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The Past Is a Foreign Country: Review

New York Times, 1991

Copyright New York Times Company Mar 24, 1991 ;ISSN: 0362-4331 ;CODEN: NYTIAO

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  • Title:
    The Past Is a Foreign Country: Review
  • Author: 1770-1866.", James J. Sheehan ; James J. Sheehan, who teaches history at Stanford University, is the author of "German History
  • Subjects: Howard, Michael ; SHEEHAN, JAMES J
  • Is Part Of: New York Times, 1991
  • Description: There is no modern historian better suited to this task than Sir [Michael Howard], recently retired as the Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, now the Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale. After distinguished service with the Coldstream Guards in World War II, he devoted his scholarly career to military history. He has written the standard account of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, an important volume in the official British history of World War II and a classic synthesis, "War in European History." "The Lessons of History," the third collection of his essays and occasional pieces, contains writings from 1980 to 1989. After a lifetime studying such failures, Howard understandably insists on approaching the past with modest hopes. His first lesson is an "austere one: not to generalize from false premises based on inadequate evidence. The second is no more comforting: the past is a foreign country; there is very little we can say about it until we have learned its language and understood its assumptions." Pursued with appropriate care, the study of history can teach us about the world by deepening our awareness of our own historical identity and broadening our sensitivity to people quite unlike ourselves. But beyond this strengthening of character and judgment, history offers no infallible guide to success, no formula for every circumstance, no short cut to wisdom. Professional historians, Howard tells us, are as skeptical of those who offer easy lessons "as professional doctors are of their colleagues who peddle patent medicines guaranteeing instant cures."
  • Publisher: New York, N.Y: New York Times Company
  • Language: English
  • Identifier: ISSN: 0362-4331
    CODEN: NYTIAO
  • Source: ProQuest Central
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