Contribution of History to the Understanding of Cultures and Civilizations(مقاله علمی وزارت علوم)
Man's past condition is related to his present life and history means surveying the quality of the past activities whose traces remain in the present time. The main field of historical research is man's past life, the stages which have been put behind in the process of evolution and changes as well as progresses made in these stages. History is a means to provide human beings with a complete insight into the events under study. Also another subject matter of history is discovering the common relations between the events, but the reconstruction of common relations is an essential part of this subject. History revives the forgotten events and by studying the cultural legacies we come to know about human past. History cannot properly play its cultural role in the form of event recording and mentioning wars and successes and only through philosophical perspective and understanding of causal relations it is possible to achieve historical goals. History is a science that studies human in the course of its evolution. And with developing connection and understanding of the causal relations of events it works with whys and states of events and by reconstructing the past cultural legacy, shows what had gone upon past inhabitants. Culture and civilization and its course in the human history is the best presentation of human development and progress and is the truest part of human history in whose course of development all members of the society take part. In the light of the above, the present article is an attempt to cast a quick look at the contribution of history to the understanding of cultures and civilizations.
