Bret Devereaux

Please, columnists and pop editorial writers, learn another plague to misuse and give medievalists a break from your nonsense.

I always figured, if one must do historical analogy (please don't) the Plague of Justinian is a better take - a poorly timed epidemic that badly weakens an already overstretched empire, striking in the context of renewed great power competition.

It's more that these sorts of 'just so' historical analogies where the present moment is exactly like a specific past moment tend to be lazy and intellectually shallow. Past events are useful to think with, useful to compare with, but history doesn't repeat.