ABSTRACT
Rather than attempting to sum up all that has gone before and offer a ‘final word’ on the subject of sceptical history, I thought I would append a ‘conclusion’ that reflects upon the problems that plagued me during the writing of the book. This suggests the first question to be confronted. Given that I so often emphasized the need for self-reflexivity in works of history, was I myself reflective enough throughout the book? Before addressing that question, however, let me reiterate how in Chapter 1, though I was loathe to be too definitive about principles of practice, I did nevertheless isolate six commonly mentioned guidelines: briefly, concerning self-reflexivity, leaving arguments open, discontinuities, difference (or, rather, discourses of differentiation), a view of the Self as acentric, multiply positioned and in flux, and sustained (if not only an) attention to historiography.
