Not quite science

Talents indispensable to historians are somewhat mysterious. Outside of the obvious - hard work and focus and determination - there has be a feeling of human nature as both universal and alterable: how we crave security and status, how we sacrifice for ideals, or how some, out of nowhere, reverse course. Actions are judged, individuals pulled away from groups, and exceptions separated from garden variety exertions. There flows an arrangement of vivid examples and also some patterns, predictable and unpredictable. Isaiah Berlin’s, “The Concept of Scientific History” salutes the moments in which history veers from science and stumbles to art.