ABSTRACT
An invitation of this kind can be interpreted in at least two ways, as an opportunity to produce a programme (or even a manifesto) for a particular way of doing history, or to paint an intellectual self-portrait (warts and all, of course). Having produced a number of such programmes in my time – perhaps too many – I shall opt for the self-portrait, hoping to produce a moving picture rather than a static one, to show how an individual interacts with various milieux and in this way to confront a number of problems currently under debate. In this way an account of a single historian’s development may contribute to the collective process of rethinking history.
