three concrete facts (hopefully). The same is true for other niche histories, be it military history or economic history.

There is a story behind every one of these pieces of music, one that you need to understand in order to be an expert in an area; this story is history, and by virtue of history’s interconnectedness, it will open doors to different areas of history. If you’re obsessed with Greek mythology, that’ll provide an excellent avenue to introducing you to Greek political history (and since Greece was the birthplace of democracy, that’s quite important in the grand scheme of things). If you’re a computer science enthusiast, learn about computer science history; along the way, you’ll learn a huge amount about World War II and the Cold War, two immensely impactful events. So pick an area of history that you’re passionate about, learn everything you can about your domain, and you’ll be on your way to understanding history.