I’ve never really had all that much interest in history or the study of it. I’ve just not felt the need to re-live what’s already happened. I’m slowly beginning to change my opinions regarding this matter. I recently started reading William Tecumseh Sherman’s memoir. It’s been very illuminating. What’s been so surprising (or maybe not so much) is how similar some of the situations Sherman faced and lived through, economically and politically, are to the what we’re facing today.
Economically, he was faced with runs on banks on the east and west coast. He saw the gold rush of ’49 – ’52 and the huge inflation it caused. He saw speculation in real-estate, it’s ensuing boom and the inevitable bust. He dealt with men who borrowed beyond their worth to speculate. He mentions of people who faced little-to-no penalty for skipping on their debt and people who did their best to honor their debt go insolvent.
Politically, he was in the midst of a nation about to tear itself in two arguing over the question of human beings as property and the political fighting between “free” and “slave” states. Arguments which at the time were very complicated and riddled with issues of legacy and heritage.
Does any of this sound familiar to you? It does to me. This sense of deja-vu is very depressing and at the same time reassuring. Depressing, because it speaks of us as a people. However modern we may be, we don’t learn very quickly from past mistakes. Reassuring, because however much doomsayers are screaming about the end of the world as we know it, things will come to resoluation with much tension and gnashing of teeth.  Given passage of time, it will all repeat.