It’s fun to fool around with history. It’s sort of like playing with a slinky: you can bend it in any direction, twist it, contract or expand it, tie it in a knot, but it never loses its fundamental singularity, its linear metallic structure. There are many ways history could have happened (or so we presume) and many ways of viewing it, which we can never agree upon based on our different perspectives, values, and habits of mind.