Historical Practice and Responsibility

Extract

We are frequently asking ourselves today about the role of the historian in a rapidly changing world. Some expect the past provide them with an explanation or a justification of the present. Others search in history for the basic roots of identity or even for keys to the future. More than ever we are being faced with what Lucien Febvre perceived to be the social function of the historian: “to organize the past as a function of the present.” From this arises a responsibility toward society, as the knowledge that is being produced gains its authenticity through being stamped as officially “scientific.” Faced with the expectations of society and the attention of the public, the historian has been called upon to disentangle events and to furnish a guiding thread, frequently by blending his role as a critic with a civic and an ethical one. Even when we are not dealing with the attempt to set up the historian, through an appeal to his great expertise, as the licensed sage in town, it must be stressed that assuming the rostrum in response to the questions of the time is-provided that the rules of the discipline are strictly adhered to-perfectly legitimate in that it provides history with signifiant depth.