History is always best written generations after the event, when clouded fact and memory have all fused into what can be accepted as truth, whether it be so or not.
Interpretation
History is often better understood and interpreted after some time has passed, allowing for a clearer view of the truth.
The quote by Theodore White suggests that the writing of history is a complex process that benefits from the distance of time. As generations pass, the facts, memories, and perceptions surrounding an event blend together, creating a narrative that may feel more truthful or acceptable, regardless of its accuracy. This implies that historical truth is somewhat subjective and shaped by the collective memory of society rather than being an absolute reflection of reality at the moment it occurs.
In practice
In a discussion about the accuracy of historical narratives, one might say, 'As Theodore White noted, history is best written generations after events.'
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Power in America today is control of the means of communication.
I happen to think that American politics is one of the noblest arts of mankind; and I cannot do anything else but write about it.
Politics in America is the binding secular religion.
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There is no excitement anywhere in the world, short of war, to match the excitement of the American presidential campaign.
Memory is a strange Bell—Jubilee, and Knell.
There are no conditions to which a man cannot get accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way.
One has only the choice between God and idolatry. There is no other possibility. For the faculty of worship is in us, and it is either directed somewhere into this world, or into another.
To correct the evils, great and small, which spring from want of sympathy and from positive enmity among strangers, as nations or as individuals, is one of the highest functions of civilization.
We've been deceived by the thought that we would be more pleasing to God in our own way than in the way God has given us.
Life is an unanswered question, but let's still believe in the dignity and importance of the question.
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