Policymakers instinctively rely on historical analogies. While powerful, this reliance is dangerous when based on simplistic or false comparisons like 'another Munich' or 'another Vietnam.' This makes rigorous, nuanced historical perspective essential to avoid repeating past mistakes driven by flawed parallels.

A lack of written documentation for strategic initiatives is often a deliberate tactic, not an oversight. By keeping big bets as verbal directives, executives can later pivot, reframe failure, or deny the original premise, effectively gaslighting their teams. This prevents creating a clear record for accountability.

Salient emotional events feel vivid and true, boosting our confidence in the memory. However, this confidence is often misleading. Each time we recall and "reconstruct" these memories, we create more opportunities for errors to creep in, making them factually less reliable than we believe.

The brain doesn't strive for objective, verbatim recall. Instead, it constantly updates and modifies memories, infusing them with emotional context and takeaways. This process isn't a bug; its purpose is to create useful models to guide future decisions and ensure survival.

Figures like Mao and Stalin had higher death tolls than Hitler, yet Hitler's atrocities are better known in the West. This is because he ran an effective propaganda machine and, upon defeat, Allied forces captured extensive documentation, making his crimes more visible and studied than those of others.

Filmmaker Ken Burns actively incorporates new, destabilizing information into his work, even if it makes a scene 'less good.' He believes that in historical storytelling, art must be subservient to the facts, forcing a constant reconciliation with complexity.

Despite building a massive, highly organized empire, the Incas had no written language. This means nearly everything known about their history and culture was recorded by the Spanish after the conquest. Their entire legacy is therefore filtered through the lens of their destroyers, creating a fundamentally biased historical record.

A key British intelligence failure before the Falklands War was assuming Argentina's junta would be constrained by factors like public opinion. This tendency to project democratic logic onto autocratic regimes was repeated with Putin's invasion of Ukraine, leading to surprise despite mounting evidence of intent.

Decision-makers in prolonged crises suffer from extreme fatigue, a critical factor rarely captured in historical accounts. The mental and physical exhaustion from constant pressure, as seen in the Cuban Missile Crisis or modern Ukraine, degrades judgment and the ability to process information, yet remains an invisible variable in analysis.