Why study history? Ironically, this question is as old as history.

Twenty-five hundred years ago,

Thucydides, the great chronicler of the Peloponnesian Wars between Athens and Sparta,

and the man, many call the first historian, said that

I have written my work not to win the applause of the moment,

but as a possession for all time.

Thucydides hoped that what he was writing would help future generations

understand what transpired in his day.

If they could learn from it and make better decisions,

his efforts would not be in vain.

More than two millennia later, the American social thinker,

George Santajana, said much the same thing.

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

But while knowledge of the past is a prerequisite to wisdom,

it doesn't give the historian a crystal ball.

We must be modest in our claim.

Studying history provides an invaluable guide,

but only a guide to current and future political,

economic, military, and cultural challenges.

Just as it is dangerous to be ignorant of past events,

so too is equally risky to assume that history across time and space

will repeat itself in exactly the same fashion.

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