History in International Relations

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"Those who do not know the past," said George Santayana, in a line endlessly quoted, "are condemned to repeat it." The unspoken corollary of Santayana's statement is that if we do know the past, we may be able to avoid repeating it; in particular, we may be able to avoid the mistakes and misfortunes of the past. In almost no realm of human endeavor is the concern to learn from past mistakes greater than in that of international relations. In international relations the price of mistakes is war, and since the beginning of the twentieth century war has cost several tens of millions of human lives, with perhaps as many more lives snuffed out by totalitarian governments whose rise to power was arguably the consequence of war.
In a nuclear age the potential price of mistakes is greater still; through most of the Cold War era, policymakers, diplomats.."

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