As a student for the past seven years, I have looked to history as a way of understanding the dynamics of the complex society in which I live. Through the study of history, I have been able to trace the development over time of the class structure, racist assumptions, and misogynist character of the world around me. I have also been able to trace the development of parallel movements of resistance, through the study of black history, labor history, and women's history. The historical viewpoint has guided me each step of the way, providing me with the important insight that human social arrangements are not static or natural, but are the products of particular times and places, subject to change, in fact bound to change. Thus history has been for me a tool, a way of illuminating the present through the social processes of the past; an inspiration, a source of encouraging stories of survival and resistance; and a point of view, a way of looking at reality as socially constructed and changeable, rather than fixed.