If you missed it yesterday, we felt this essay about the First World War--my father wrote it--was the right way to begin explaining the significance of the Ukraine crisis, of which many seem to be saying, "Why does it matter?" claireberlinski.substack.com/p/the-great-war
https://twitter.com/bradleyvictorj/status/1474190895629148170
That war gave birth to the modern world. We have never recovered from it. We *can't* recover it, because once you know such a thing is possible, you can never unlearn it. 
Western civilization will never again be as buoyantly confident and optimistic. *Human* civilization will never be as confident or optimistic. We are all children of that war, whether we know its details or not.
The worst thing, though, is that as memory of it fades, we continue to bear the scars and the trauma without knowing, really, where they come from. In world affairs as in life, that is a recipe for repetition compulsion.
The lessons are ones we would do well to remember when we imagine that a war in Europe would surely somehow be contained to a peripheral skirmish.
That is possible, of course. But it is not the only possibility.
That is possible, of course. But it is not the only possibility.
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