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Todo: An Outline of History · Mar 10, 11:53 PM

Reasoning without knowledge is an analogy without an object. Worse, it’s the inability to make or understand analogies. I would go on insightfully, but I cannot think of an engaging metaphor.

I’m reading Dante right now, but I don’t know what year his comedies were first published. I don’t know which world powers were waxing, which were waning. Heck, I don’t know which world powers were powers. And it’s not because I haven’t got round to Italy yet because American History or Classical Greece or Modern Asia have kept my rapt attention; it is ignorance. Frankly, I couldn’t tell you when the war of 1812 began.

My old friends put up with this nonsense; they’re good-natured people, but it’s got to be stopped, this deadening dearth of facts and understanding. Future reading will therefore be directed towards teaching me all the history I haven’t learned since I failed an AP history exam in high school.

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  1. Consider then Larry Gonick’s excellent Cartoon History of the Universe, vols 1-3. They are superb. — Dave    Mar 11, 03:00 AM    #

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