Does History Rhyme?
Update on a graph I’ve been following for a few years, most recently last year, this one courtesy of Niall Ferguson.
Of course, this is just for fun. It’s easy to find spurious patterns like this in all sorts of data. And everything is calm in Iran today, unlike the Feb 1979 revolution and consequent oil price spike.
Re-reading Thucydides persuades me that history does repeat, as the historian insisted, because "human nature never changes," using the Rex Warner translation. We go down a path long used by hegemons, thinking or hoping we know the results of our audacity. And because we learn almost nothing from past adventures, history repeats.
Just last month, the country came close to a major uprising followed by a severe crackdown. Iran isn’t central to the global oil industry, but had the revolution succeeded, we could have seen a funny coincidence.