I spent years certain that progress in history was basically linear. Reading primary sources from people who lived through 'declines' changed that. The texture of being inside it What moved me wasn't an argument but the texture of a moment: letters, ledgers, complaints about the weather. People in supposedly doomed eras were busy planning weddings and arguing about taxes. We read history backwards, from the conclusion. The people living it only ever had the middle. Once I felt that, I stopped trusting any tidy story about the present that depends on already knowing how things turn out.