The History You Don't Know

Harry Truman once said “The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.”  After being questioned by Dwight Eisenhower in a cabinet meeting about the strategic importance of aiding a certain part of the world, Truman basically outlined for him the history of area and why it was incumbent for the U.S. to aid the nation.  After the lengthy lecture, (and a round of laughter), Eisenhower had to relinquish the point.

As an amateur student of history, it’s still surprising to see history repeat itself.  I’m currently reading a book by David Fromkin titled, “A Peace to End All Peace.”  It details the fall of the Ottoman Empire and creation of the modern Middle East.  The Ottoman Empire, like most empires built upon rapid acquisition by a warrior people (the conquests of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane are other examples) couldn’t effectively manage their conquered territory.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Ottoman Empire was collapsing faster than a cheap deck chair beneath a fat man.  One of the architects of the new order was Mehmed Talaat.  He was described by a British diplomat with, “a light in his eyes rarely seen in men, but sometimes in animals at dusk.”  The diplomat was, I believe, trying to be nice, but revealed the British knack for the patronizing (yet funny) remark.

After World War I, the Europeans essentially did the same thing to the Middle East that they had done to Africa a few decades earlier.  They carved it up like a thanksgiving turkey without any thought to the indigenous people who already lived there; thus, creating border s and nations that had no logic beyond the drawing room.  And of course this created problems that plagued the Middle East (and Africa) and by extension the rest of the world to this day.  Of course, I am greatly simplifying the rather complex events (also, I haven’t finished reading the book), but as President Truman once said (and I paraphrase) history can open you up to, and explain, current events.