The Pentagon studies history to learn about ruling the world. Just a hint here that ruling the world may have been more important to the authors than doing good history.
The Globe and Mail's John Barber studies history (in his column in today's paper, but not online, it seems. Update: here it is now.) to learn how to run Toronto. Specifically it's the work of Toronto urban historian Richard White he's been reading. White's analysis, as summarized by Barber, is that public debt worked well for Metro Toronto's big infrastructure projects decades ago, and civic government's flight from debt instruments since the 1990s is what is crippling urban development today.
