The Foreign Service Journal, April 2017

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | APRIL 2017 63 of their country of assignment. Profes- sional historians, though, cry foul and assert that historical events are too complex and unique to draw lessons for the present from them; the past, they assert, is more unlike today than similar. In The Power of the Past , Hal Brands and Jeremi Suri use the work of noted scholars to tackle the interplay between these two dynamics. The result is a compelling work which draws on events from contemporary history such as U.S. decision-making during the 1991 Gulf War, intervention in the Balkans and reaction to the 9/11 attacks. Other chapters look at how analo- gies to Vietnam and Munich have guided policymaking, the ambiguities of humanitarian intervention, and Henry Kissinger’s unique approach to learning from history. The book’s firsthand accounts are especially powerful. Former Deputy Secretary James Stein- berg notes the influence in the Clinton and Obama adminis- trations’ decision-making of both widely read historical works and policymakers’ per- sonal life experiences. Former Republican offi- cials William Inboden and Peter Feaver perceive similar forces at work in the George W. Bush White House, but also note the impor- tant role played by history as the com- mon language through which experts in varying disciplines communicated. Former State Department Counselor Philip Zelikow draws on examples from the Iraq War, the 2008 financial crisis and other instances (such as Pearl Harbor) to discuss the difficulty in under- standing and explaining historical events. Several chapters note how the same historical event can prompt contra- dictory lessons learned. Both Pres. George W. Bush and Senator Edward Kennedy likened the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq to the Vietnam War. Yet they drew very different lessons from that comparison. Vietnam’s lesson for Kennedy was that