The good historian is like the giant of the fairy tale. He knows that wherever he catches the scent of human flesh, there his quarry lies.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave. Otherwise he will move in a world of the dead. He can only gain that conception through personal experience, and he can only use his personal experiences when he is a genius.
Writers are historians, too. It is in literature that the greater truths about a people and their past are found.
What is a historian, anyway? It is someone who uses facts to record the development of humanity.
If you think about it, the historian's task is like that of the detective.
It may seem unfashionable to say so, but historians should seize the imagination as well as the intellect. History is, in a sense, a story, a narrative of adventure and of vision, of character and of incident. It is also a portrait of the great general drama of the human spirit.
If people really want to know and learn from history, why do they want bad history? Why don't they want good history? Wouldn't you rather know the truth, rather than the legend?
History is full of really good stories. That's the main reason I got into this racket: I want to make the argument that history is interesting.
Every historian with professional standards speaks or writes what he believes to be true.
History's written from what can be found; what isn't saved is lost, sunken and rotted, eaten by earth.
A good historian is timeless; although he is a patriot, he will never flatter his country in any respect.