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Cadzao Posted 18 years ago
Grammar

vast deal

"The aim of history, said Ranke, is simply to state "what has actually happened," but this is far from being a simple business, even apart from the fact that we can never hope to know all that has actually happened. If we did know all, we should have to forget almost everything before we could understand anything -- just as our memory is an aid only because we remember no more than a minute fraction of our past experience. As it is, the main problem is not so much to fill in the many gaps of our factual knowledge as to make sense out of the vast deal that we do know."

1. I cannot get what the author mean by "(this is) even apart...actually happened." Please explain it!

2. The blue sentence seems to me absurd. Why should we have to forget everything before we could understand anything?

3. And could you please rephrase the red sentence?

Thank you so much in davance.

Cadzao
  

Top answer

1. We can never hope to know everything that has happened, so stating what has happened is difficult. But this is not the only reason why it is difficult.

  • 1.
  • We can never hope to know everything that has happened, so stating what has happened is difficult.
  • But this is not the only reason why it is difficult.
  • Even without that problem ("even apart from that fact"), it would still be difficult (for the reasons that the author goes on to state).
  • 2.
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2 Answers
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1. We can never hope to know everything that has happened, so stating what has happened is difficult. But this is not the only reason why it is difficult. Even without that problem ("even apart from that fact"), it would still be difficult (for the reasons that the author goes on to state).

2. I assume he means that if we remembered absolutely everything then our minds would be so clutter
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1. He's saying that it's obvious we can never know the whole story. But, besides this there are other great difficulties in describing history, and it's those I want to discuss.

The red rephrases the black and the blue. I'm not saying it makes a whole lot of sense. "Understand" in the blue equals "make sense out of" in the red.

Too m

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