The Changing Shape of Europe

History is obviously not merely a simple record of a series of facts. It is an effort at understanding, interpreting and reinterpreting specific events, or, even more so, humanity at work. It sits on a fine line between objectivity and subjectivity, between an account of actions and our individual perspective of them. Our historical perspective is tainted by ideology, by time and distance. It is essentially a series of arguments that are debated, a selection of events presented by the historian in an effort to understand the why and how. We may actually distinguish between history as the product of critical inquiry into the past and history as ‘our story’, as a narrative that offers an awareness and understanding of the present, an explanation of the drivers of social change and, implicitly, a way to the future. This distinction between history as an academic endeavour and history as a meaning-making narrative may appear clear-cut in theory, but in practice, it can be fuzzy. Even a critical academic inquiry includes some degree of narrative. Ultimately, the historian does not stand in a historical (or ideological) void, s/he is also historically situated.