The main benefit of the study of history is to dispel the illusion that people living now are significantly different from people who lived in earlier times.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement

I can't fully agree with this statement. The author provides an idea that people don't change at all, that historical events, development of the society and changes in lifestyle don't have any influence on our psychology. To my mind, it is not true. Every person is a child of his or her epoch. Time has a big influense on us. I am not sure that I would find a common ground with 19th, or 18th century men if I had such an opportunity. We are really very different.

When I studied at the university, I had a course of history, and I also studied the history of Russian literature. I am providing the example of literature studies, because I was taught to examine a book in a close connection with the time when it was written. It is the only way to understand it. One should always remember that a writer had his own views and circumstances, he lived in other time with other values and rules. For these reasons it is so boring sometimes to read old books. They may seem old-fashioned and innatural to a modern reader. The point is that they were quite appropriate for the writer's contemporaries.

On the other hand, of course, there are spiritual values and views which don't change during historical movement. A lot of things which were considered bad, remain bad in our estimation. The same situation is with good qualities of the mankind. If we examine the aforementioned statement from this point, we will find it quite reasonable, because our attitude to some things is still the same. We still think that love, friendship, patriotism, generousity, etc. are good qualities. And we still don't like angry, greedy, violent people, for example.

Nevertheless, to my mind, it is rather superficial to say that people living now are not significantly different from people who lived in earlier times. That is why I can't completely agree with the statement.