Thinking Historically: Francis J. Gavin on What History Can Do for Policymakers...and the Rest of Us
It might seem obvious that the study of history ought to improve the crafting of public policy. Surely if we understand the past, we should be able to make better decisions in the present—especially in the high-stakes worlds of statecraft and strategy. But that assumption raises deeper questions: How should history be used? What history should be used? How do we gain the kind of historical knowledge that truly shapes decisions? And why is it that historians and policymakers so rarely speak the same language?
In his new book Thinking Historically: A Guide to Statecraft and Strategy, my guest Francis J. Gavin argues that a genuinely historical sensibility can illuminate the complex, often confusing realities of the present. Good historical work, he writes, does not offer easy analogies or tidy morals. Instead, it captures the challenges and uncertainties faced by decision-makers, complicates our assumptions, forces us to see the familiar in new ways, and invites us to understand others on their own terms without abandoning moral judgment. Thinking historically, Gavin shows, is a discipline of discernment, curiosity, and humility—qualities as necessary in statecraft as they are in life.
Francis J. Gavin is the Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished Professor and director of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins SAIS. He is also the author of Gold, Dollars, and Power; Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy; and The Taming of Scarcity and the Problems of Plenty.
Go to www.historicallythinking.org for more
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.