Abstract
This article looks at the allied professions of archivist and historian, and considers the ways in which each has moved beyond attempts to look at the past in terms of neutral reconstructions of actual lives and events and then ascribing fixed meaning to those. The author considers the effects of the 'linguistic turn' on professions valuing authenticity, evidence, and truth, and the further degradation of those tenets as masses of data are re-presented in digital media. It is argued that there is an important role for knowledge workers in preserving and interpreting materials which can prove valuable for the creation of subjectivity in a relentlessly self-reflexive world. Telling the best possible stories about the past is critically important if we are to move forward as a society.