Why learning history is important

Gore Vidal comments often in his essays that Americans suffer from historical amnesia. I agreed with that opinion when I first read it many years ago. The reviewer from The Sunday Herald makes a similar point in his review of Washington’s war: From independence to Iraq by General Sir Michael Rose:

As the US grew to be a greater world power, it came to rely on brute force to the exclusion of all other tactics.Debate on alternative methods became almost treasonable. Because conservative American leaders blamed the press and home front dissent for that nation's defeat in Vietnam, they failed to recognise the real reason the war was lost. The US wanted to fight, win and leave Vietnam. The Vietnamese wanted to fight, win and stay in their homeland as free men. Even if they lacked numbers and arms, the Vietnamese had passion and time on their side. It's a lesson that any number of insurgents, including the Iraqis and the American colonists, have taught historians.

I see nothing false in this paragraph. We Americans have forgotten to use our wits in a fight - we are all brawn. Read the review to get the full breadth of what we have lost and why learning history is no longer a luxury but a necessity.