History became the discourse each class used to claim its rights

Evidence

This was the precise moment when history became the discourse that every “nation”—in quotation marks—or at least every order or every class used to lay claim to its right; this is the moment when, if you like, history became the general discourse of political struggles. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 5217

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to later readings on nationalism: history as the discourse of the imagined community claiming rights, anticipating Anderson’s imagined communities and the construction of the nation.
• DEFINE: Defines the late-18th-century shift where historical discourse became the general medium of political struggle among contending groups.