Are There Lessons to Be Drawn from the “Lessons of History”?

Abstract

Editor's note: having elected to step down as editor of the lessons of history series after three rewarding years, I asked the esteemed Canadian historian John English to close my editorial contribution to the series by reflecting on the essays that have appeared in volumes 64-66 of journal and to ask whether there are lessons to be learned from the lessons of history. I am deeply grateful to David Haglund and Joseph Jockei for the opportunity to be a part of the IJ family, to Andrew Preston for passing on to me an already wellestablished and flourishing series, and to Rima Bems-McGown for her managerial excellence.Adam ChapnickBarbara J. Falk, Learning from history: Why we need dissentand dissenters, International Journal 64, no. 1 (winter 2008-09): 243-53.Margaret Doxey, Reflections on the sanctions decade and beyond, International Journal 64, no. 2 (spring 2009): 539-49.Carol Lancaster, Sixty years of foreign aid: What have we learned? International Journal 64, no. 3 (summer 2009): 799-810.Christopher Spearin, Back to the future? International private security companies in Darfur and the Executive Outcomes example, International Journal 64, no. 4 (autumn 2009): 1095-1107.Christopher Sands, cold front: Lessons of the Alaska boundary dispute for Arctic boundaries today, International Journal 65, no. 1 (winter 2009-10): 209-19.Andrew Preston, deeper roots of faith and foreign policy, International Journal 65, no. 2 (spring 2010): 451-62.David Webster, Self-fulfilling prophesies and human rights in Canada's foreign policy: Lessons from East Timor, International Journal 65, no. 3 (summer 2010): 739-50.Joseph T. Jockei, Five lessons from the history of North American aerospace defence, International Journal 65, no. 4 (autumn 2010): 1013-23.John Hilliker, Middle power in perspective: the historical section in Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, International Journal 66, no. 1 (winter 2010-11): 183-95.David Bosco, Uncertain guardians: The UN security council's past and future, International Journal 66, no. 2 (spring 2011): 439-49.Christopher Pennington, conspiracy that never was: The surprising lessons of 1891, International Journal 66, no. 3 (summer 2011): 719-30.When the financial crisis struck in 2008, bankers and politicians, princes and paupers groped for explanation. Was the Lehman coUapse akin to the crash of 1929? Would there be another great depression? Two eminent economists, Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University and Carmen Reinhart of the Peterson Institute, gave the most convincing answer in their best-selling book, This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Beginning in feudal England and passing through the Dutch, Spanish, British, and American empires, Rogoff and Reinhart argued that history provided clear lessons for politicians and policymakers in the 21st century. We would, they predicted, see a rapid rise in the stock market, a period of lower growth, and a protracted real estate slump. Their analysis, first presented in an academic working paper in 2008, seemed extraordinarily prescient by 2011, and their book was translated into 13 languages and made avauable in various media. Their lessons of history paid off for those who foUowed their implicit advice to go long on stocks and short on housing in the terrifying faU and winter of 2008-09.Rivals for the public attention were two vintage accounts of the great depression by economists John Kenneth Galbraith and Charles Kindleberger. The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times scoured the world for perceptive analyses of whether this time was indeed different. Historians were surprisingly rare among the commentators with the notable exception of the ubiquitous Glaswegian and Harvard historian Niall Ferguson. Ferguson's strident opposition to the Obama budget and the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing, coupled with his vigorous support of neoconservative Republican Congressman Paul Ryan's drastic prescriptions for reform of social spending, elicited strong condemnation from Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, who argued that Ferguson had simply not bothered to understand the basics of economics. …