Dubious History

History is a difficult discipline. It requires hard work, dedication to the task and a determinedly disinterested atitude to the subject. History is no calling for writers with a predetermined view of a situation, no ideological comitment, no specific religious or political attachments. The best historians come close to this impossible prescription. There are others. We see major works written by assorted ideologues tendentiously writing accounts of the past seemingly to exculpate the predecessors of their current attachment from any blame. We get instead of history apologetic polemic. The bookshops are littered with their works. Devotees of the political left and right and religious sects of all flavours scribble away and put their misleading work before us. We do well to ignore it.