History and now

I ran across an interesting link while searching for
history web sites. This was a question posed to a
dozen historians on the historical parallels between
pre-war Europe in 1939 and the Suez canal crises of
1959.

This is the nice thing about history and the
discipline of history. It is a discipline and there is
a training in research and analysis that is bred as
one travels the academic route. There are currents to
historical study and insight and once in a while a
historian shakes free of the dead wood of past thought
and historiography to introduce a new paradigm.

http://hnn.us/comments/8816.html has this discussion
though now stale as far as current events go, it does
introduce a uniquely historiographers approach to the
past and modern times. We hear that this phrase: "if
you do not know the history you are doomed to repeat
it". These men and women didn't truck much with this
concept and they are correct. One cannot duplicate
exact situations from one era onto another for the
variables are always different. Although taking the
strict approaches to this comparison, the lessons are
not totally tied to their time frames.

The lessons of appeasement, of containment, of
mollification and so forth have been learned. The test
now and in the future is how to apply those lessons to
every new circumstance that comes our way. This is
what history and historians are good for, for the
analysis of the past and the interpretation of the
motives and the atmosphere in which decisions where
made. Unfortunately, most will never know the
difference for the voices of historians are mostly to
one another. Historians write monographs that are read
by other historians and they then attack or defend one
another based upon their stature and their expertise.
Few will be swayed by the analysis that is never put
before them.

I don't agree with all of their interpretations, but
that is what historiography is for.