End of an Empire

As a kid one of the first political images I remember as a kid was this one
http://www.nuttyhistory.com/uploads/1/2/1/5/12150034/9533514_orig.png It shows a British soldier standing across the continent of Africa. I was young maybe 8 or 9 when I first saw it and it intrigued me to learn about history and the dominance Britain had across the world. 
Initially I studied everything I could about the American Revolution.  Then I started to to study how other countries and regions became independent.  India always intrigued me.  I heard  about Ghandi.
Ghandi seems like such a hero to me. He accomplished so much. It wasn't until later I learned about the difficulty India had becoming independent.  The British were brutal against the rebellion. And infighting amongst the different religions made it worse. 
Strayer doesn't cover this much only dedicating a few sentences to the difficulty of creating India and Pakistan as independent countries.
My ex husband grew up in India and he remembers as a young child the tensions and fighting that would occur in India.

Things we seem doomed to repeat

"Those who cannot remember the past are  condemned to repeat it"  George Santayana

  Strayer indicates how difficult that can be when he talks about WW  I and WW II.  He shows how we think we have learned one lesson and then a little while later we need to learn the opposite lesson.  Humans have a whole have a very difficult time learning from their past - individually and as a species.  It seems the only things we actually learn from the past are things that are hardwired into us like  our gag reflex when something tastes bad.  We each feel we can interpret the past to our own advantage and manipulate it to say what ever is most beneficial to us at the time. 

For example the countries that sought to establish trade post empires should teach us that we may need to try a different method to influence the middle east to continue oil trade with us.  The fallen cities of the agricultural neolithic era that depleted all their resources because the great so fast should motivate us to protect our own resources more carefully. 
In our personal lives examining how rulers that were naive , ineffective or dictatorial should influence us to be more careful who we vote for and we should put the effort into finding out exactly what they are capable of. 
There are so many more but sadly I am sure someone somewhere would find evidence in history to dispute even the most common sense of the lessons we can learn