The AP and other news outlets are giving wide attention to the proposal to create a White House Council of Historical Advisors

Imagine a dream team of the nation’s top historians, recruited by the White House to advise the president on major decisions. That’s the idea being pitched by two Harvard University scholars who say many United States leaders know alarmingly little about history, both of their own country and of others.

Professors Graham Allison and Niall Ferguson are calling on the next U.S. president to create a Council of Historical Advisers that would tackle present problems by looking to the past.

Trying to take down a terrorist group? The council would scour historical records to find similar groups, and then analyze which strategies worked against them.

Facing a financial crisis? The council would glean lessons from past meltdowns and report their findings to the president.

“I think there would be more than enough work for a council of applied historians,” said Allison, a professor of government and director of Harvard’s Belfer Center, a university think tank. ...