Stories are central to the human experience, but we live in what writer Wallace Stegner called "the amputated present" - a world in which our stories (and our histories) often seem insignificant. The study of history has never been more important than it is now. Yet, we tend to see history as little more than a dead set of facts - game show trivia to be memorized for jackpot victories on prime time television.

Writing helps me as a historian to remember, literally to re-connect, with our many storied pasts, and gives me the power to imagine future possibilities. I envision "History" as a continually flowing River with many sources, currents, and tributaries. Or to speak less metaphorically, history is comprised of "often-shifting stories about who we are, where we have been, and where we might be going."

Though history is about the past, it ought to inform the present. We are navigators on that river, where pasts and present are in endless dialogue, with possible futures waiting just beyond the next bend. Let's harness multimedia to tell our own (his)stories, not simply digest the pre-packaged history of the textbook barons and television hucksters.