UPSC Prelims 2017 · CSAT (Paper 2) · Q27
Comprehension
Medium · Validity of assumptions
A leader who studies the failures of past administrations gains a map of pitfalls to avoid, yet no map guarantees safe passage, since the terrain itself, the specific mix of circumstance, personality and constraint, never repeats identically. History instructs by analogy, not by exact precedent.
With reference to the above passage, the following assumptions have been made:
1. Studying history guarantees a leader will avoid all past mistakes.
2. Historical situations repeat identically across different eras.
Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?