The Condescension of Posterity

[pjthompson]

"I became attracted at an early stage of my education as a historian to eschew what Edward Thompson describes as 'the massive condescension of posterity': That is, the common habit of writing off the mental worlds of those of our ancestors who, we think, took a wrong turn while that march of progress was going on or who, more broadly, demonstrated that irritating habit of not sharing the values which we have come to think of as important."

—James Sharpe, The Instruments of Darkness