There is a very interesting theory that the further you look back in history the further forward you can see. It is based on two thing: the first is we have had the same size brains for 200,00 years so the pool of new ways of doing things to create nations and societies is not increasing. The second and harder to grasp for many people is that every new generation without an in-depth historical education, thinks everything is new because it is new to them when in actual fact it is ancient. Tyrannies, democracies, wars, empires are thousands of years old and how they rise, manage themselves and fall has never changed.
Of course it is obvious that f people read more they would understand more.
Praeterea, puto arma nuclearia Persiae delenda esse