|History seminar room, Johns Hopkins University, 1887|
But if our definition of what history is changed over that period, our definition of what politics has also been changing for nearly as long. Somehow, I think, things have come back around. For just as history encompasses almost all human activty, the truth is so does politics. In every action or thought or relationship there are structures, echoes, lines, shadows of power. And politics is the negotiation and arrangement of power. Pick any novel, and read how the subtle lines of power connect individuals and animate their lives. Can works of history exist that do not do the same?