It’s only by standing apart from the events they describe, as Keegan and Kern do, that historians can understand and, more significantly, compare events. For surely understanding implies comparison: to comprehend something is to see it in relation to other entities of the same class; but when these stretch over spans of time and space that exceed the physical capabilities of the individual observer, our only alternative is to be in several places at once.19 Only viewing the past from the perspective of the present—the posture of Friedrich’s wanderer on his mountaintop—allows you to do that.
