To Think Decades Into the Future, Read Centuries Into the Past
How reading ancient works makes you a citizen of the future.
Even if it feels obvious in hindsight, the Covid-19 pandemic caught most of us by surprise.
But it should not have.
Because the history of our world is as much a history of pandemics as it is a history of wars and kingdoms.
By some counts there have been 249 pandemics since 1200 BC — one every 13 years. Of these, 24 have been major pandemics — one every 134 years. Pandemics like the Plague and Spanish Flu have shaped history profoundly.
Nobody who reads history should have been surprised by the pandemic.
Now I am not a lover of history. And I’m not arguing that all of us should read more history. Read what you like. But have a bias for old, foundational works in the genre that you like.
Because, as the history of pandemics illustrates, we can think decades in the future by reading centuries in the past.
Let me explain why. There are two reasons that ancient works are powerful tools for understanding our present and predicting the future.
First, ancient works are more likely to contain fundamental insights.
