“Never again and again and again,” the cartoonist Art Spiegelman once said. The author of “Maus,” about the Holocaust, understood something we didn’t and don’t, that history lies deep in the collective memory. It’s alive. Just as families repeat generational trauma, societies collectively re-enact their terrible histories. Is it part of the deep drag of human nature not to learn from tragedy? During a slow and unpredictable recovery from post-COVID, I was reading political history, always worthwhile because the publishing industry keeps producing stellar work as journalism struggles to survive. Initially a respite, it became a shock. I have the...