This Focus addresses the relationship between historians and the societies they serve, particularly since the later nineteenth century when, for the first time, historians began to define themselves as a distinct professional group. One of the conclusions that emerges from the four case studies pursued here is that the independence of judgement which professionalism implies, founders the moment it is perceived by a wider public that historians are no longer providing them with the moral guidance they expect from those who have studied their pasts. It is also shown that the challenges and responses did not prove identical in any two sets of circumstances. This introduction also makes reference to general challenges to which individual contributors do not necessarily refer, but which have impacted on the work and independence of all historians.

Historians, both now and in the past, have been aware that what they write is, of necessity, influenced by their personal circumstances as also by their political and social preferences. Perhaps out of recognition of this, some writers of history in all centuries, and possibly from every culture, have celebrated their ability to shape policy in the present by citing experiences from past times. Then, in the nineteenth century, as governments in the west established Public Record Offices, National Archives and National Libraries, it came to be accepted in that part of the world that historians were professionals who, having undertaken a prescribed course of training, were uniquely equipped to assess how politicians and diplomats in the past had conducted their business.