Politics of the past: the use and abuse of history - Socialists ...

I think history is essential to thinking about the future. If you think of
your own journey, you need to know where you come from in order
to know your possibilities. It is too big a task to try and sort out all
of history. The Second World War is and remains the great event
in the history of Europe. It was an enormous impetus to the European
movement, and it had a greater impact on the East than on the
West. I think all Europeans can see the benefit of a European movement,
which is geared towards international cooperation, as opposed
to what happened in the lives of our fathers and
grandfathers.
Historians indeed have a duty to contribute. One of the main tasks
of historians is to learn and to obtain professional knowledge. The
ordinary man cannot expend the time to do so. But having obtained
that knowledge, they also have a duty to communicate it as widely
as possible. It’s no good having five historians talk to each other in
a closed room. Unfortunately, the historical profession is learning
more and more about less and less. And all historians are terrified
of the internet. The problem today is that there is so much information.
In order to have a professional knowledge of all the sources,
books, and journals you have to narrow your subject. A historian
deals with the year 1621, but has to excuse himself that 1622 is not
his field. When I was a student here in Oxford forty years ago there
were something like forty historical journals in the library. A really assiduous
student could look at each of those journals and know what
was in there. Now Oxford University Press alone publishes five
thousand journals. The consequence is that an academic can only
read one or two percent of what is available. And on top of that,
there is an almost infinite amount of information on the internet.
So to have a broader impact, you have to be courageous. Start with
a relatively small subject and once you get more competent you
basically have to be courageous and paint the picture, imperfect
as it is. Fortunately, in Britain there is a very good tradition of writing
history as literature. If you’re going to write it, write it well. When
I was thinking of doing a doctorate, my tutor here in Oxford advised
me to write a book. ‘PhDs are for second-raters’, he said. It was
very good advice. A good book which is reviewed in a respected
journal is worth a lot more than a doctorate. The book I wrote was
relatively successful and my name became known. I did a PhD later,
at leisure.
45 Norman Davies