Historians cannot exit colonial history the way Lévi-Strauss recommended.

Evidence

Lévi-Strauss once (in)famously wrote that history is a fine departure point in “any quest for intelligibility” as long as one “gets out of it.” But quick exit is more dangerous and more compromised than his bon mot suggests. In the case of empire it is really not an option. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 70