Why Study History?

I teach 10th and 11th grade history, but as a bit of an afterthought. When I applied to this school to teach, my goal was to teach theology, but history (and literature) came with the package. It's the subject I am the least enthusiastic about. Before today, I suppose the reason I would give you if you were to ask me why we ought to study history is so that we know ourselves. I find myself in this American context, and I am partially shaped by my environment, so I ought to know how I got here, and this should clue me in as to where I ought to go and how to get there. 

After a small conference I attended today hosted by Hillsdale, the thinking became a bit clearer for me. History, the speakers said, is a study of particulars. The reason we study history is because when we teach history, we are presenting an argument. It's not just a narrative. And what history does is something like provide precedents, or minor premises. So for example, if I suffer from a corrupt government, I would naturally want to know how to solve this problem. And the way we can go about this is seeing how people in the past dealt with tyrannical governments, and how they fared. I am appealing to precedents in that case. Suppose I am talking with a friend about how to deal with a tyrannical government that we are living in, and I say "Guillotine" and he says "Tar and feather" both of these have been used in the past and knowledge of history can guide us on the way forward, and this is done through argumentation. 

History also often finds itself revolving around politics. History is studied to deal with some problem in politics. And politics is studied to learn how to become a virtuous person. Statecraft as soul craft and all that. In Machiavelli's Prince, history is used in this way, even if a bit perverted in that case. In this case, history should also be narrated, I think, as a moral drama. For example, Theodosius murders millions of innocent people. Roman emperors are not to be defied. Bishop Ambrose is responsible for the souls in that area. What is he to do? Resist and be beheaded? It's a dramatic scenario. And history can be told in that way.