ABSTRACT
The past is not history and history is not the past. However, no history can claim that the past is what historians (variously) want to believe about ‘the reality of the past’. So, it is essential to be clear that the past is the time before our perpetual present, and ‘the-past-as-history’ is not the same as ‘the history of the past’. Plainly, then, the past is accessible but only in the form of those narrative(s) that historians and anyone else—if they choose—to create about it. This does not mean we can invent the past as it suits us. We must be very clear on this, engaging with the past is essential to our culture. The attested past is the only past we can have and understandably there is no point in denying the reality of the past. Only the meretricious deny the reality of the past but, like every history, it is just one more authorial creation.
