What History Doesn't Teach Us

As the centennial of WWI draws closer, I wonder why bother with documenting history, at lease history of wars. Great scholars dissect every political and military decision made that caused war, how the battles were fought, and how it ended.  Over man's existence we've gathered great volumes of data, but we learn nothing from it.

History has proven numerous times that one society can not rule the world. Some have conquered vast quantities of land as well as the residing population, but in the end they fail to keep it. Yet, through out history a person rises to power, convinces himself along with his followers, that he can lead them to victory over those that oppose him.

Kaiser  Wilhelm, thought that he could take over Europe, convinced his people that he could, in the end he fell from power, left millions of his citizens dead, destroyed their economy, all on a belief that he could succeed where all others had failed.

I often wonder why would people follow someone like that? What a great salesman! Would you follow someone that said they can go to war, defeat other countries, knowing that history demonstrates it will cost the lives of millions of people - sons and daughters, bankrupt the country, but ignore all that and say Hell yes, lets do it. Then twenty years later fall for the same shell game.

At times I think aggression is part of man's makeup, why else would he continue to do the same thing over and over. Perhaps it is a way to control population growth. Without war to thin out the population, think of how many millions or billions of people would be on this earth.

I've said my piece