Review of #Dray, Law and Explanation in History. Passmore makes the crucial point that "methodologists‑‑perhaps out of a belief that every respectable form of enquiry can be assimilated to physics‑‑often exaggerate the extent to which the historian sets out to explain" (270). In fact, "the historian is most of the time describing, not explaining" (273). For example, a historian "is not‑‑or need not be‑‑explaining when he describes the difficulties encountered by Governor Philip in setting up a colony in Sydney" (270). He argues that Dray does not really overthrow the Popper‑Hempel model of explanation, though he does succeed in showing that the model must be amended. Dray's "model of the continuous series" ignores the fact that there are breaks in continuity, and he is too quick to deny that, in a particular instance and for a particular audience, a single general statement can be an adequate explanation. Further, Dray's notion of causality is "loose and confused" (274). Finally, Dray's account of "explanation by reasons or 'principles'" does not sufficiently attend to the distinction between good reasons and actual reasons, and risks casting the historian in the role of an excuser rather than an explainer (273‑75).