A year ago, it was possible to write about the potential for civil war in Iraq. Today that civil war is well underway. |
History is our interpretation of past thoughts that happened to be written down or otherwise preserved. We do not really study [historical] causes, but what people at the time thought were the causes. And our aim in retrieving their thoughts is not so much to explain how things happened as to understand how they seemed to have happened. |
The floodwaters unleashed by Katrina may be receding. But the economic aftershock of the disaster may still lie ahead. |