The world is bigger than we are. Some bits of it are sufficiently stable
for us to make sciences out of them. Others are slippy, and our approaches are
at best alchemical. When it comes to interpreting our past, alchemy is probably
the best we can do. Read Richard Evans’s In Defence of History, a hearty
apologia for a problematic discipline. Published by Granta, £8.99, ISBN
1862071047.
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