At every turn there is an unavoidable clock of chronology ticking the very air we breathe, the decisions we make, and the memories we create. This hourglass of human record provides us, as historians, with a necessary, but difficult responsibility. All of the past has been and will always be a curiosity to mankind simply because it has been. Our inquiry of its content, therefore, demands the practice of careful habits. Even more, we must know our philosophy of history along with why it needs the historian’s assistance.

Ages come and go with or without the transcript of man’s penmanship. When a single minute shines light on a little boy walking from one road to another, that instant needs no mark of mankind to be true. It happened. If, on the other hand, that same occasion involved a great number of events such as the passing of six armored tanks, the strike of a child walking with his father, or a sudden explosion that began in transit, the mark of notation is still unnecessary for time to have been what it was. Under what concern, then, should something be documented worthy enough to bring about a proper archive of the facts? What great story must occur to merit attention of the historian’s protective responsibility? I insist that nothing at all is worthy of this cause for time itself is what we are to bring under our care. Our responsibility, whether we accept or deny it, is to all events regardless of their significance, consequence, or immediate relevance. The events we then choose to illustrate ought to, if at all possible, include as many facets of the surrounding conditions as can be provided reasonably.

Can we define the historical obligations for how much is within reason in our example of the little boy crossing the street? From cloudy skies and a nearing storm to the gentleman across the way in a top hat and coat, the people, places, and events encompassing our chosen story are the very factors that exemplify how much we care about history alone or how much we choose to ignore while searching for other answers. When the author of history opts to share merely that this little child crossed the road and the reader does not see or sense the full experience of the moment, the crushing strike of a passing truck on an unknown heroic man would come across as devastatingly lacking. Would the reader not want more than the knowledge of two factors in which the boy walks and another man gets hit by the speeding vehicle? Are the viewers of our accounts not deserving of more? Where did the man come from so as to be the martyred hero? In the recounting of an event, the historian creates the setting and thus plays out the cards for a history that cannot be removed from the carriage. Whatever took place is what we take responsibility for, but the mandate upon our story is that there should exist a setting. We do not create the scene. Our role is the expression of that moment through a full presentation of the horizon, the stage, and the atmosphere that we have understood.

As the caravans of time, the linear dial grows underneath the canopy of our transport. During our journey from one location to another, the world demands by its nature that we preserve and secure their most precious belongings. Those who entrust us are those who cannot often speak on their own behalf, for they have passed on the compositions of their lives. In the absence of those who once were, we place their content behind curtains that are not heavy enough to withstand present and external pressures that exist. Should we note the previously unthinkable lifestyle of the man who saved the little boy? Would he still be viewed as a hero in the event if we expanded the story to his foolish and sexually explicit lifestyle?

Not only as historians, but as people, we know the fallacy of our human condition. This continuing representation of research demands our greatest wisdom in the provision of information that has the capacity to provide hope or bring about disappointment. Either way, the events are what they are and we cannot alter them. For this reason we are reminded of our assigned posture as the caravan.

This theoretical train can be laid out more simply. A caravan, as most would understand it, is the carriage or multitude of moving coaches that take a person or persons from one place to another. At times, these convoys do not hold humanity alone, but the prized possessions of human pride. The caravan, as one might imagine, is not the volume contained inside, but the carrier of what has already become valuable. Individuals depend upon the organizers of this sequence to take great care with what they have been given knowing that what they have been given is not owned, nor is it anything that they themselves can decline from possession as expositors of each memorial. Unfortunately, an entourage cannot, within itself, be completely free of the dangers that it passes on the road. This is the curtain used to imply our efforts as historians will be littered with unavoidable biases given us by our conditions, alternative viewpoints, and counter objections that suggest we are in error. Regardless of our ability or inability to resolve the information correctly, the past has still happened and we remain the caravan which moves it from point then to point now.

History alone, as the content of our shipment, is far removed from the isolation and correctness of its caravan. Were the guardians and stewards to be inhibited from their defenses, the past would still be as gold that merely changes hands among thieves and criminals. That is, until the treasure is once again retrieved to the watchful eye of those who would not only preserve, but faithfully restore the fortune they have found.

The uniqueness of our campaign to protect the past can, at times, seem as though we are safeguarding something that hasn’t already been preserved. For if the fathers, mothers, warriors, kings, queens, and soldiers of history who have gone on into the next life do not have anyone to write of their story, what events are we transporting when we speak of this time or that? Are we driving an empty vessel? The answer is found in our examination of all available content that can be grasped. What do we know of Socrates’ life and service in his own words beyond the characterization that Plato gave him in later years? Certainly most would believe Plato to be a credible source, but would a fair history of Socrates be complete without the incorporation of Xenophon, Aristotle, and others who heard the stories and lived in the age?

From children to adults and from teachers to readers, a great level of trust is placed on the historian. This confidence is not one that viewing individuals often choose to have, for they know history is what happened. Yet, in an age of information as we live today, people open up our books, flip through our pages, rely on our wisdom, and pass that pipeline of the past on to the next person who will listen. We begin the chain and they pull it outside of our reach. Thus, we have an even greater obligation to be anchored in accuracy. The greater the weight of our content, the more unlikely it is that random readers of history will be able to propagate material in a way that additional historians find credible beyond refutation. When the opposite is true and our caravan has made every effort to hide what was meant to be delivered, we serve future historians a false illusion of truth. For ultimately, whether we are careful or not, it is likely that someone will eventually use our research to further their own.

In the end, we are not individuals who have made, lived, or defined the history we describe. Were we to have lived in any time to which we attribute our focus, the relics of memorandum would still be greater than our single testimony of events. Having experienced any aspect of history would only allow us the unusual task of trying to write under objectively subjective bias. Thus, we become the living transporters of images that allow the rest of mankind to see just a fragment of who they have been, where they have come from, and whose lives they have hurt or enriched by their decisions. When we, as keepers of this great unfinished journal, are able to cease from searching for ourselves in this study, the dawn of reality will allow us to finally see just what it is we hold in our possession. Upon that discovery, our expectations of the past will be replaced by the assurance that no matter its outcome to good or evil, our labor as the caravan of time will serve a historical truth much greater than our own. Ultimately that history, for all its stories and events, will always be the linear timeline of human life so precious and loved that without our careful hand of protection, it may not even exist to the one who is not made aware.