The study of history may be fascinating. It may even be a nobling, but does it do any good?

Can history tell us how we need to conduct ourselves today?

Five more questions for historian Stephen Kotkin. Uncommon knowledge now.

Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge. I'm Peter Robinson. Stephen Kotkin grew up in New York City,

received his undergraduate degree from the University of Rochester and his doctorate from

the University of California at Berkeley, and then taught history for more than three decades

at Princeton. Professor Kotkin is the author of Nine Works of History, including the first two volumes

of his biography of Joseph Stalin, paradoxes of power 1878 to 1928, and waiting for Hitler

1929 to 1941. Professor Kotkin is now completing his third and final volume, Stalin,

totalitarian superpower. Last year Stephen Kotkin left Princeton to become a full-time fellow here

at the Hoover Institution, which among its many other benefits for your friends and admirers is

that it should make scheduling these interviews much easier. Stephen, welcome. Five questions.

Thank you. It's great to be back, and it's great to be here full-time.

Yeah, good. The war in Ukraine. A lesson of history as this layman understands it,

and then a few quotations. I'm going to take a moment or two to set this up and then just step back.

So here's the lesson of history. We saw it in the first world war and we saw it in the second

world war, unless the United States intervenes on behalf of democracy and peace in Europe.

Europe is a mess, and we'll drag us in sooner or later anyway. That's the lesson of history.

Okay. Here's a quotation. Senator Rand Paul can tuck you on the new $45 billion aid package

enacted at the end of last year. This is the second spending bill for Ukraine in two months.

Our total aid to Ukraine will almost equal the entire military budget of Russia, and it's not

as if we have money lying around, close quote. Senator J.T. Vance of Ohio. I'm sick of Joe Biden

...