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.
Edward Hallett CarrThe 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.
Edward Hallett CarrThe 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
Edward Hallett CarrHistory 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.
Edward Hallett Carr