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Content: Whatever they do, it is a fragment of something much larger that is impossible to grasp completely. The Head of the History Department at Boston Latin offered a fascinating insight into this process of selection and the writing of History. He said that the present has a powerful influence over how we see the past. We look back in time through the lens of our current beliefs, ideas, values, and goals. As those change, so do important historical interpretations. After the Revolutionary War, England was depicted in America as a tyrant, an oppressor. In the First World War, we were England's ally, and we had become much more like our erstwhile enemy. In our History, we revised many of our grievances against England. In the 1930's during the Great Depression, economics became an important lens for looking at the past. Sometimes, our History Department Head said, History is as much a window on the present as it is on the past.