History as she used to be done

[the_lady_lily]

Women have their uses for historians. They offer relief from warfare, legislation, and the history of ideas; and they enrich the central theme of social history, if and when enough evidence is available.

Ronald Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy, page 168.

Comments

[metonymy.livejournal.com]

"I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all—it is very tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention."

Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey.