Like the Tea Partiers, I am getting belatedly interested in reading history. There is some comfort in knowing that the events, at least, are over, and we can't be held responsible for changing them. And there is an even greater challenge in knowing that these events have repercussions, ricochets, and rebound effects that are not over. Some things we might do better the more we know, or at least the more we think. "Heart of Darkness" leads back to "King Leopold's Ghost" and forward to "Apocalypse Now" and back to "Heart of Darkness," and so forth, and back. Unlike the Tea Partiers, I don't believe that the Europeans necessarily had better ideas than the people they overwhelmed.