4 quotes
Psychohistory, as a science, will always be problem-centered, while history will always remain period-centered. They are simply two different tasks.
Foundations of Psychohistory (1982)
Historians are presumed to be unable to "do psychology," which is "mystical" anyway, so they are forced to accept the most "rational" explanations... "and it is on these that history is built."
Foundations of Psychohistory (1982)
Written history may, in the course of its narrative, use some of the laws established by the various sciences, but its own task remains that of relating the essential sequence of historical action and, qua history, to tell what happened, not why.
Foundations of Psychohistory (1982)
There is, for instance, only one page at the beginning of Runciman's three-volume History of the Crusades describing how the participants decided to begin four hundred years of wars, and then several thousand pages devoted to the routes, battles and other events which make up the "history" of the Crusades.
Foundations of Psychohistory (1982)