A Quote by Jeff Greenfield
In the many-mansioned house of Alternate History, I occupy a small corner. The trio of what-ifs I chronicled in 'Then Everything Changed' all begin with tiny, highly plausible twists of fate that lead to hugely consequential shifts in history.
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But for a few twists of fate, the gasoline engine we know today might have just been a small footnote in history.
Turned the wrong way around, the relentless unforeseen was what we schoolchildren studied in "History", harmless history, where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable. The terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning a disaster into an epic.
It was Apollo 8 that first showed us the tiny blue marble of Earth floating in the void of space, one of the great psychological shifts in human history. From out there, we can both appreciate and begin to solve the problems of our world in ways unavailable to us otherwise.
In Rome, I particularly love the history, churches, sculptures and architecture and the fact that you can walk along a tiny cobbled street and turn the corner to find the Trevi Fountain. London is evocative of other eras and full of history.
Wars make history seem deceptively simple. They provide clear turning points, easy distinctions.: before and after, winner and loser, right and wrong. True history, the past, is not like that. It isn't flat or linear. It has no outline. It is slippery, like liquid; infinite and unknowable, like space. And it is changeable: just when you think you see a pattern, perspective shifts, an alternate version is proffered, a long-forgotten memory resurfaces.
Reducing everything immediately to good and evil is bad history - not only because it isn't true, but because reductionism is unpersuasive; it is boring. Good history, on the other hand, demands that one talk socratically - that one can present alternate viewpoints, not strawman arguments.
History is made and preserved by and for particular classes of people. A camera in some hands can preserve an alternate history.
I was actually asked to do the Christmas design for the White House. I thought it would be interesting, given that it has such a rich history, to decorate around some real beautiful oversized images of the history of the White House and the history of the country.
All other forms of history - economic history, social history, psychological history, above all sociology - seem to me history with the history left out.
The lessons of history show - and I'm not talking about any particular history, all history - when you see minor abuses start to build up in the intolerance space and do nothing about them, then they lead to bigger and bigger abuses.
Most of us, I think, are conscious of history swirling around outside the door, but when we're in the house, we're usually not dealing with history. We're not thinking about history.
If you view history as a backdrop, set-dressing or fiction, then 'Pride and Prejudice' is hugely entertaining. My reread saw the misery of the female characters' reality. My new reaction was sadness and fury. Knowledge ruins everything!
History warns us that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.
Do not feel trapped by the facts of your history. Your history is not some set of sacred facts. History is an interpretation, and your history is yours to interpret. To know the history and then reinterpret it gives you additional depth.
I've always tried to write California history as American history. The paradox is that New England history is by definition national history, Mid-Atlantic history is national history. We're still suffering from that.
In his own lifetime Jesus made no impact on history. This is something that I cannot but regard as a special dispensation on God's part, and, I like to think, yet another example of the ironical humour which informs so many of His purposes. To me, it seems highly appropriate that the most important figure in all history should thus escape the notice of memoirists, diarists, commentators, all the tribe of chroniclers who even then existed
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