Provocative excerpts from primary and secondary sources (some with audio glosses). Read the rationale behind these sound bites for more information.
171-180 of 734 Sound Bites. [show all]
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171) To speak of the necessity of history is to say that history matters essentially. Human beings, like animals, propagate, preserve themselves and their young, seek shelter, and store food. We invent tools, alter the environment, communicate with one another by means of symbols, and speculate about our mortality. Once that level of social consciousness has been reached, we become concerned with immortality. The desire of men and women to survive their own death has been the single most important force compelling them to preserve and record the past. History is the means whereby we assert the continuity of human life -- its creation is one of the earliest humanizing activities of homo sapiens. (Gerda Lerner 106) [SoundBite #171]
172) My purpose is merely to show how closely the work of the historian mirrors the society in which he works. It is not merely the events that are in flux. The historian himself is in flux. When you take up an historical work, it is not enough to look for the author's name on the title-page: look also for the date of publication or writing -- it is sometimes even more revealing. (Edward Hallett Carr 36) [SoundBite #172]
173) Among academic historians, agreement is widespread today that history has been presented -- whether in school textbooks, college courses, museum exhibits, or mass media -- in a narrow and deeply distorted way. (Gary B. Nash, "American" 135) [SoundBite #173]
174) Films that take history as their subject are so controversial, I believe, mainly because of the extraordinary social power and influence that seems to have accrued to what has been called the cinematic rewriting of history. (Robert Burgoyne, "Prosthetic") [SoundBite #174]
175) The aim of the historian, like that of the artist, is to enlarge our picture of the world, to give us a new way of looking at things. (James Joll, qtd. by Marwick 327) [SoundBite #175]
176) We see things not as they are but as we are. (Anais Nin, qtd. in Loewen, Lies My 239) [SoundBite #178]
177) A common memory of belonging, borne by habits, customs, dialects, song, dance, pastimes, shared geography, superstition, and so on, but also fears, anxieties, antipathies, hurts, resentments is the indistinct but indispensable condition of [nationalism]. For nationalism to do its work, ordinary people need to see themselves as the bearers of an identity centered elsewhere, imagine themselves as an abstract community. (Eley and Suny 22) [SoundBite #177]
178) We like things that are "BASED ON A TRUE STORY" because it forces us to feel; we like the feeling of obligation to empathize with the protagonists. We like the feeling that by merely watching a movie, we are honoring someone; when we watch a historically based movie, our entertainment has taken on a new, deeper level. Finally, we like the "based on a true story" label because it allows us to escape the escapism of entertainment. Rather than fly off to a faraway Hollywood Land fantasy, we become involved with what is placed before us. It feels grittier and more authentic. (Elizabeth Dunn, Lehigh University) [SoundBite #1239]
179) Modern citizens are born in nations and are taught to perceive the nation as an intimate quality of identity, as intimate and inevitable as biologically-rooted affiliations through gender or family. National subjects are taught to value certain abstract signs and stories as a part of their intrinsic relation to themselves, to all "citizens," and to the national terrain; there is said to be a common "national" character. (Lauren Berlant 20-21) [SoundBite #179]
180) Textbooks unfold history without real drama or suspense, only melodrama. (James W. Loewen 165) [SoundBite #1277]
