Is history trying to tell us something, and if so, what?

Asks Chris Clark in his own piece on the lessons from 1914 and on learning from history in general. Great piece. I am tempted to steal this para as a description of what this blog does: 

'It remains important that we challenge manipulative or reductive readings of the past when these are mobilised in support of present-day political objectives. The recourse to history is most enlightening when we understand our conversations about the past are as open-ended as our reflections on the present should be. History is still "the great instructor of public life", as Cicero said. Being blind to the future, we have no other. But it is an eccentric educator.'