Historic recurrence is the repetition of similar events in history. The concept has been used to analyze the overall history of the world (e.g., the rise and fall of empires), repetitive patterns in the history of a given polity, and generally to any two specific events which bear a striking similarity. Professor of religious history Garry W. Trompf, in his book ‘The Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western Thought,’ traces historically recurring patterns of political thought and behavior in the west since antiquity. Historic recurrences can sometimes induce a sense of ‘convergence,’ ‘resonance,’ or déjà vu.
In the extreme, the concept assumes the form of the doctrine of Eternal Return (the belief that universe has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time or space), found in Indian philosophy and in ancient Egypt and was subsequently taken up by the Pythagoreans and Stoics (with the decline of antiquity and the spread of Christianity, the concept fell into disuse in the Western world, with the exception of existentialist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who connected the thought to many of his other concepts, including ‘amor fati,’ love of one’s fate).
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The Daily Omnivore 