But then you have to let go, you must make the leap. Once you've done your homework you have to write the essay. It's like going to school. You follow your intuition based on the research. You pick and choose.
Historians do too, but they deny that they make choices.
Well, that was a point made not by me but by Hayden White in Tropics of Discourse . He just makes the point that in narrative histories there are too many facts for any historian to deal with, and there's a natural selection of omission that goes on. I study history in order to give an interpretation. There are just too many facts to include in any historical work, if you have it all before you. This was another thing that I wanted to pursue, this whole question about why the establishment has a thing for you.