Someone once said that the only thing we learn from the past is that we don’t learn anything from the past. The wisdom inherent in this statement is that history (and historians) don’t have any particular power and the people that are in the driving seat are often people that are inimical to the past.
The past doesn’t provide us with solutions to contemporary problems. It provides us with insight, context, and perspective but solutions are developed when we need them. The problem is that every generation thinks that they are facing the greatest challenges ever faced by any generation. This is the problem, not the solution.
