As historians, our aim is to do our utmost to understand and elucidate past reality. At the same time, in pursuit of this goal, we must use ordering concepts that by definition inevitably introduce an element of distortion. I believe that our task as historians is to choose concepts that combine a maximum of explanatory power with a minimum of distortional effect.
Paul A. Cohen, Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past
china, historiography, history