Alun Munslow (1947–2019) was a British historian known for his deconstructionist and postmodernist approach to historiography.
He was Professor Emeritus of History and Historical Theory at Staffordshire University.
He suggests that the past is the time before our perpetual present and 'history' is that range of authored narratives we substitute for it.
Munslow suggests that the consequences of this argument are substantial and not the least among them being the situation that we can only engage with the aesthetics of 'historying' because we cannot access the ontic and epistemic nature of the past.
He accepts that this may seem ironic – and happily it is – the reason being that history is a singularly unprivileged authorial act undertaken in the perpetual present about the ineffable past.