ABSTRACT
While Henry Ford’s famous verbal drubbing of history just ninety years ago may not throw much light on the intellectual, social and political function of history, it surely says something about the spirit of the modern age.1 Interestingly, at a concert by U2 in Sarajevo just over ten years ago – still within the geographical orbit of Byzantium – while the ‘old’ Yugoslavia was disintegrating, the lead singer of the band, Bono, recommended to the 50,000 people in the audience that they ‘forget the past’ and look only to the future. Henry Ford and Bono, it could be argued, were both condemning, perhaps legitimately, the use of history as a tool to perpetuate belligerence: history and tradition sustaining national or ethnic animosity, ensnaring mankind in feĴers of hatred, social regression, cynical manipulation by ruling elites and, ultimately, moral bankruptcy. A serious indictment, indeed – though it is just one side of the coin.
