There is no history but universal history—as it really was.

Leopold von Ranke

Il n'y a pas d'histoire de l'Europe, il y a une histoire du monde!

Marc Bloc

History is marked by alternating movements across the imaginary line that separates East from West in Eurasia.

Herodotus

History is all things to all men…. Perhaps the most important methodological problem in the writing of history is to discover why different historians, on the basis of the same or similar evidence, often have markedly different interpretations of a particular historical event.

R M. Hartwell

The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.

John F. Kennedy

orient: The East; lustrous, sparkling, precious; radiant, rising, nascent; place or exactly determine position, settle or find bearings; bring into clearly understood relations; direct towards; determine how one stands in relation to one's surroundings. Turn eastward,
reorient: Give new orientation to; readjust, change outlook.

from The Concise Oxford Dictionary