Past Imperfect

"But opposing presentism doesn't get politics out of history. Writing about the past as if it existed wholly on its own terms and did not lead to the present suggests that history is utterly useless today--a cozy pursuit that cannot disturb our assumptions about what is happening now. It makes history marvelously conservative--which is, of course, a political point of view, too."

In The New Republic, Eric Rauchway stands up for "presentism" in studying the past.