President Bush got government backing to go to war with Iraq. This is a classic example of Tuchman's point.

Even against all advice by the American public, and the outcry that has recently become deafening he pursues the war. Even though it has caused is popularity rating to nosedive he has pursued the war.

This book gave me a solid understanding of how and why such follies occur and make me wonder how we have evolved so far as a society without being able to learn from our past mistakes.

This book is a must read for anyone who looks at history with a question mark and wants to know whether history indeed repeats itself.

FOG of WAR

The movie the Fog of War was not similar to March of Folly. It covered an entirely different topic and served an entirely different purpose.

This movie is about a very specific person and set of events. Robert S. McNamara received a Berkley and a Harvard education and for the era he was considered to be one of the most brilliant men alive. He used that brilliance to perform statistical analysis for the purpose of improving the World War II bombing strategy.

His work eventually got him elevated to Secretary of Defense under JFK and President Johnson respectively.

While the March of Folly is a rambling look at several historical events, the Fog of War is a documentary that is filled with interviews with McNamara himself.

The film includes press and news releases as well as taped conversations between LBJ and McNamara.

The most important thing that I took from the film is that society and its governing bodies do not always act in their own best interest.

A also realized after watching this film that mankind will make mistakes no matter how intelligent its leaders of advisors may be.

This man was brilliant. He was supposed to be someone who could look at a...

If that was possible he would have surely advised against the wars that he helped improve.
The one thing the film and the book do have in common for me is the repeated evidence that history will repeat itself.

McNamara went through World War II and presumably saw from that experience that war should be avoided at most costs, however, he was more than willing to advise during the Vietnam conflict.

A caught a glimpse of how McNamara could take part in improving bombing ability for a war however, when he described his work at Ford as making a safer envelope for the human meat inside.

It gave me a cold feeling and between this movie and Tuchman's book I came to realize something that was quite sad.

A now realize that there will always be brilliant people who are not compassionate and those are the people who will get through the ranks and advise governments in their actions.

And it explains why history repeats itself. The same type of people continue to be given enough power and weight that when they think in the same general terms as their historic peers did history happens over again.

The one thing that McNamara said that touched my heart, is had we lost the war we would have been prosecuted as war criminals. This is true and it should give pause to our future actions.

CONCLUSION

Each of these mediums provided insight and guidance about how history repeats itself and it allows us to take a reflective look even with contemporary issues. I think we need to learn from these and other studies in history to try and change the path that causes the repetition of the poor choices and decisions.

David Loftus, March 6, 2004

References

Tuchman Barbara (1985)the March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam (Paperback)

Ballantine Books;

The Fog of War