International spokesman1

Abstract

For historians it is doubtless not only a drawback to work in a small country. External resources may well be fewer. The closest circle of likeminded people will be a trifle narrow. During professorial conflicts and other gloomy events it becomes a life-and-death problem whether the train of ideas shall carry us to the dear old station of Little Puddleton North, the cosy and well-kept Little Puddleton South, or the always freshly-painted Little Puddleton West. But such things pass. As recompense there is the advantage that in the smaller countries national self-sufficiency falls by its own senselessness. It is necessary to try to break out in every direction. Failure to getting to grips with history in an international context means no chance of getting to grips with it at all. The great scholars in all countries do of course reach out across the frontiers, but if we look at the average, then it is probably easier to be provincial and self-satisfied in England and France than in Stockholm, Oslo and Helsinki.