Thursday, 4 February 2010

Ranke the events in order of importance

History is never the simple recounting of the past as it really was [Leopold von Ranke's aim to reconstruct the past wie es eigentlich gewesen or to those like me who don't speak German 'as it actually happened']. It is inevitably an interpretation of the past, a retrospective vision of the past, which is limited both by the sources themselves and by the historian who selects and interprets them. (p15)

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