Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past
— George Orwell, "1984"The historian is a prophet looking backwards.
— Friedrich von Schlegel, "Philosophical Fragments"
The phonetic resemblance of the word “history” to “story,” which can be anything from a factual narrative to a fairy tale, should warn us about the pretended objectivity of any interpretation of past events. The ambiguous nature of the discipline is even more obvious in foreign languages: In German, “history” and “story” are the same word, Geschichte. The French word histoire also does double duty; “Quelle histoire!” means “what a story!” but inevitably conveys a subtext of doubtful credibility.
