The Story of My Engagements with the Past
Peter Münz
My first engagement with the past was prompted by philosophical and political commitments to Plato Marx their theories of historical development. But these were soon dislodged study history ideas development Burke, Locke Hooker. Prompted Hooker's intellectual background, studies, in turn, led further but different engagements medieval history—first philosophy and, from there, socio-political formative centuries Middle Ages. And then, taking religion as seriously people had done, myself not being a believer, I obliged ponder problems religion. Each raised rather than provided solutions therefore next, which usually differed kind. The one steady thread realisation that since has present, events must have been causally related. According Popper, causal links are relative generalisations. generalisations used vary according times circumstances, linked endlessly ways so gets plethora narratives. conclusion all metahistorical preoccupations required meta-narrative, or what be called history, logically inevitable.
Rethinking History