“There is the perfectly correct instinct that in some way we remain very close to those who preceded us over centuries and generations, and in some ways we are also quite different and history dwells within this wonderfully delicate problematic area between kinship and remoteness. We need it because we need to rebel against the shortness of our own span of years. We need a kind of purchase on a length of time that will tell us about our humanity that it is longer than our own allotted three-score and ten – I think that’s very, very deep in human instinct.”
– Simon Schama
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