First, despite years of study, most adults are historically illiterate. Either they never learned basic history, or they swiftly forgot what they learned. If a world of historical ignorance is scary, you should be scared already, because that’s where we live. Second, humans’ ability to transfer knowledge from one domain to another—such as from history to policy—is poor. When Bush invaded Iraq, was he ignoring the lesson of the Vietnam War or heeding the lesson of the Korean War? So even if citizens knew the details of history, it is far from clear they’d fruitfully apply their knowledge.
