I just ran across this interesting observation about history

I just ran across this interesting observation about history:

[T]here are two pasts. One is the sequence of occurred events, of actions which were performed  and of the actions which they called forth, moving through a complex sequence of actions until the present is reached. . . . There is another past. This is a perceived past. This is a much more plastic thing, more capable of being retrospectively reformed by human beings living in the present. It is the past which is recorded in memory and in writing, formed from encounters with "the hard facts," not just from inescapable but also from sought-for encounters.

Edward Shils, Tradition (1981) at 195.

And I agree with his next sentence: "The past is too vast for any human being ever to be in contact with all of it"[!]