Answering the Why

I have never thought of history in a way that did not involve the connections that exists between all of the various fields of study. I have always felt that everything that falls into the scope of human interaction, as well as everything that has had some form of interaction on humanity, i.e. weather, plant and animal life, and landform changes, needs to be studied and understood in a historical manner. Manning does an excellent job in describing these interactions and the need to connect history to other disciplines. When it comes to being able to study history, I think we can all agree that a historical record of facts and figures, names and places, and who died when is not easy to study. A historical record that connects population movement and growth to the ecological record of an area , while it includes the who, what, when and where is much more beneficial because it helps answer the all important why.