Reblogged from Not for Attribution:
Historian John Lukacs on The Future of History, title of his newly published book (Yale), as elucidated by reviewer Anne Barbeau Gardiner (New Oxford Review, Jan.-Feb., 2003), italics mine.
What is this thing called history?
The central point of Lukacs’s book is that history is a form of literature and not a science. Yes, professional historians must have "serious archival knowledge and practice," but they must also be dedicated to finding out the truth about the past.
