ABSTRACT
“Those who cannot remember the past,” wrote philosopher George Santayana in The Life of Reason—a line quoted threateningly by history teachers the world over—“are condemned to repeat it.” But some might argue, a related point is also true: Those who can remember the past will see it repeating over and over again. The truth of this dictum is reinforced almost daily. Within hours of any important social or political event, particularly in our hand-held electronically-wired, media-saturated age, a plethora of competing historical analogies will be offered in the way of explanation by historians and journalists, amateur and professional, in newspaper editorials, across the airwaves, or on the Internet.
