Historical Context

Politics and history are inextricably linked. In a simple sense, politics is the history of the present while history is the politics of the past. An understanding of history therefore has two benefits for students of politics. First, the past, and especially the recent past, helps us to make sense of the present, by providing it with a necessary context or background. Second, history can provide insight into present circumstances (and perhaps even guidance for political leaders), insofar as the events of the past resemble those of the present. History, in that sense, ‘teaches lessons’. In the aftermath of 9/11, President George W. Bush thus justified the ‘war on terror’ in part by pointing to the failure of the policy of ‘appeasement’ in the 1930s to halt Nazi expansionism. The notion of ‘lessons of history’ is a debatable one, however; not least because history itself is always a debate. What happened, and why it happened, can never be resolved with scientific accuracy. History is always, to some extent, understood through the lens of the present, as modern concerns, understandings and attitudes help us to ‘invent’ the past. And it is also worth remembering Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai), then Premier of the People’s Republic of China, who replied, when asked in the 1960s about the lessons of the 1789 French Revolution, that ‘it is too early to say’. Nevertheless, the modern world makes little sense without some understanding of the momentous events that have shaped world history, particularly since the advent of the twentieth century.