Practicing Imperfection: A Zen Rabbi and the Limits of Historical Inquiry

Cracks in the Chronicle

History is not the past. That statement may seem absurd or counter-intuitive, but it is true. History - as an academic discipline and a craft - is the interpretation of what happened in the past. It is not, therefore, a list of famous dead people and their accomplishments, a litany of important battles, or even a collection of information about how people lived before today. When people put facts about the past together in chronological order, they are not writing history, at best, they are producing a chronicle. But, there are always cracks in a chronicle, gaps between one piece of information and another. When people - whether they are scholars or the public - write history, they fill in those gaps by explaining the relationship between one fact and another. Cracks in the Chronicle explores the gaps between the various things we know about Alan Lew and the way we can write his history. In the pages that follow, we will discuss different ways to make sense of all of the facts we have of Alan Lew's life. 

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