Can present-day decision-makers learn from history? If so, how? This anthology contains twelve essays from undergraduate students at the Stockholm School of Economics, all participants in the school's first-ever course in Applied History. The course aimed to increase the students' ability to use history as a tool when analyzing current issues but also to give them an understanding of how decision-makers have used and misused history.

The students were free to choose their own topics. Several of the titles speak for themselves, including "Will America First Last?", "The Belt and Road Initiative - a Chinese Marshall Plan?" and "Six lessons from the Swedish suffragettes". As in the course lectures and literature, topics span from the fall of Rome to the fall of the Berlin Wall.