The idea that historians write the definitive version of something that will last for all time is less current than it used to be.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The work that lasts over time is the work which still speaks to us when all contemporary interest in that work is extinct.
The problem of telling contemporary history is that your message gets outdated.
Equally, we require a collective past - hence the endless reinterpretations of history, frequently to suit the perceptions of the present.
I feel slightly uneasy at the way historians are consulted as if history is going to repeat itself. It never does.
I was thinking of writing a little foreword saying that history is, after all, based on people's recollections, which change with time.
For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.
We live in a world which is changing very fast. What seems contemporary now will be historical in two years.
The challenge - and much of the fun - of writing in an established future history lies in incorporating new knowledge while remaining true to what has gone before. Expanding and enriching, not contradicting.
We live in an era with no historical precedents. History is no longer useful as a tool in helping us understand current changes.
History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.