History does not repeat, but it often rhymes. As I read Robert D. Kaplan’s Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis, I was struck by his argument that the 20th and early 21st centuries have been especially bloody because the stabilizing force of monarchy has vanished. He suggests that despite our moral progress in areas like human rights and the environment, the world remains tightly wound, vulnerable to clashing interests and aggressive authoritarian states. He draws an analogy to Weimar Germany – a moment of fragile democracy, economic strain, and rising nationalism that ultimately collapsed into war.