War and Peace Lesson Plan

In Book 3, Part 2, Chapter 7 Tolstoy portrays how historians both bend facts to match their interpretation, as well as impose a narrative of inevitability to history by highlighting some events and ignoring countless others that don't fit into their narrative. He writes:

"A good chess-player having lost a game is sincerely convinced that his loss resulted from a mistake he made, and looks for that mistake in the opening, but forgets that at each stage of the game there were similar mistakes and that none of his moves were perfect."

What do you think of Tolstoy's critique of history? Given these challenges, do you think there is still value in studying history? What is it? What is...