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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
In fact history is tied neither to man or to any particular object. It consists wholly in its method, which experience proves to be indispensable for cataloguing the elements of any structure whatever, human or anti-human, in their entirety. It is therefore far from being the case that the search for intelligibility comes to an end in history as though this were its terminus. Rather, it is history that serves as the point of departure in any quest for intelligibility. As we say of certain careers, history may lead to anything, provided you get out of it.
Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Savage Mind © University of Chicago Press (USA and Philippines) and George Weidenfeld and Nicholson Ltd, 1966 [1962].Ordnung muß sein. Das weiß man schon von klein. (Order is all. We learn that when we're small.)
German aphorismEntering Berlin
Upon entering one of the border zones that divided the Germanies, either along the Elbe River, or between East and West Berlin, the first question put to you by the East German border guards was: “Where are you going?” The answer revealed not only intended destination, but also political standpoint and understanding of postwar history. The question would elicit simultaneously a name, a categorization, and a periodization. I encountered this situation on September 1, 1986, as I “entered the field” – the anthropological euphemism for going to live with the people one is about to study.
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