History vs Change

Does history repeat, or do cycles of change simply overlap?

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This week, I'll be finishing up my series on Colorado history and urban development. Before I get to it, however, I'll probably be a bit on the quiet side. I might put a poem up to fill the space, in the meantime. For now, I'll leave you to ponder the question above.

Image taken by the author at Two Ponds National Wildlife Refuge in July of this year.

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A. Whitney Brown said it best. History doesn't repeat itself: historians repeat each other. There's no grand scheme or master plan causing us to relive events; it's just plagiarism.

A bit silly, but it gets the point. It's not that it's really repeating so much our brains, developed to recognize patterns both through evolution and through training, see the patterns in the events by filtering out the differences.

By Joe Shelby (not verified) on 13 Sep 2006 #permalink

Thanks for the comment Steve. I actually wrote in a comment here a few weeks ago asking what was happening with this blog after the announcement that O'Reilly was dropping the Digital Media division. It's really refreshing to get an honest comment on what's happening. I really hope the blog picks up again.