Читать книгу Hermann Giliomee: Historian - Hermann Giliomee - Страница 4

The study of history is a training in humility. After more than twenty-five years of studying and writing I am impressed by the great difficulty of being an historian. Of all disciplines it is the most exacting and laborious. Few disciplines require a longer apprenticeship. The function of history is to put wisdom and experience at the disposal of each generation. A vigorous and independent historiography is more than an ornament of culture. It is the indispensable agent to wise and successful action in all human problems. In the world of scholarship the historian’s craft comes the closest to statesmanship. Without historians a society cannot be mature or make its decisions wisely. Between democracy and a free inspired historiography there is a real equation. Amongst disciplines it is the greatest emancipator, releasing men from thraldom to the past, setting free their minds and their hearts for the tasks of each generation. The historian at his desk sheds hypocrisy in human relations, and is the declared enemy of what Norman Angell once called the unseen assassins – the words that defeat truth and accurate understanding by their prejudice or their falsity. In its fullness history is the meeting place of knowledge.

CW de Kiewiet, The Anatomy of South African Misery (1956)