IMHO countries could benefit from having a national historian. A historian could give some good advice based on the past. Such as, attacking Russia during the winter has never really turned out well. If history is important enough to be taught in schools it should be important to our leaders. If we know where we came from we would have a better idea of where we are going.
- Who gets to pick each country’s Official Historian?
- Who decides which parts of history will be noted?
- Who gets to interpret said history?
It’s a nice thought. But it’s not like U.S. leaders didn’t KNOW Aghanistan was the place where empires go to fail miserably, but it hasn’t stopped us from trying to do…something…there. It’s not like we didn’t KNOW that financial systems operated well when banks and investment banks were kept separate, but it didn’t stop us from repealing the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, allowing banks to engage in all kinds of funky derivatives which contributed mightily to our current economic situation.
Now, some people will say that my perspective on our activities Afghanistan and/or the causes of the financial collapse are mistaken. And they could be right–the lessons of history can be interpreted in different ways. Which is why it wouldn’t help us politically to have a national historian.
What we need to do is elect educated & intelligent people to office.
I seem to remember that JFK had read The Guns of August before the Cuban Missile Crisis. Thoughts of how the European powers had blundered into The Great War reinforced his desire* not* to blunder into WWIII.
Of course, George W Bush got a B.A. in History at Yale. Having been exposed to knowledge is not enough…
The UK has the advantage of having had the queen on the throne for such a long time, that she can advise the government what worked and what didn’t work for decades. And she meets with the PM regularly, so she does keep up with what’s going on.
I highly doubt HM discusses marginal tax rates in the 1950s and defense spending in the 1970s with the PM.
Anyway, why would a historian be qualified to advise anyone on anything other than what once happened? So you had a recession in 1931- would you rather get advice on how to avoid the next one from a historian, or an economist?
Because then you would end up with an official National History, which is contrary to most ideas of democracy. I think that policy people with a good understanding of history are important (and not just because I have a history MA and would like a nice civil service job ;)), particularly as a fundamental tenet of history is that understanding context is essential and making simple comparisons between two eras is rarely helpful.
In theory, though, it could be like that children’s book, The Giver. Wise old man doles out bits of the people’s past as they need it, and they only have to deal with the nasty memories as needed. 
That is quite an idea. Speaking as someone who deals with long-ago history, I can tell you that finding an ‘official’ historical account of a nation would be a goldmine.
I don’t think it would be too useful to any current administrations, and the bias inherent in such a thing would cause some serious problems, but I’m sure governments have spent more money on worse ideas.
ISTM that the problem with having an official history is that it tends to result in the deliberate supression of “alternative” histories. No?
Well it seemed like a good idea. Once you get into all the details it doesn’t seem so hot. I guess we have historians that the administrations could listen to if they wanted to.
But, as always, the big question is WHICH lesson from history are we supposed to apply in any given situation?
Should we remember the lesson of World War 1, and avoid conflict because it might escalate into something larger and more disastrous that anyone anticipated? Or should we remember the lesson of World War 2, and assume that any sign of reluctance to fight will be interpreted by our enemies as weakness, and make war MORE likely?
What’s the lesson of Vietnam? “It’s impossible to defeat determined guerillas,” or “Don’t take half-measures”?
History, like life, teaches us all kinds of conflicting lessons, you know. Is the moral of the story “Many hands make light work” or “Too many cooks spoil the broth”? Is it “He who hesitates is lost,” or “Act in haste, repent at leisure”?
Slightly more to the point, she does employ her own official historian. The present incumbant’s immediate predecessor claimed that the government did occasionally consult him. But that was more a case of him being the first person the Scottish Office thought of when they needed an historian to answer minor historical queries.
But the more relevant point is that some UK government departments have in-house historians. Also, some departments do commission official histories, either for publication or only for internal use. These can be written by their in-house historians or by outside academics. Christopher Andrew’s recent official history of MI5 is an obvious example of the latter. It is almost certainly not a coincidence that the official historian of the Falklands War, Sir Lawrence Freedman, is currently a member of the Chilcot inquiry. As indeed is Sir Martin Gilbert. Traditionally, such official histories have been seen as an extension of the argument that the big advantage of a permanent civil service is that it knows what has been tried in the past.