Å lytte til historiens sus

In spite of the common stereotype of modern man as out of touch with his past, the importance of history is universally accepted in modern societies. History provides identity, roots and belonging. While the work of historians serves to supply materials for this view, it is a task for cultural analysis to ask why history works in this way, to investigate in what ways history and the past is perceived. This perspective requires the development of new concepts and categories. The social production of memory ⁠— or history ⁠— may be seen as a chorus with many voices. Modern societies are characterized by the academic discipline of history assuming a dominant position in this chorus, but other voices also exist: popular traditions, personal memories etc. However, academic history has acquired a position that turns it into a mythology of modernity, a grand narrative placing the individual in the context of the cosmic drama of linear time. This mythology supplies modern man with his "roots" and with answers to existential questions of meaning and belonging.