Everyone who studies world history has been witness to something of the broad contours of the human journey, or at least a part of it. That remarkable field of study involves selectively describing major changes, making frequent comparisons, noticing connections among distant peoples, and explaining, as best we can and amid much controversy, why things turned out as they did. But world history provides endless raw material for yet another kind of inquiry, that of pondering or musing, turning over in our minds again and again, those fundamentally human and personal questions for which definitive answers are elusive.

Consider, for example, the issue of suffering and compassion. History is, among other things, a veritable catalog of the varieties of human suffering. It provides ample evidence, should we need it, that suffering is a common and bedrock human experience . . . and none of us is exempt. But it also highlights the extent to which that suffering has derived from our own actions in the shape of war, racism, patriarchy, exploitation, inequality, oppression, and neglect. Is it possible that some exposure to the staggering sum of human suffering revealed in the historical record can soften our hearts, fostering compassion for our own suffering and for that of others? Might the study of history generate kindness, expressed at the level of day-to-day personal interactions and at the wider level of acting to repair the brokenness of the world?

A related issue is that of hope, so important for our posture toward both the world and our individual lives. Does history offer a basis for a hopeful outlook? Based on the recent past, it would not be difficult to make a case for despair. The deterioration of environment and the availability of immensely destructive nuclear weapons suggest at least the possibility of a sorry outcome for the human experiment on this planet. The difficulty of achieving agreement about effective remedies for major issues, both within and among nations, only adds to the prospect of an unhappy future.

And yet, individuals and societies have often hovered on the knife-edge of possibility and disaster. But we have survived and even flourished as a species, and civilization has proven resilient in the face of catastrophes such as the Black Death and world wars. Furthermore, things have changed, sometimes for the better, and frequently people have changed things. Abolitionists contributed to the ending of slavery. Colonized peoples broke free of empire. Women secured the vote and defied patriarchy. Socialists and communists challenged the inequities of capitalism, while popular protest brought repressive communist regimes to their knees in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The wonders of modern science and technology have demonstrably improved the lives of billions of people. Thus the historical record offers a wealth of material for pondering the issue of hope.

Yet another question deals with our response to “otherness.” We are, most of us, inclined to be insular, to regard our own ways as the norm, to be fearful of difference. Nor is this tendency largely our own fault. We all have limited experience. Few of us have had much personal encounter with cultures beyond our own, and none of us, of course, knows personally what life was like before we were born. But we do know that a rich and mature life involves opening up to a wider world, and we can be assured that the twenty-first century will demand that we do so. If we base our understanding of life only on what we personally experience, we render ourselves both impoverished and ineffective.

In this task of opening up, history in general and world history in particular have much to offer. They provide a marvelous window into the unfamiliar. They confront us with the whole panorama of human achievement, tragedy, and sensibility. They give context and perspective to our own limited experience. They allow us some modest entry into the lives of people far removed from us in time and place. And they offer us company for the journey of our own lives. Pondering the global past with a receptive heart and an open mind can assist us in enlarging and deepening our sense of self. In exposing us to the wider experience of “all under heaven,” as the Chinese put it, world history can aid us in becoming wiser and more mature persons. That is among the many gifts, sometimes painful but always enriching, that the study of history offers to us all.