A joke about baseball umpires captures the ways we read history. At the umpires’ convention, a lifetime achievement award is presented to a venerable umpire who refereed the 1947 World Series. Accepting the award, the elderly umpire addressed the audience: “I call it like it is.” The crowd cheered wildly. The presiding umpire thanked him but added, “I call it like I see it.” Again, the crowd howled and cheered. After he spoke, the rookie umpire of the year addressed the gathering and, with deference to his senior colleagues, declared, “It’s nothing until I call it.”

This joke reminds us that the present shapes the ways we ask questions about the past. Understanding of the past also shapes our questions about the present and the future. Our history of world societies shows that the forces that shape the world we live in have deep roots: Globalization reaches back for centuries. Current armed conflicts are based on historic tensions often rooted in ethnic differences or legacies of colonialism. The gaps between rich and poor countries, and between the rich and poor within countries, have sometimes been diminished by advances in science and technology or by reforms in social policy. But science, technology, and public policy also deepen those inequalities, as uneven industrialization and the digital divide reflect.

We find these competing tensions throughout history, and we find them often recurring over time and place: our relationship with the past is one of continuity and change. The study of history allows us to frame questions about complex, competing, and often-contradictory experiences. Asking these questions sharpens our focus on not only the past but also the present. We are shaped by history. But we also make it.