“My argument is that history is made by men and women, just as it can also be unmade and rewritten, always with various silence and elisions, always with shapes imposed and disfigurements tolerated.”

— Edward Said

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Edward Said 24

Professor of English and literature 1935–2003

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“He who invokes history is always secure.
The dead will not rise to witness against him.You can accuse them of any deeds you like.
Their reply will always be silence.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

"Child of Europe" (1946)
Daylight (1953)
Context: He who invokes history is always secure.
The dead will not rise to witness against him.You can accuse them of any deeds you like.
Their reply will always be silence.Their empty faces swim out of the deep dark.
You can fill them with any features desired.Proud of dominion over people long vanished,
Change the past into your own, better likeness.