Does history repeat itself?

Answer 1

That's how the saying goes, and I think it is evident in everyday life. Not just global and military history. Like many children grow up to be in the same financial class as there parents, and make the same mistakes, or successes.

Answer 2

It isn't possible in the literal sense, since conditions change so much between different moments in history. Human minds have developed to see sameness where there are in fact many differences.

Still, in the broader and more figurative sense, the idea that history repeats itself is important. By looking back through history and seeing how individuals and societies reacted to various events, we can get an idea of how people will act in similar circumstances in the present. History is also an important component of how a given society sees itself, and for that reason can also influence how that society responds to a given happening.

The problem with historical work is that it tends to present moments in history as if large groups of people have a unitary mind, and as if there is a clear causal chain - x led to y which led to z. This is a gross oversimplification that has helped lead some to believe that history really does repeat itself, in the more literal sense. A quick look at the world around us, and the widely diverging views and experiences which characterize individuals within a nation at any moment in history, is enough to prove that we have to take all historical narratives with reservations, and must be careful of drawing overly broad conclusions on the basis of the same.

Answer 3

More no than yes - everything (99.99%) of things that happen, are said, are done, etc occur more than once,

but they do NOT happen to the same person in the same way,
there is NOT a situation requiring each subsequent relationship to also go bad,

his name won't be Julius Ceasar, Napoleon Bonaparte or Adolf Hitler next time and he will look, behave & think very differently,

and things do not happen in the same order again (a b c d e f a b c d e f), and they do not happen at regular intervals (excpet for sun/moon/planets related events), and so the only reason things happen more than once is that there is not an infinite amount of things that can happen.

Answer 4

Yeah, how can something different happen every single day for thousands of years, plus we all go through the daily routine of getting up, washing, having breakfats, going to work etc it's just the stuff inbetween that's different like one morning you could wake up next to someone the next not because during that day you may have broken up....
so history repeats it's self but it's the extras that change

Answer 5

All the time. If Hitler had taken on Britain first and Russia second, Germany might have won WWII. This was exactly the same mistake that Napoleon made.
History is about those with power abusing those with less power. So it repeats itself all the time. Only the names are changed.

Answer 6

Yes, it does. It was said that ww1 was the war to end all wars. But there are still wars. We never learn.

Disagreements should be settled over a game of Kerplunk.

Note, it always seems that it is the politicians that start wars, but you never see them fight them. Funny that. It also seems that it was the loosing side that provoked it.

Answer 7

in some cases yes it can but in some no, yes because like deal or no deal a women won 250 grand and the women after could of but she blew it it was the same game but she blew it and she could of won 250 grand

Answer 8

Sadly yes, because we humans aren't smart enough to learn rom what went on the first time around.

Answer 9

Yes, first as tragedy, then as farce. Look at the two Bushes...

Answer 10

Only if you find the subject hard to swallow!