I still find it surprising how many people have no idea of what history actually is.

OK, what is it?

I've heard historians describe their work as "telling stories about the past," and I think that's apt. History isn't something you learn, it's something you do. (Which is one of the main problems with how it is taught in schools, but when kinds are expected to know certain facts for their standardized tests and a teacher is expected to cover all of civilization in a school year, what can you do.) You can learn all the facts and dates that you like, but that's not history, that's just the context. As a social/cultural historian, I am interested in using my sources the make observations about how people experienced historical events�especially if these experiences differ between, for example, men and women. For political or economic historians, I imagine the subject matter is different but the process is much the same.

"History isn't something you learn, it's something you do....You can learn all the facts and dates that you like, but that's not history, that's just the context...."

Sounds like the word "history" means several different things and people are using it in different ways. "[W]hat history actually is" makes it sound like there's only one meaning.

In the column I make a swipe at articulating a spectrum of realms, from ones where learning facts is most imperative to ones where practicing a skill is most imperative:

"Now that I think about it, [the way I have to learn programming] also sounds like an excellent way to learn history. But you need a certain base level of knowledge [even] to apply such rigorous critical thinking to the arguments in history books. We only learn skills -- singing, cooking, coding -- with this kind of practice."

I'm not making a comment about your column, I didn't even read it. I'm just responding to the idea that history is "learning facts" which I guess--to some people it is. That is the impression I got from the excerpt you posted. Many people think of history as a series of dates and names, thus, they have an incorrect idea of what historians do.

Even in the excerpt I posted, I didn't slag off history as just dates/names; I said "a bunch of facts and ideas to learn and rearrange in one's head and synthesize into models of how the world works." And the last bit there actually aligns substantially with one of your suggested descriptions, "telling stories about the past." But I get tired of my own multiple-meaning-words/metaphor/analogy/semantic quibbles even as I write them. Here I am inclined to be a lumper, not a splitter.

I'd suggest reading a book on historiography (because I obviously didn't explain it well) but I know you have about as much spare time as I do!