ABSTRACT
‘The past’ and ‘history’ are often assumed to be the same thing. Unfortunately, that common sense notion is inappropriately inept. The reason for this odd understanding is because the truth of our perpetual present is revealed in ‘authored texts’ such as books, TV scripts, lectures, seminars, chats on the bus, and similar. The nature of the past, aka history, is ‘attested to’ by reference to ‘the sources’ that are scattered about and then ‘selected’ by the historian for their attested service to the present. All histories and historians are continuously in a discussion and/or debate with other histories and historians. This situation cannot be avoided because there are almost as many varieties of ‘historical pasts’ as there are historians willing to authorially engage with them.
