Rocket and Lightship

"But then, the present is always lived ambiguously. It is only in retrospect that we begin to simplify experience into myth -- because we need stories to live by, because we want to honor our ancestors and our country instead of doubting them. Events give way to books and movies and television shows, gray becomes black and white, and in time the seeming clarity and monumentality of the past makes us feel shy, guilty, or resentful before it. The best history writing reverses this process, restoring complexity to our sense of the past, helping us to understand that the people who fought the war were as imperfect as ourselves. This requires objectivity, but it should not breed detachment." --Rocket and Lightship Adam Kirsch, 2015