Answers to the question about the lessons of history generally oscillate between two extremes. One is summed up in the 1905 aphorism of the Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The other is the famous opening to the English novelist L.P. Hartley’s The Go-Between (1953): “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
Can we draw direct lessons from history, or was the past so different as to tell us little about current challenges and their solutions? Most commonly, historians assert the uniqueness of past events while insisting that an historical perspective – evidence-based, thorough, sceptical, holistic – results in richer cultural awareness and wiser public policy.
