Can Anyting Good Come Out Of History

Can Anything Good Come Out of History? is a collection of fourteen Lectures and Papers on Nigerian History, spread over the years 1977 to 2013. Like his earlier book – History, The Historian and The Nation, The Voice of a Nigerian Historian, the burden of the lectures put together in this book is to demonstrate that History is not the useless discipline it is so often portrayed to be in our nation: that Nigeria and all her component entities, and the loyalties attached to them are products of History; that whether we realise it or not, it is History that provides that understanding of our country’s multifarious peoples and their cultures which is so crucial for peaceful co-existence. We need the knowledge which only History can provide to enable us overcome ethnic prejudice and arrogance, as well as enable us promote an attitude of “live and let live.” History may not prepare those who study it for a specific profession, perhaps that is why our nation has, for so many years, neglected the promotion of the study of Nigerian History, as well as the history of other lands. Through the Lectures and Papers put together in this book, the author makes bold to declare – like another historian had done years back – that History, more than virtually every other subject, provides the knowledge for effective participation in the most crucial profession of all – that profession in which we all must be involved – THE PROFESSION OF CITIZENSHIP. That is the value of this collection of Lectures and Papers on Nigerian History which is in your hands. Read, ponder over what you read, and then proceed to answer the question which constitutes the main title of the book, namely, Can Anything Good Come Out of History?