ABSTRACT
History is a necessity. Individuals, communities, societies could scarcely exist if all knowledge of the past was wiped out. As memory is to the individual, so history is to the community or society…. It is a commonplace that we live in a time of rapid and far-reaching cultural change. If we are to make a rational assessment of the extent and significance of this change we have no other recourse than to look to the past: how does present change compare with previous periods of change? If we wish to discuss contemporary morality, we can only do so effectively by making comparisons with past moralities. The very stuff of so many pub conversations is in fact drawn from the past…. Actually, much of the stuff of pub conversations is likely to be mythical rather than historical.
