Prefaces to History by Bruce Catton

“As the world grows more and more complex, and as its complexities come to conceal an increasing number of pitfalls which can drop the whole human race straight down into the starless dark if they are not noticed in time, it becomes more and more important for men to understand their own history, to see how former trials were met, to learn how some of these pitfalls develop, and to get the knowledge they must have if they are to make their way through the perplexing and ominous twentieth century. Above all things, they need to know the story of their own past, and if they don’t get it from the historian they won’t get it from anybody—not, at least, in a form that will be of any use to them.”

-Bruce Catton