In fact, Bruno is so obviously a problematic choice as a scientific martyr that several non-historians have also picked up on the issue.
Non-historians who are friendly to the idea of history as a useful art often think mainly of the potential for avoiding past mistakes.
As is the case with the Cuban crisis, the historical record is open to widely varying interpretation, much of it rendered archaic - at least to non-historians - by the passage of time.
Nevertheless, there are undeniably problems that need to be faced: most seriously the tendency of some schools to reduce history teaching up to the age of 14 in favour of subjects more central to league tables; notably Maths and English,merge it with other subjects in generalised "humanities" teaching; and appoint non-historians to teach it.
The answer to the second question is Newt Gingrich, whose dark contemplations were provoked by a latter-day Pearl Harbor, or, as may be better known to the non-historians among us, his own failure to collect enough signatures to get his name on the ballot for the Virginia Republican primary.
My knowledge of history was as glancing as any non-historian's, and I hoped that a tour would prove revelatory.
Camblet, fustian, susy, calimanco and linsey-woolsey – even to a non-historian, the sheer range of textile types and their names is intriguing.
It's not only that he is – as Der Spiegel helpfully pointed out – a non-historian (the author of three novels and the co-writer of the Wim Wenders film Palermo Shooting, this is his first work of nonfiction).
And this was the lesson I took from Turkey: traipsing around the British Museum in quiet reverence is one thing, but for the non-historian – this one, at least – there's no better way to immerse yourself in the wonders of the ancient past than by treading it under foot and clambering around its contours in the sunshine.
Thus, teaching the Korean history of 20th century in a single textbook written by scholars, mostly non-historians, becomes the most controvercial affair in education.
This isn't the historian's fault so much as it is non-historians looking for vague excuses to get blasted on culturally relevant anniversaries, birthdays and milestones.
