Words: 92 (17×17)
Average Length: 5.15
Among my many nerdly pursuits, I’m a history buff. I find it fascinating how events unfold, no matter the time period or part of the world. In particular, I’m intrigued by how contingent history is, as the author of this puzzle’s quote emphasized throughout his long, brilliant career. Only in retrospect does history appear pre-ordained.
When I came across the quote in a posthumously published book of the author’s essays, I knew I wanted to build a puzzle around it. The trick was figuring out how to display the quote symmetrically; turns out I needed a super-sized grid and mirror (left-right) rather than the traditional rotational symmetry.
Jeff's Puzzles 
4 replies on “History Is Not Inevitable”
A terrific quote! And served well by great construction. Favorite clues = 27A, 28A, 40A, 7D, and 63D. I had two instances of 60D: 19A and 20D. I’m not sure I understand ‘C of E’ in 50D. (I say this with some embarrassment, because I’m probably missing something obvious…)
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Thanks! C of E is Church of England, which I wanted to use because of the British spelling. I probably should have spelled it out given that there’s no abbreviation in the answer – not sure now why I didn’t.
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Got it! As anticipated, I should have been able to draw that conclusion based on the spelling of eulogise. 🤦🏼♀️
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