This is a loaded question.  I spent an entire class last semester discussing this question and I still have yet to come to a conclusion.  I had one professor, who was rather nihilistic, describe it as useless, but fun.  Sometimes I have a hard time disagreeing.  I think Churchill said something along the lines of, “Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it”  The more I look at the world the more I think that history repeats itself, whether we know it or not.