ABSTRACT
All history, it seems to us, is difficult and troubling. The source of our claim stems in part from the important but often overlooked distinction between histories and the past. Despite everyday ideas that often conflate them, they are not one and the same. The latter is what remains for us to ponder, read, consider, and research—through artifacts, relics, accounts, residue, and especially memories. But as Cohen (1994) observes, it also must include, to the extent possible, what has been forgotten or erased. Histories, on the other hand, are the meanings we give to a rescued past, at best a partial process because what remains and what has vanished or been erased are difficult to recover. And herein lies a powerful tension and the beginnings of so many problems afflicting those who would recreate the past for present purposes.
