Padd Solutions

Yesterday I received in the mail by crisp new (used) copy of Richard Neustadt and Ernest May's Thinking In Time: The Uses Of History For Decision Makers (Free Press 1986). Simply hearing that such a book exists, and that it is

a) largely unnoticed these days

b) extremely and awesomely relevant

c) written by two excellent scholars of their respective fields (the American presidency and diplomatic history)

makes me feel like I've stumbled upon some long-hidden Truth, and this is all before I'd even opened it. (I was alerted to its existence by James Fallows, on his Atlantic blog, here.) Think for a moment and count how many times you have 

d) heard someone utter the words "well, history shows that" and then follow this utterance with

e) a massive emission of cerebral flatulence.

The number is probably quite high, right? Now think again and count how many times you have

f) heard another someone counter said brain-fart with "Hold on a second there, Gary" and then follow this utterance with

g) the sly implication that Gary has not thought this through and

h) the humble suggestion than we take care to employ historical analogy carefully and rarely, like handling a hot-potato or fissile material.

The number is extremely low or nil, right? This blog has no readers, so I'm really only talking to a void here, but for me the answer is nil. 

***

Thus do I find myself rapt in this little tome today, as I was last night at two a.m. because said tome robbed me of my ability to sleep via keeping my discursive mind hopping around my skull like an ADHD victim on a trampoline.

I sincerely hope to write more on, and quote at some length from, RN and EM's handbook for policymakers, because at the moment I can assure you that what saved humanity from a Nuclear Holocaust in 1962 were precisely points f), g), and h) above.