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History and Politics
I still remember my days in graduate school. We had many discussions about that foreign country that is the past. History was not just about diaries and newspapers. It was not just about battles and political treaties. Yes. It was about that, but it was so much more. It was about power relationships, and who told the story. It was, in short, about finding a coherent reason for the past, and the present.
We learned about Herodotus, the father of history. And then we got to pick the story apart. It was not like he was the first person to record anything for posterity. Nor was he the first to travel around the ancient world and put down what he saw, and try to make heads or tails of it. He just happened to be the one we in the West designated as the father of history. The title itself is pretentious, but both the Greeks and Romans were the pinnacle of the ancient world. None of this was accidental. It was a refresher on what we teach people. It was a source of discussion.
This was a graduate seminar, and it was us, lucky fifteen, starting a Masters degree. So we were entrusted with actually asking this question. Was Herodotus the father of history? What does this mean? Why do we even consider him the only one? The past is a foreign country, and we were to make heads or tails of it. We, as professional historians, were to be granted the keys to the kingdom. We were to learn the tools…