Seems to me that in order to take away any truly valuable lessons from some historical event, you have to understand the context in which it occurred.

Generally speaking, humans are very bad at actually understanding how they themselves would actually feel, react, or behave in a similar situation. It's kind of like people who talk all the time about entrepreneurship or starting their own company but then never actually quit their jobs because the reality of handing in your resignation and going off on your own is quite different than the intellectualization of it.