“Those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it”

Historical illiteracy has more than one detrimental effect.

In writing that, George Santayana was, I think, right. He missed something key, though.

Unlike the ancients, we are wont to think of history only as a catalogue of what not to dos, rather than also a manual for dealing well with the ambiguities and uncertainties of the age and managing historical unknowns and constraints.

Ignorance of history leads the th…