Teaching, Not Preaching, Moderation

History offers an abundance of information about how people and societies behave. An exclusive reliance on current data would needlessly handicap efforts to understand the world.
History provides a terrain for moral contemplation. Studying past individuals’ stories and situations allows one to test his or her own moral sense.
History teaches by example. Historians seek to educate others so that people today can learn from the mistakes and successes of yesterday.
Inevitably, authors’ biases influence what they communicate. Like all teachers, they only present the information that they believe is important from a greater, broader truth. In addition to selective omission, emphasis of particular information strengthens its perceived importance and thus shapes the reader’s understanding of the truth. This is the art of presentation and persuasion. This is rhetoric. It has the ability to lead the minds of audiences to particular beliefs and actions. Rhetoric is Dionysius’ most ...