Beginnings possess an implicit power to produce meaning. The beginning of an argument declares more than just a point of departure. It is less an innocent first place, and more the disclosure of an attitude of mind, a consciousness of understanding. A beginning anticipates the ensuing argument to a terminus that is in some sense inferred at the very outset. Sometimes this is unproblematic and uninteresting. If we are writing the military history of the First World War, the end of the book is predetermined. At other times, a beginning raises more intriguing questions. A book on the origins of the First World War, conversely, does not possess a self-declared beginning. No precise event announced the opening of a route to war and it is impossible to say without contention that this or that episode lit the long fuse to August 1914. The author has, therefore, to construct a moment to appoint as the first step to war. Similarly, to nominate a certain set of years as designating, say, the Renaissance is to declare a historical problem by a process of naming. Where we begin, therefore, may serve to define the problem we address.

To establish boundaries of beginnings and endings around historical periods may be regarded as a policing strategy. The practice of boundary setting involves the installation of a series of premises and assumptions which determine what follows. Where we start and where we end and how we get there do not lie implicit and latent in the matter of history itself, waiting only to be teased out by the skilled historian.