Quotes from John H. Arnold

War is sometimes described as long periods of boredom punctuated by short moments of excitement. History is often similar, if rather safer.

History is above all else an argument. It is an argument between different historians; and, perhaps, an argument between the past and the present, an argument between what actually happened, and what is going to happen next. Arguments are important; they create the possibility of changing things.

The past itself is not a narrative. In its entirety, it is as chaotic, uncoordinated, and complex as life. History is about making sense of that mess, finding or creating patterns and meanings and stories from the maelstrom.

History up to the Renaissance had been something that one composed. History after the Renaissance, informed by methods for work and investigation, was increasingly something that one did.

If scientists could point to the fabulous interconnections of the natural world, historians should try to understand the past in a similarly intricate fashion.

all history in some ways wishes to say something about its own present time.

For nothing ever ends, really; stories lead to other stories, journeys across a thousand miles of ocean lead to journeys across a continent, and the meanings and interpretations of these stories are legion. 'Origins' are simply where we choose to pick up the story, dictating (and dictated by) what kind of story it is we wish to tell. 'Outcomes' are where we wearily draw to a close.

In many ways, history both begins and ends with questions; which is to say that it never really ends, but is a process.

history is to society what memory is to the individual.

History has a beginning in sources, but also in the gaps within and between sources.