History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes, as Mark Twain says.
So there are certainly good reasons to study and analyze it.
Henry Ford is certainly no expert on the importance of history. History is most certainly NOT bunk.
A lot of what Ford said and did WERE bunk, by the way. Read upon Fordlandia, his rubber plantation in Amazonas, Brazil, in which he tried to change his Brazilian workers into Protestant American industrial drudges.
Strikes and drunken rioting ensued.
A total disaster,and rather humorous to read about in the book about it, entitled "Fordlandia".
Others, sensing that Ford was wrong about history being bunk, have not tried to duplicate his efforts.