Why history is a lot more interesting than I thought

I read something new at Faith and Theology here . Since Dr. Myers and Archbishop Rowan Williams and the famous historian Quentin Skinner all say this, there probably is something true in it. What they say is that we should not judge history from today's perspective. Like separating bran from wheat. This is because doing so would mean that we claim to have the ultimate clarity in knowing things - which certainly isn't true. So what we can gain from history is to try and see how it was that people at that time could hold something we absolutely hate or absolutely take for granted as true today.

Only by sympathetically getting into the "epistemic rationality" of that day can we learn from history.