“A historian must combine the rigour of the scientist with the imagination of the artist.” To

... "A historian must combine the rigour of the scientist with the imagination of the artist." To what extent, then, can the historian be confident about his or her conclusions? Writing history, argues Thurén, can be likened to building a house, with the facts resembling the building material. "One has to have good building material and construct the building so that it is strong. But what the house will look like in the end does not only depend on the material, but also on the architect / historian."1 This is, to my mind, a good analogy of the view that history, as the 5 subject studied by a historian, is a combination of scientific and artistic - or, in the extension, objective and subjective - knowledge. Some aspects of the end result are always determined by the facts available. If there is only timber, it is bound to be a wooden house and if there is yellow paint, the house

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