Henry Ford said that history is bunk; but history has gotten its revenge on the pioneer auto maker. It has made Ford himself a benchmark of history, at least in its industrial and economic phases. Ford effectively disproved his own statement when he established Greenfield Village, which is probably one of the half-dozen favorite historical sites in our country. 

Some of us love history, but even those who don't had better be ready to admit its significance. We want to know where we've come from and how things come to be as they are. When a driver slows his coach to point to some slabs in a field and tells the American tourists that they are looking at the oldest recorded writing on the British Isles, people quickly click their cameras. We want a record, fleeting and blurred though it may …