I’m on a text chain with my 3 brothers and all our sons. All of us are liberal arts majors, mostly history. I dare say we Smiths are a bit contrarian. It’s our knowledge of history and learning the ...

The Scottish poet, novelist, and historian Andrew Lang once quipped that politicians use statistics the way a drunkard uses a lamppost: “for support rather than illumination.” Indeed, the same line ...

Answers to the question about the lessons of history generally oscillate between two extremes. One is summed up in the 1905 aphorism of the Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana: “Those who ...

We can’t change history, but we can learn from it. As a rule, professional historians are loath to draw explicit lessons from the past. We leave that to popularizers and to figures like Lord Acton or ...

Like the super-majority of Americans, I'm directly related to a family of immigrants. As is true for so many millions of my fellow Americans, what motivated my grandparents to leave their native ...

Earlier this month, I compared Joe Biden to John F. Kennedy, who salvaged his image after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 by admitting his mistake — and learning from it. I acknowledged that ...

Kabul is Saigon 1975. No, the Taliban are like the Khmer Rouge and we are in Phnom Penh (still 1975). No, it’s Iran 1979 all over again. Biden is the new Jimmy Carter. No, he is the new Lyndon Johnson ...

Re: “ICE officer kills driver in Minneapolis, inciting turmoil” (Jan. 8, A1): As national tensions rise over federal enforcement and local resistance, it’s worth remembering that our country has faced ...

I’m on a text chain with my 3 brothers and all our sons. All of us are liberal arts majors, mostly history. I dare say we Smiths are a bit contrarian. It’s our knowledge of history and learning the ...