History is about the sequence of events that led to the lives we lead today. It is the story of how we came to be ourselves. Understanding it is the key to finding out if and how we can further change the world in which we live. ‘He who controls the past controls the future,’ is one of the slogans of the totalitarians who control the state in George Orwell’s novel 1984. It is a slogan always taken seriously by those living in the palaces and eating the banquets described in Brecht’s ‘Questions’.