History and culture

History and culture

History and culture are what define a community and how it came to exist. Michel de Montaigne, in writing the chapters of his essays, he focuses on writing about the history and culture of communities. From the New World, Montaigne says that he was very determined to know the indigenous cultures of the New World, and again he was interested and had the desire to know more about himself. Through this, we can conclude that the role of history and culture is to help people have knowledge about their past and understand how they came to be.

When people are curious about how their community came to adopt certain cultures, they might go back and investigate what happened in the past. This is digging back on history to gather facts or theories that might satisfy our curiosity about things. On the other hand, Of Cannibals is another chapter of Montaigne essays that talks about history and culture. He says that if one decides to find any information about the history of a specific culture, then one must make conclusions basing on evidence rather than a common report.

The essays of Montaigne are closely related to Augustine’s confessions since each chapter highlights the experience that Montaigne had while trying to understand some facts about the past. On the other hand Augustine’s confessions are about his spiritual growth. Both writings are based on personal experiences that happened in the past, only that Montaigne focuses less on his story compared to Augustine.