Descent from the Ivory Tower: A Group Assignment for Studying the Role of History in Society Stefan Eklöf Amirell University of Gothenburg, Sweden mOST PROFESSIONAL HISTORIANS, whether engaged in teaching or research, will agree that the main reason for studying the past lies in its relevance for understanding the present. Both as an academic disci- pline and as a school subject, history is understood, not as a collection of entertaining stories from the past, but as a necessary perspective for understanding the society and the wider world which we live in today. The role of history in contemporary society, however, is all but uncon- troversial. many professional historians see it as their mission to seek a supposedly objective truth in order to explain how certain chains of events led to the development of key institutions, norms, and arrangements in contemporary society, whereas others see it as their task to demonstrate the wide range of possible alternatives in history, thereby providing a corrective to teleological and deterministic versions of history. Some his- torians see their subject as instrumental in forging national or other types of collective identities and coherence, whereas others deconstruct such histories and reveal the mythical or “invented” character of different social, cultural, and political collectives. Activist historians aim to scrutinize critically the prevailing political ideologies and expose unequal relations of social, cultural, economic, and political power, often for the purpose The History Teacher Volume 42 Number 4 August 2009 © Stefan Eklöf Amirell For these, it seems to me, are two essential functions of history. History that is not useful, that has not some lay appeal, is mere antiquarianism; history that is not controversial is dead history. Hugh Trevor-Roper 1