#human_nature

Academic historians realize that to generalize about the past is to risk distorting it. We write microhistories that capture a singular experience; we show causations, correlations, the intersection of unique events. But as George M. Frederickson notes in The Comparative Imagination, we cannot escape another sort of generalization. We take for granted the human desire for security, self-fulfillment, and dignity. Without this, we could not know perversions or exaggerations.