ABSTRACT
History, rather than being a projection of the content of the past, is a projection of its form. This chapter addresses the implications of this for the established empiricist paradigm through the four headings of history as a separate epistemology, historical evidence, the historian and social theory, and the significance of narrative to historical explanation. Deconstructionist history argues that there is always more than a single truth. Deconstructionist history does not declare that there is no hierarchy of value, but declares instead that all are capable of making different and legitimate value judgements about what is right and wrong. The impositionalism of the historian may indeed make itself manifest as a matter of artifice in constructing the narrative, but impositionalism operates at a much deeper level because of the narrative structure of history. The chapter argues that all historical narratives are representations of cultural memories rather than mimes.
