Agreed on all accounts, especially the importance of reading historical books from the past (I.e. books on history that were written 50-100-300 years ago). Modern culture, including academia, is permeated by a particular type of thinking, one that is extremely shallow and historically ignorant in terms of the history of thought, or ways of thinking. The past is indeed a foreign country, but we (Western) moderns don’t seem to understand this when discussing previous times and civilizations.