This chapter addresses the historiography that justifies the contents of this book along the three major lines: (i) the usual divide between classical physics and modern physics is misleading when trying to explain the status quo of the ether in the early twentieth century; (ii) the ether remains alive in many quarters, thanks to a complex entanglement of authority, knowledge and ethos of some of the main actors involved in this story; (iii) the ether played a relevant role in the quest for unity in knowledge of nature in an attempt to transcend the divide between the material and the spiritual. Finally, this chapter makes a plea for pluralism in the history of science, escaping from linear and progressive accounts in the history of the demise of the ether.