It is significant that the nationalization of thought has proceded everywhere pari passu with the nationalization of industry.

It is significant that the nationalization of thought has proceded everywhere pari passu with the nationalization of industry.

The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context

The function off the historian is neither to love the past nor to emancipate himself from the past, but to master and understand it as the key to the understanding of the present.

History consists of a corpus ascertained facts. The facts are available to the historian in documents, inscriptions and so on, like fish in the fishmonger's slab. The historian collects them, takes them home, and cooks and serves them in whatever style appeals to him.

History in Burckhardt's words is 'the record of what one age finds worthy of note in another.' The past is intelligible to us only in light of the present; and we can fully understand the present only in light of the past. To enable man to understand the society of the past and to increase his mastery over the society of the present is the dual function of history.

History is preoccupied with fundamental processes of change. If you are allergic to these processes, you abandon history and take cover in the social sciences. Today anthropology, sociology, etc, flourish. History is sick. But then our society too is sick