Two great (imo) quotes from two novelists. Laing is doing an Acker-cosplay (and doing it well. Actually, I am being a bit unfair/dismissive. There’s more to it than that, but you need to know your Acker (and I don’t) to get all the gags).
Hartmann’s book, which I read maybe 15 years ago is a clever sweaty tale about academia and neo-Nazi militias. At least as good as the film Betrayed…
Anyhoos, both quotes capture something important about our efforts to “reconstruct” “the past”, and how they function, sociologically and psychologically.
She was trying to remember the 1980s, specifically 1987. What did people know, what were they ignorant of? That was the problem with history, it was too easy to provide the furnishings but forget the attitudes, the way you became a different person according to what knowledge was available, what experiences were fresh and what had not yet arisen in a personal or global frame.
Laing, O. 2018. Crudo, p. 83
and
That history starts at the beginning and moves forward is an artifice designed for schoolchildren. In truth we start from the present so we can imbue the past with the fickle meanings of the moment.
Hartman, E. 2001. The Truth about Fire, p.182.
Update: 25 March 2024
And thanks to my friend Aaron for pointing to a lovely article by Eric Hobsbawm. The intro below
marchudson.net 
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