History?

Since I intend to next query my novel Mothership as historical fiction and, as has been suggested, its sequel Lostine as an historical thriller, the general concept of History has relevance in posting here.

What follows below is quoted; it is part of Richard Pipe’s quite beautifully brief Foreword to his translation from the 1800s Russian text of N.M. Karamazin’s Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia.  Pipe is writing from Paris, October 1958 and he made me feel better:

“It is a commonplace among historians to say that the writing of history represents an attempt to interpret the past in terms of the present, and that, consequently, each generation reappraises past events in the light of its own concerns. It is also generally recognized that the historian – no matter how conscientious – is compelled by the nature of his subject to select from the endless variety of past events only those of which are germane to his theme, and, in so doing, to play down or ignore altogether events which he finds irrelevant. These, so to say, “non-objective qualities” are built into the discipline of history; they are not pitfalls, which one can strive to avoid, but attributes, without which the writing of history is possible perhaps in theory, but never in practice. These properties of the discipline, do, however, entail certain grave professional dangers. The principal danger is that they may induce the historian to disregard important trends of the past because they momentarily seem to have run out. To do so is not only to pervert the picture of the past, but also to becloud our understanding of the present and the future. We have no right to assume that the present – our natural point of departure – constitutes a fixed, unalterable terminal point, rather than another phase in the endless process of historical change. What assurance have we, appearance notwithstanding, that our era and its ideals will not themselves become ‘lost causes’, and conversely, that the causes which we presently consider ‘lost’ are not destined to triumph some day?”