The point is that most people don't want what you and your colleagues think of as history - the sort you get in books - because they don't know how to deal with it. Personally, I've every sympathy. With them, that is. I've tried to read a few history books myself, and while I may not be clever enough to enroll in your classes, it seems to me that the main problem with them is this: they all assume you've read most of the other history books already. It's a closed system. There's nowhere to start. It's like looking for the tag to unwrap a CD. You know that feeling? There's a coloured strip running all the way round, and you can see what's inside and you want to get at it, but the strip doesn't seem to start anywhere no matter how many times you run you fingernail round it.