Do you think people who have an interest in history are weird?

[cowcommander]

It's hard to meet people who care about it at all. Is it really that abnormal to find people who like learning about the past?

[Bucky]

1. I'm a history teacher. I don't think... I KNOW we're abnormal.

The problem is the means of interaction. I like reading about past societies. History is a fun thing to listen to. It's a fun thing to argue about. I don't know if you can have a simple conversation about history. It's more fun to do history than talk about it, however. Dressing up for the local Dickens festival or going on an archeological dig with a local historical society can be a real eye opener.

[bif]

2. I have a BA in History.

I don't consider myself weird. Not too weird, anyway.

[av8rdave]

3. Nope.

[Tikki]

4. Our son is a History Major...

We couldn't be prouder.


The Tikkis

[Lex]

5. I think people who DON'T have an interest in history are weird.

nt

[MiddleFingerMom]

6. I used to think they were weird...

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...but that's all in the past now.
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[IcyPeas]

7. quite the contrary --

people that remember all that stuff amaze me - there's just so much of it!

[InvisibleTouch]

8. Not at all...

...though my interest in history tends to go much farther back than most. Get too close to the dreary present-day, and I'm not so fascinated anymore. Doesn't mean that it's weird, though.

[Lex87]

9. love of history

I don't think that the people who study or are interesting in history are abnormal at all. They probably just think a little more deeply about things and aren't caught up in the latest celebrity gossip or other irrelevant stuff. If you're interested in history I wouldn't beat yourself up about it. It's cool. Sometimes its fun to study what has gone on locally in the past, like with http://www.localtastesofthecitytours.com ~ san francisco tours. It's interesting just to walk around your city and discover the history that went before.

[rug]

10. I'd need to know their background.

[bluedigger]

11. It's not that I don't care...

there just isn't any future in it.

(I'm an archaeologist - and yes, we are all weird.)

[WinkyDink]

12. Given I love it....... YES, INDEED!

[Lionel Mandrake]

13. There are two kinds of people:

1. those you know are weird, and
2. those you don't know very well.

An interest in history does not imply weirdness, but it helps. ;-)

[Old Troop]

14. I think that's true although it's mostly because we teach history in

a dry, uninteresting manner in our schools. I have the fantastic fortune to sit next to two knowledgeable history buffs at work. We spend more time than we should discussing (and arguing about)World Wars One and Two. We share books and alert each other about papers that have recently been published. The funny thing is that our co-workers have started asking to borrow the books we discuss and have started to join the conversation.

[baldguy]

15. It's just because Americans have a general distrust of education.

Not just history.

[elleng]

16. No, they're interesting. Makes friendship with them worthwhile.

[neverforget]

17. I'm weird anyway

but I love history.

[applegrove]

18. Everyone in my family likes history. Why don't you hang out in the history/cultural history

section of your local second hand book store and see who you meet. You could also join a history forum online.

[pscot]

19. The older I get

the more essential a knowledge of the past seems to be. It's like have an extended memory that reaches back thousands of years. Our understanding of the past is deeper than 'that of any preceding generation. It's a marvelous gift.

[AsahinaKimi]

20. I love reading about history

Especially in regards to Asian culture.

[sarge43]

21. Maybe, but not as weird as the people who don't.

My husband once mentioned to a co-worker that I had an interest in history. He said that he told her I knew all about things like the Norman Conquest. Co-worker looked thoughtful for a couple of beats, then said, "I know a guy called Norman."

(This place needs a face palm icon)

[eyepaddle]

22. Not in the least,

but as a history buff myself I know exactly what you are talking about.

[BreweryYardRat]

23. Speaking as one of those people...it's the rest of society that's weird. n/t

[hayu_lol]

24. Probably the most interesting history...

is that of China and Japan because they go back so far and have carefully recorded so much of it.

Both countries continue to use their history in both the present and plans for the future.

Western world, not so much, but then our history is much more recent.

[Lucinda]

25. Absolutely.

I love history and am a total weirdo.

[Withywindle]

26. Non-fiction history books are my favorite thing to read.

SF/F fiction a close second.


For the past few years, I've had a fascination with the medieval Islamic world and the Mongol Empire. So I have a ton of books about that. But lately, I've been working on a novel that's set circa 1610 and has a lot to do with the earliest Virginia colonies and has backstory going into Algonquian North Carolina, Elizabethan/Jacobean England, Renaissance alchemy/occultism, and 16th-century Atlantic piracy and naval warfare, so I'm pretty obsessive about that right now.

But I'll happily read about any period, any place. I just love imagining other times and places as vividly as possible and thinking about how to relate it to issues in our present. I don't have a TARDIS, but books are the next best thing.


I...honestly don't know how to relate to people who have no interest in history. At all. All my friends have SOME sense of historical context and some nerdery about something related to it somehow, whether it's interest in 1930s blues or 19th-century French poetry or WWII military strategy or medieval food or classical music or traditional knitting techniques of Eastern Europe or....Something. Something that indicates they're very well aware that the world existed long before they were born.