the.com/historian

a detective whose suspects are all dead and whose alibis are all written by the winners

means A person who studies, researches, and writes about the past, interpreting evidence to explain how and why things happened.

from From the Greek 'historia,' meaning 'inquiry' or 'knowledge gained by investigation' — the same root that gives us 'history' itself. It traveled through Latin 'historia' and into Old French 'historien' before settling into English by the late Middle Ages. Fittingly, the Greek sense was less 'old stories' than 'finding out for yourself' — the historian as investigator, not just recorder.

first oneHerodotus wrote in 5th-century BC, called father of history
the biassurvivors and victors wrote most surviving records
job hazardhindsight makes every disaster look obvious afterward
slow burnnew archives can rewrite history centuries later
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