Those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it, somebody once said (maybe the philosopher George Santayana). But who knows history? The student protestors against Israel’s invasion of Gaza have been frequently dismissed as ignorant of history, oversimplifying a complex situation into a simplistic “oppressor versus oppressed” narrative. However, whether they are right or wrong, I rather doubt that all the protestors are ignorant of the region’s history. Maybe some are, but the protests have mostly been at elite schools where students presumably acquire a better-than-average historical grounding. To be sure, for my entire teaching career, I have heard horror stories about students’ appalling ignorance of history and the American political system: many of them can’t name the dates of World War II or a single Supreme Court justice. But it’s hard to believe that’s true at Yale or Columbia. Oh, there is plenty of ignorance on a grass roots level. If you believe that democracy depends on an informed citizenry, you may be tempted to despair by the fact that, in a recent survey, 17% of the respondents said Biden was responsible for the overturning of Roe vs.