Why Don't We Learn from History?

Liddell Hart was a military historian and theorist whose writing on mechanised warfare influenced armoured doctrine, and this short book collects his reflections on what history can teach and why it usually does not. It was assembled from notes and published in expanded form after his death.

His position on the value of history is modest. He argues that its practical value is mainly negative, in showing what to avoid rather than what to do, since circumstances never repeat closely enough for positive prescription. He argues that the study of history is chiefly useful for developing judgment about human behaviour, which does repeat.

His specific observations include that people learn from their own experience only within a very narrow range, that the accumulated experience of others is the only substantial source available, and that most people refuse it; that the pursuit of an objective by direct approach produces resistance, while an indirect approach that changes the conditions produces the result; that governments and institutions conceal information as a matter of routine and that this makes contemporary judgment nearly impossible; and that the tendency to attribute events to the intentions of leaders overstates how much anyone controls.

His sections on dictatorship, on propaganda and on the conduct of war in democracies reflect the period between the wars and the immediate postwar years. The book is aphoristic and unstructured, since it was assembled rather than composed. Liddell Hart's own historical work has been criticised for shaping the record to support his theories, particularly regarding his influence on German armoured doctrine. The observation that history's value is negative, and the argument for the indirect approach, are what transfer.