quote · Legacy record
The writer of history, I believe, has a number of duties vis-à-vis the reader, if he wants to keep him reading. The first is to distill. He must do the preliminary work for the reader, assemble the information, make sense of it, select the essential, discard the irrelevant- above all, discard the irrelevant - and put the rest together so that it forms a developing dramatic narrative. Narrative, it has been said , is the lifeblood of history. To offer a mass of undigested facts, of names not identified and places not located, is of no use to the reader and is simple laziness on the part of the author, or pedantry to show how much he has read.
The writer of history, I believe, has a number of duties vis-à-vis the reader, if he wants to keep him reading. The first is to distill. He must do the preliminary work for the reader, assemble the information, make sense of it, select the essential, discard the irrelevant- above all, discard the irrelevant - and put the rest together so that it forms a developing dramatic narrative. Narrative, it has been said , is the lifeblood of history. To offer a mass of undigested facts, of names not identified and places not located, is of no use to the reader and is simple laziness on the part of the author, or pedantry to show how much he has read.
Approximate author period: c. 1950 AD · modern
Meaning not yet available
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Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Barbara W. Tuchman
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 1950 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1912 to 1989; Wikidata Q59112, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q59112 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- Contributor-provided quotation collection
Supplied reference C; CSV row 85441; supplied attribution, independently unverified
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.