Does history happen to repeat itself over time?
Great question, and I could go on for pages answering it. But you don’t want to read pages, so I’ll be more succinct in outlining my opinion. Ultimately, history is made by people, and people are basically the same, whether they are white or black, Asian or Australian, living in A.D. 2005 or living in 2005 B.C. This being the case, it should not be surprising that we should see the same basic responses to events over and over. Let’s take a classic example. Throughout history, the same basic type of person has tended to rise to positions of leadership: confident to the point of arrogance, aggressive, usually male, shrewd, etc. This was true in 1800, when Napoleon rose to power, and it was true in 1935, when Hitler rose to power. Both of these men could not accomplish their ambition–to rule all of Europe–without conquering Russia. Both were shrewd enough to see this was the case, but also arrogant enough to overlook the fact that conquering an area as large as Russia is an enormous tas
