How does history repeat itself?

Question

Im writing a paper on the cynical nature of history, and I was wondering what major events have taken place throughout history that show how history repeats itself. thanks

Answer 1

History is not perfectly circular and it doesn't perfectly repeat itself, otherwise Adolf Hilter would continually rise from the dead, take over Germany, and start World War II.

The phrase "history repeats itself" and "those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it" relates to specific events. Certian events from one era can be compared to as similar to the events of the past, such as the similarities between the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust. One dominant society ( Turks, 1915 and Germans, 1933-1945) deliberately murdered innocent victims who were largely supportive of the government or saw themselves as either Turkish or German (Armenians, 1915 and Jews, Gays, Any left-leaning political activist, Roma, and Slavs 1933-1944) and the fact that these events were largely ignored by the rest of the world. And that the ignorance allowed Hitler to carry out the Holocaust, essentially repeating the events of 1915.

You should also be careful as not all historical events mirror each other very closely and might even only have tangent similarities. You should also be careful as arguments of history repeating itself is where politics begins to mix with history and many times, politicians of both left AND right get history wrong in order to suit their political arguments.

Answer 2

It depends on what we are looking at for evidence. The bottom line is, sort of, whatever it is we want to find, we will find. For example, is history repeating itself when Germany is involved in attacking France in both World War I and World War II? Or what about Napoleon losing in Russia due to the winter and Hitler doing the exact same thing? It looks like it.

But then again, in WW I Germany was unsuccessful in attacking France but successful in WW II? It's different. France never again attacks Russia in winter and neither has Germany, so is that different?

The bottom line is, the only thing we learn from history is that we never learn anything from history.

Answer 3

human nature, when people become ignorant, they are doomed to repeat the mistakes they have made no matter how bad to worse it may seem.

a good saying is: history is made so we learn from our mistakes and are not doomed to repeat them...yet evil exists because good people do nothing and let it happen anyway.

Answer 4

in the XX and XXI centuries up to now, because Russia was and remains an evil empire.