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History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us.

History is what we bring to it, not just the events themselves, but how we interpret those events.

I've always been intrigued by the way history works, the way we decide what is mentioned.

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

I will come out with my interpretation. If I'm wrong, fine. It will become part of the debris of history, part of the give and take.

History can show you that it was one pile of bad stuff after another. It can also show you that there's been tremendous progress in knowledge, behaviour, laws, civilisation. It cannot show you that there was a meaning behind it.

I am a historian. I do a lot of research, and I try to get it right.

What I found was when I started my first study, and then in subsequent studies, is here you have people under some kind of duress, or I chose to study them because they represented some kind of historical event, as it impacted on them or as they helped to create it.

Whatever can be noted historically can be found within history.

Historians will tell you that they deal with fact and empirical evidence. But that doesn't really help me understand a person.