Historical PERSPECTIVE is always called for, but that certainly doesn't preclude any historian from drawing conclusions about how something in the present looks, or doesn't, look like something in the past.
FYI, I wrote the updated edition to "A Patriot's History of the United States" in late 2006, with events through early 2005, and so far haven't seen anything that would change my perspective on any of it. When I wrote "The Entrepreneurial Adventure" in 2000, commenting on the Japanese "miracle" of the late 1980s, the evidence I had then said Japan was already a non-factor. Seems I was right there, too.
LS, saw you on Fox and Friends yesterday morning. Good job on the errors in textbooks.
Told my wife—that’s a Freeper!
I believe that was actually my point - that there is a difference between history and a historical perspective on modern events, and that the former is inherently a more accurate rendition of events than the latter. Certainly some very good historians - Victor Hanson, for one, Jacques Barzun for another - indulge in the comparison, as do you. And there's nothing wrong with an opinion based on a grasp of past historical dynamics, but there is one difference - you don't know how the present comes out. "Past history is no indication of future performance" as my stockbroker reminded me before I shot him (the boy needed killin'). That isn't, really, quite right, but there is a point to it.
One can reason from historical analogy - I do it a lot - but reasoning from analogy is not actually reasoning in this field or any other. It is modeling. And there's a huge difference. All IMHO and I hope I didn't ruffle any professional feathers.