The Two Things Rule

Jonathan Dresner - 1/31/2004

Here's what I posted:

Two things about History:

1. Everything has earlier antecedents.
Corrolary: all culture, including religion, is syncretic; there is nothing purely original.
Second Corrolary: there's no question that a historian can't complicate by talking about what led up to it.

2. Sources lie. But they're all we have.


And there's two things about Teaching History:

1. A good story is all they'll remember, not the half hour of analysis on either side of it.

2. They think it's about answers, but it's really about questions.