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Ian Kershaw on the trials of writing modern history

Fallible memories and a surplus of sources mean that the most challenging era for historians to tackle is the one in which we now live, says Sir Ian Kershaw

Protesters on the streets of Prague during the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968. Of all the history books Ian Kershaw has authored down the decades, his two wide-ranging volumes on modern Europe have proved the most difficult to write. (Photo by Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images)

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