Can we learn from history?

[DMB]

What do we even mean by "history"?

Is it ever possible to understand a time you didn't live through (or even one you did)?

Does history have any lessons for us in deciding what actions to take now -- or are supposed parallels too misleading?

Time allowed: 2 1/2 hours. Write on one side of the paper only.

[Zygote]

If we can begin to understand the human characteristics and miscalculations that let to previous (negative) results, we can temper our expectations, if not the effects, of current leaders and their decisions.

When drawing parallels, as with any metaphor, one must be aware of where the differences and similarities lie. Awareness is a rarer commodity than we would all like to believe.

[DMB]

I think part of the trouble is that our knowledge of any past set of events is very limited and superficial but so is our knowledge of what's going one now (to say nothing of our self-knowledge). We may know (or think we know) facts A.....K about a past event. But how can we determine what the crucial events were and whether they are among our list?