Quote from: aligern on January 27, 2014, 05:56:39 PM
Erpingham suggests we have a separate thread on cultural influences , are you up for that?
Roy
Oh, steady on :) I will come clean and say I'm trying to move us towards safer ground. I really am not comfortable with some aspects of what is being discussed here because I think they are intrinsically political, and we avoid politics here. That said, we could veer toward the philosophical - the nature of the historical and archaeological art/science (this is one of those moments where German comes to the fore
archaeologicheskunst maybe?). To what degree can we be objective and how do we do it, noting that historical sources themselves are rarely objective? What levels of subjectivity are acceptable? Sometimes I like a bit of opinion in my history books, especially if I agree with it.
That, I hope takes away from dead babies and sandal-wearing conspiracies (classical or Guardian-reading) and into something that might help us with our study of the military history of the ancient and medieval worlds (and yes, I'm aware that the medieval timeperiod is a Western cultural artefact :) ).
If we tread carefully we might be able to assess 'political' influences on the interpretation of history without getting into a political argument (including a 'they did/they didn't' one) but I suggest the keynote be the observing of cultural influences on the way history is interpreted.
Culture takes centre stage of course, right from what constitutes history through to acceptable methods of argument, admissible evidence, appropriate format, diction and so on.
If we stand outside of the tradition we are reduced to talk of systemic bias, but if we work from inside it we can perhaps hope to judge objectivity by how well an author combs, selects, uses and presents evidence, whether his or her arguments are based on logic or rhetoric, how he or she deals with other theories, and whether the text attempts to persuade through form or through content.
Unfortunately, if readers do not have expertise in the area under discussion, objectivity must be taken or rejected on trust and this will inevitably be informed by our own preconceptions and predispositions.
In short, it's a minefield!
(whispers quietly)
dont start a debate about the histories of the nations comprising the UK (currently). Now that's a minefield!
::)
Oh, you mean about how the English conquered the Scots?
Or was it the other way round?
Me, I'm just a colonial. 8)
The original intent of the thread seems to have been to note how the perceptions of scholars/academics and historians colour the way they perceive and analyse the past. The immediate cause, or pretext, was the matter of how Carthaginian infant sacrifice, described in some sources, has been treated by academia, with the underlying observation - right or wrong - that the rejection of source accounts was coloured by cultural bias rather than historical analysis, and pseudo-historical analysis was used to rewrite the story in favour of individual (or collective) cultural values. The argu - I mean discussion ;) - also touched upon the tendency of some academics to rewrite history so that the barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire were reinterpreted as gradual and/or peaceful infiltration rather than invasion and conquest.
The nub of the matter seems to be: when does interpretation of history cease to be understanding and instead become imposition of the individual's own cultural values?
Case studies (by which I mean examples) welcome.
It might be to the point to mention that academics are under a pressure that has nothing to do with politics. Our respect - and continuing financial support - for clever folks who write books comes from a respect for the scientific method whereby hypothesis, followed by experimentation, followed by theory, followed by more experimentation, eventually produces new facts. It works well in physics, biology, astronomy and archaeology, but it does not work in straight history, where the available documentary evidence is fixed and cannot grow, no matter how many test tubes you boil it in.
Barring the sparse and intermittent increase in archaeological evidence (which I imagine has the historian falling on his knees in tearful gratitude), historians, to justify their existence, are forced to formulate new theories with insufficient factual evidence. They have to produce a steady supply of books, articles, etc. which purportedly bring some new light on their subject. Since their store of evidence has already been thoroughly sifted for solid facts, they have no choice but to speculate, and when you are speculating your own worldview and values system inevitably has its effect.
What is ironic about this is that the quest for new and original theories can lead them to question the solid facts they do have, resulting in historical certitude regressing rather than progressing. Patrick, I'm sure, could say something on this subject. ;)
A couple of years back I attended two days of lectures at the Ashmolean on Archaeology and the Military History of the Late Antique world. As commentary on Justin's post I would say that it showed that archaeology threw relatively little light on the subject, re enactment threw light but was very dangerous, reinterpreting History was actually quite useful.
Archaeology offered a minor reinterpretation of the battles of Daras, potentially showing that the battle had taken place further from the city than Procopius suggests. I think work in the Deserts if the Maghreb has also shown much more about how the Oman desert Frontier worked.
The difficulty for archaeology is that if there is no History associated with it then there are often quite radically different interpretations available and those are open to political and other influence. For example, when looking at the material remains of settlement in areas that we are told were Goth or Herul or Gepid there is no real difference and it is not discernible that this culture moves from the Baltic to the Black Sea. At that point you can choose to say that these peoples were created on the frontier with Rome or that the material culture just is not elevated enough to show such differences and movement.
Similarly in the. UK the migration of the Saxons does not show up in the archaeology in the way that the history would expect. if the Britons are driven out why is there not a slew of settlements with burning layers, why when the skeletons of settlers in AS cemeteries are examined for Mineral deposits in the tooth enamel does it overwhelmingly show that the occupants are born locally. All that the archaeologists find is fact, but it is very messy and not conclusive.
it is very difficult to look at the migrations without a political slant. That has spawned lots of interpretative work on ethnogenesis which has been really useful in re looking at the period, but behind the reinterpretations do lie some political imperatives.
Sadly there was no archaeological information on the Gothic camps around Rome... not one has been securely found.
At the Ashmolean some reenactors presented and their most striking conclusion was that plumbata had been thrown underarm because that was the way they worked best. I was astonished. Here was a piece of research entirely in search of sensationalism. they had to accept that the research was carried out without an opponent advancing toward them throwing back deadly missiles and holding shields to the front , oh and several hundred on both sides. There was no real answer to how the back ranks in a closed up deep formation threw underarm .
The historians were very high quality, Elton, Haldon Kennedy, very good indeed, and not limited by the bulk of the evidence having been around for a long time.
However, there was an element in the presentations that would chime with one of Justins points. I think all the historians would have accepted that the high numbers in Ancient sources are nearly all wrong, so Attila does not have half a million men at Chalons, more like 20-30,000. I happen to agree with that but if you were a literalist you would say that there was an element of group thinking there.
Just an addendum on the effect of archaelogiy on History. The archaeologists seem to have a confidence based upon what they find being substantive. If you find a damned great fort it does say that there was a fort there and they can date it so pkacing the Roman frontier in the IVth century becomes highly do able as does proving trade with India. Where it all got difficult was when the time needed to. be accurately determined which is important for historians . The easy certainties that x or y graves are Gepids have been removed and there is a danger that less is proven now than was once thoought.
Lastly because archaeology deals well with fortifications and cemeteries it can skew work and thought into these areas. So burial custom becomes important and meaningful because that is what is dug up.
Fortifications skew our idea of what say Rome was like because they are impressive and diggable. Field armies thus leave very few remains.
Roy
Quote from: Justin Swanton on January 29, 2014, 05:42:58 AM
What is ironic about this is that the quest for new and original theories can lead them to question the solid facts they do have, resulting in historical certitude regressing rather than progressing. Patrick, I'm sure, could say something on this subject. ;)
Many would argue I think that the more critical view of history in the post WWII era has shown up many certainties as anything but :) There is some truth I think to the argument that history as a profession (and academic as opposed to field archaeology ) is driven along by a need to provide fresh insights because they do make a mark and raise the scholar's profile. Education and "popularising" the past has a lower academic credibility. I've read amusing comments by several academics about making TV series where their peers have taken a superior "purist" approach which owes something jealousy :)
As to cliques and fashions in history, without doubt they exist. If you are a mere workaday academic, you fit into the prevailing paradigms if you want to make a career for yourself. Yes, there are mavericks but they need enough individuality to create a profile. But doubtless, things were similar, if not worse, in the days when we "schools of thought" rather than paradigms.
Quote from: aligern on January 29, 2014, 09:35:59 AM
Just an addendum on the effect of archaelogiy on History. The archaeologists seem to have a confidence based upon what they find being substantive.
Good point. Archaeologists can look down on historians because archaeologists deal in physical evidence - as you say an object is there in the ground or it isn't. However, a huge amount of archeology is interpretation - without interpretation often all you've got are layers of slightly different colours of brown soil. So, to choose a military example, what are hillforts for? The evidence of the spade can only take you so far. They did take a huge amount of labour to construct, many were extended in their lifetimes. They were occupied, some densely others less so. Some of them were definitely attacked. To try and make sense of this, there are several theories which all contain subjectivity. Some modern theories see them as continuations of the major landscape projects of earlier times - a largely symbolic approach about prestige. Some see them as proto-towns. Some still see them as having a castle-like role - defensive refuges and seats of military power. Yet others see them having two or more of these purposes.
Quote from: aligern on January 29, 2014, 08:54:02 AM
If the Britons are driven out why is there not a slew of settlements with burning layers, why when the skeletons of settlers in AS cemeteries are examined for Mineral deposits in the tooth enamel does it overwhelmingly show that the occupants are born locally. All that the archaeologists find is fact, but it is very messy and not conclusive.
The tooth enamel study was an amusing case in point: it simply proved that anyone born locally had drunk the local water, be he the progeny of a Briton or a Saxon. As a means of establishing ethnicity, it ranks among the more hilarious historical howlers.
The lack of burning layers in settlements might be explained by the Saxons' tactics: if they wanted to take over the real estate rather than burn everything down and build afresh, simply slaughtering the occupants would have sufficed - torching the place was an optional and perhaps undesirable extra. We have an archetype of barbarian activity as burn, pillage, rape and slaughter. However if a Saxon band is coming to settle rather than raid they may wish to limit destruction of property and just slaughter the present occupants (who might even simply flee if they get sufficient warning). This is conjectural, but suggests that looking for burn layers might not always be an infallible guide to conquest.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on January 29, 2014, 10:40:31 AM
The tooth enamel study was an amusing case in point: it simply proved that anyone born locally had drunk the local water, be he the progeny of a Briton or a Saxon. As a means of establishing ethnicity, it ranks among the more hilarious historical howlers.
That is not, however, what Roy said. They were born locally i.e. they were not "in-comers" as they say in some parts. For their biological roots we would need DNA. And then, we don't know whether a British person born locally might have traded biological ethnicity for political belonging
Quote
The lack of burning layers in settlements might be explained by the Saxons' tactics: if they wanted to take over the real estate rather than burn everything down and build afresh, simply slaughtering the occupants would have sufficed - torching the place was an optional and perhaps undesirable extra. We have an archetype of barbarian activity as burn, pillage, rape and slaughter. However if a Saxon band is coming to settle rather than raid they may wish to limit destruction of property and just slaughter the present occupants (who might even simply flee if they get sufficient warning). This is conjectural, but suggests that looking for burn layers might not always be an infallible guide to conquest.
Burnt layers are usually equivocal in archaeology, because houses burn down for a variety of reasons, innocent and malign. Saxons taking over going concerns while slaughtering the inhabitants ( a neutron-bomb approach :) )? When I was at Uni, there was quite a bit of interest in landscape continuity and several studies of how you could (a bit speculatively) trace villa boundaries by their ghosts in more modern forms of landholding. These were mainly in the West country, IIRC. But a lot of villa sites (i.e. the prestige landholdings) show abandonment before any reoccupation. So, either the inhabitants had been slaughter and their property left empty or they had given up and gone elsewhere because the property was no longer viable (no working economy, coloni running off, security situation declining - the usual). If there had been slaughter, we might expect traces but the others ?
I tend to the view that the priests caused their flocks to flee Westwards and then abroad. We know that the Saxons are aggressive pagans and probably killed priests for fun. We see sites like Silchester move very quickly to being abandoned. without signs of rapine and pillage, whereas Colchester, attacked by Boudicca 400 years before has a thick burnt layer.
Whichever way we view it the story of the move from Roman Britain to Anglo Saxon England is fraught
If it is taught as violent conquest then Welsh people are going to feel dispossessed. if it is taught as immigrants just arriving and peacefully taking over then how is the host community to today's mass immigration going to feel. If we say that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it then there is a downside corollary that the lessons of the past need to be very carefully drawn or there will be a problem or two.
To take an example. Spain was under at least partial Arab/Moslem control for 800 years. To one view of history it means that it should be returned to that control, to another that it took an 800 year fightback to get their country back. That's an extreme case, but the past is full of potential justifications.
Roy
Quote from: Chuck the Grey on January 29, 2014, 05:08:12 AM
Case in point, I was watching Ken Burn's series on the American Civil War and there was an interview with a historian teaching at Harvard. The historian stated that she did not believe it was wrong to judge the past by current values. I was surprised that a historian from one of the most highly regarded universities in America would espouse such a belief. Unfortunately, this is not the only such incident I have since noticed in history, archeology, or anthropology.
Sorry to be importing things from one thread to another (memo to self - next time you produce a fork, advertise it in the original thread) but this comment by Chuck Cochran is an interesting one.
The query here to me is what is this woman doing that is wrong? Is she just being honest and acknowledging that looking at history and pretending objectivity is worse than owning up to the fact that we can't dissociate ourselves from our times? Or is she saying we should abandon any attempt at objectivity? I would agree with the first and roundly condemn the second. All we can do is recognise our subjectivity and seek our most objective view in that light.
I have found the recent Richard III thing very interesting because we've had to face up to the physical fact that Richard III had a disability. If we judge this by the attitudes of his contemporaries, this would lead to us believe he was touched by sin. If we judge by modern attitudes, his physical attributes had no moral basis and we should judge him (if at all) by his actions. Is application of a modern filter wrong in this case?
Quote from: Erpingham on January 29, 2014, 02:33:51 PM
I have found the recent Richard III thing very interesting because we've had to face up to the physical fact that Richard III had a disability. If we judge this by the attitudes of his contemporaries, this would lead to us believe he was touched by sin. If we judge by modern attitudes, his physical attributes had no moral basis and we should judge him (if at all) by his actions. Is application of a modern filter wrong in this case?
The 'modern filter', at least prior to his discovery, seemed to pivot on whether he had been maligned by Tudor 'propaganda' in general and Shakespearean depiction in particular, with the possible 'models' of Richard III being
either a good king without bodily deformity
or a bad one with it. Since the discovery of his remains, I have the impression that the largely untried concept of a good king
with a bodily deformity is being assimilated, if somewhat grudgingly by those who maintained his unitary governmental and bodily virtue.
One may note that in many past cultures any form of bodily deformity or debility debarred a man from the throne - the Mahabharat was built around the dire consequences that ensued when this salutary stipulation was just for once abandoned.
Quote from: Erpingham on January 29, 2014, 02:33:51 PM
Quote from: Chuck the Grey on January 29, 2014, 05:08:12 AM
Case in point, I was watching Ken Burn's series on the American Civil War and there was an interview with a historian teaching at Harvard. The historian stated that she did not believe it was wrong to judge the past by current values. I was surprised that a historian from one of the most highly regarded universities in America would espouse such a belief. Unfortunately, this is not the only such incident I have since noticed in history, archeology, or anthropology.
The query here to me is what is this woman doing that is wrong? Is she just being honest and acknowledging that looking at history and pretending objectivity is worse than owning up to the fact that we can't dissociate ourselves from our times? Or is she saying we should abandon any attempt at objectivity? I would agree with the first and roundly condemn the second. All we can do is recognise our subjectivity and seek our most objective view in that light.
I had the impression it was neither - my reading was that she was saying that one could and maybe should impose one's ethical values and outlook when delineating and analysing the past. "Judge" was the key word that caught my attention.
Quote from: aligern on January 29, 2014, 12:04:16 PM
If it is taught as violent conquest then Welsh people are going to feel dispossessed. if it is taught as immigrants just arriving and peacefully taking over then how is the host community to today's mass immigration going to feel. If we say that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it then there is a downside corollary that the lessons of the past need to be very carefully drawn or there will be a problem or two.
To take an example. Spain was under at least partial Arab/Moslem control for 800 years. To one view of history it means that it should be returned to that control, to another that it took an 800 year fightback to get their country back. That's an extreme case, but the past is full of potential justifications.
Roy
Good point Roy, perspective is very important indeed when viewing history from one side of a proverbial fence
I was born in England to English parents but was brought up from a very early age in Wales. My father looks on Welsh people even now with some ingrained negativity if not downright disdain. This was admittedly accentuated by his contact with insular (anti-English) Welsh people whilst living and working in Wales. For my part I have always viewed Wales as home and England as a foreign land and thus biased towards Welsh history perspectives. That's not to say I am right just that I view Welsh and English history interactions with an unintentional jaundiced eye
Great is the writer who can remain truly impartial when viewing and conveying history involving 2 different countries or peoples
there is a rather good quote in todays guardian on history.
History isn't a myth making discipline. It is a myth busting discipline, and it needs to be taught as such in schools.
(Richard Evans, Cambridge originally quoted last year). Of course, he is from Cambridge, so you know, its all a bit suspect on one level.
When we get into these 'what is history, when is it biased arguments', it always seems to be around someone's cherished myths being busted in one way or another.
The trick is differentiating someone who has found genuine evidence to the contrary of the previously accepted myth (or no evidence to support in the first place) vs someone who just needs a 'now revealed' headline to get any sort of press coverage - and who frequently doesn't make the claim the headline said anyway.
the worst example of headline history has to be Niall Fergusson - who only ever seems to say utterly iconoclastic things whenever he has a new book to sell - and then goes directly for the most headline grabbing thing he possibly can. Mind you, I've yet to be convinced that he is any good as an historian at all, but he is quite entertaining in a newspaper columnist sort of chip-paper-value sort of way. our grandchildren will be the ones who determine this of course - by whether his books survive as a reference given any credence at all.
But my favourite historical argument at the moment is the Telegraph readership going berserk over a black actor playing Porthos.
Quote from: Mark G on January 31, 2014, 08:04:26 AM
But my favourite historical argument at the moment is the Telegraph readership going berserk over a black actor playing Porthos.
I know its off topic but why on earth would that be? (rhetorical question...I'll go and have a shufties at the Telegraph)
I gather that they object to the thought of non white people in western Europe before the 1950s,
It makes it harder to blame everything on migration.
I could be confusing them with the daily mail though- other than the number of times you unfold the paper, its so hard to tell these days
Quote from: Holly on January 31, 2014, 08:08:27 AM
I know its off topic but why on earth would that be? (rhetorical question...I'll go and have a shufties at the Telegraph)
Because its a-historical - the character isn't black in the book and there were no black musketeers. The rejoinder is of course that this is a loose dramatisation of a work of fiction with frankly fairly low standards of historical accuracy, so why not? We accept black Hamlets and white Othellos in far more significant drama.
It is interesting what gets up the nose in historical drama. I was much more annoyed in Cosner's Robin Hood by the fact that he landed at Beachy Head and made camp that evening on Hadrian's Wall than the fact that the main sidekick had become a black man :)
Quote from: Erpingham on January 31, 2014, 08:21:49 AM
Quote from: Holly on January 31, 2014, 08:08:27 AM
I know its off topic but why on earth would that be? (rhetorical question...I'll go and have a shufties at the Telegraph)
Because its a-historical - the character isn't black in the book and there were no black musketeers. The rejoinder is of course that this is a loose dramatisation of a work of fiction with frankly fairly low standards of historical accuracy, so why not? We accept black Hamlets and white Othellos in far more significant drama.
Ah.....but dont the luvvies remember that Elizabethan plays required male actors to play female leads and Othello a white actor with soot on his face? ;)
Quote from: Erpingham on January 31, 2014, 08:21:49 AM
It is interesting what gets up the nose in historical drama. I was much more annoyed in Cosner's Robin Hood by the fact that he landed at Beachy Head and made camp that evening on Hadrian's Wall than the fact that the main sidekick had become a black man :)
I laughed at that bit as well although the quizzical looks my family gave me at the time meant I had to chuckle and squirm in equal measure :D
Quote from: Mark G on January 31, 2014, 08:04:26 AM
History isn't a myth making discipline. It is a myth busting discipline, and it needs to be taught as such in schools.
(Richard Evans, Cambridge originally quoted last year).
An interesting quote. In real life (i.e. not in the questing atmosphere of SOA Forums) myths of history persist long after they are out of fashion. This is partly because teachers teach the orthodoxy they learned, so things can have changed in academic circles long before they do so in the classroom. It is also because we have a variety of popular sources of historical information which perpetuate or even start myths. Take drama for example. There are some, for example, who believe William Wallace was the father of Edward III because of Braveheart, despite a quick check on the appropriate dates would show he needed a tardis. It's not new though - look at how popular perceptions of Henry V and Richard III are coloured by Shakespear.
Quote from: Erpingham on January 31, 2014, 08:48:20 AM
Quote from: Mark G on January 31, 2014, 08:04:26 AM
History isn't a myth making discipline. It is a myth busting discipline, and it needs to be taught as such in schools.
(Richard Evans, Cambridge originally quoted last year).
An interesting quote. In real life (i.e. not in the questing atmosphere of SOA Forums) myths of history persist long after they are out of fashion. This is partly because teachers teach the orthodoxy they learned, so things can have changed in academic circles long before they do so in the classroom. It is also because we have a variety of popular sources of historical information which perpetuate or even start myths. Take drama for example. There are some, for example, who believe William Wallace was the father of Edward III because of Braveheart, despite a quick check on the appropriate dates would show he needed a tardis. It's not new though - look at how popular perceptions of Henry V and Richard III are coloured by Shakespear.
Dont forget he was Welsh not Scottish ;)
On the history thing at Schools, agree completely. My lad has come home on more than one occasion regurgitating the current History curriculum at me... Boadicea (ugh), Saxons and Vikings steam rollering the poor Brits into the hills with mass genocide etc etc
You want to see the stuff that gets taught in S.A. classrooms re the horrors of the Aparteid regime of Pretoria, with cartoons of blacks getting crushed in winepresses, etc. Shakespeare was the first to work out that history, especially dramatised history, is a very useful tool of political propaganda.
What is interesting in school history is what is not taught. I don't know the UK curriculum, but over here history only starts with the French Revolution, with the underlying notion that everything that happened beforehand was too brutal and barbaric to be worth bothering about. All that really matters is our enlightened modern age, which began with the guil... I mean the National Convention.
Quote from: Holly on January 31, 2014, 09:40:05 AM
Dont forget he was Welsh not Scottish ;)
What's in a name, eh? I always thought it was an interesting pointer to the ethnic mix in the west of Scotland. Clearly to Scots speakers, he was a member of an ethnic minority :)
Quote from: Justin Swanton on January 31, 2014, 10:33:19 AM
What is interesting in school history is what is not taught.
Yes, this is a controversial question here too. Everyone agrees that you can't fit in everything within the time available in the curriculum for history. The tricky bit comes in what you leave out. I do wonder how is the best way to make decisions like this because objectivity is so difficult. Academics, educationalists and politicians all have their biases - how do we have a reasoned debate and come to a consensus? We also risk our own biases here - is it more important in real life whether people understand recent history or ancient history if there is limited time available?
There also has to be a debate about how we teach history. How much should be about facts and how much should be about understanding broad trends? How much should be about the lives of ordinary people and how much about the kings and generals?
If you want the pupils to understand the period they are studing then you have no choice but to do it in depth until it becomes a real world for them, in which they can grasp the thinking and motives of the principal players and the interconnectedness of the events.
Otherwise the only approach I can think of is to decide what are the important underpinnings of human society and civilisation and see how they fared in the past. The trouble then is by what criteria does one decide what the underpinnings are. I have a criterion but I doubt it would get very far in this forum, never mind an education board.
Quote from: Erpingham on January 31, 2014, 08:48:20 AM
Quote from: Mark G on January 31, 2014, 08:04:26 AM
History isn't a myth making discipline. It is a myth busting discipline, and it needs to be taught as such in schools.
(Richard Evans, Cambridge originally quoted last year).
An interesting quote. In real life (i.e. not in the questing atmosphere of SOA Forums) myths of history persist long after they are out of fashion. This is partly because teachers teach the orthodoxy they learned, so things can have changed in academic circles long before they do so in the classroom.
And examiners find it easier to pose and mark similar questions from year to year. Besides, if history gets updated too often, the bill for textbooks becomes enormous. These are of course not the only reasons myths perpetuate.
Nice quote, Mark.
Quote
It is also because we have a variety of popular sources of historical information which perpetuate or even start myths. Take drama for example. There are some, for example, who believe William Wallace was the father of Edward III because of Braveheart, despite a quick check on the appropriate dates would show he needed a tardis. It's not new though - look at how popular perceptions of Henry V and Richard III are coloured by Shakespear.
The difficulties arising there being because truth - or fact - is mixed with fiction. Richard III as per Shakespeare was crook-backed and villainous. Richard III as per the Richard III Society was neither. Richard III as per the interment under the car park was crook-backed.
Mel Gibson never seems to have stopped to think that if Wallace was really the father of Edward I's son and successor, it did not say much about the Wallace genes, Edward II being one of the least effective kings the Plantaganets had to offer.
There is one problem with myth-busting, and that is it can be taken too far, throwing the historical baby out with the mythological bathwater when some academics brush aside any source-mentioned evidence they feel is not in keeping with their own
weltanschaung. One really needs to pull the plug on this practice. Humility when considering evidence is the mark of the true historian.
Quote from: Justin Swanton on January 31, 2014, 11:28:37 AM
If you want the pupils to understand the period they are studing then you have no choice but to do it in depth until it becomes a real world for them, in which they can grasp the thinking and motives of the principal players and the interconnectedness of the events.
Which is great in theory but there really isn't time to do this properly in the modern curriculum. And understanding of any subject is not well served by our target driven approach to education (I can criticise that because there is cross-party consensus on it :) ).
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on January 31, 2014, 11:39:59 AM
The difficulties arising there being because truth - or fact - is mixed with fiction. Richard III as per Shakespeare was crook-backed and villainous. Richard III as per the Richard III Society was neither. Richard III as per the interment under the car park was crook-backed.
But Bill doesn't create the idea of Richard's villainy or that his physical deformity was related to it - he is drawing these from the history he had available to him. What he does is create a brilliant image of a villain that colours the way Richard is seen to this day. It is only relatively recently that there has been a revision of that image to attempt to get a more realistic idea of the man. And the extreme end of that are those Ricardians who only accept evidence that paints Richard as a saint.
Quote
Mel Gibson never seems to have stopped to think that if Wallace was really the father of Edward I's son and successor, it did not say much about the Wallace genes, Edward II being one of the least effective kings the Plantaganets had to offer.
I think it was Edward II he was supposed to have cuckolded. As Edward II is, in modern interpretation, supposed to have been gay Gibson is playing with that story, showing himself as a romantic hero and insulting the English all at once.
Quote
There is one problem with myth-busting, and that is it can be taken too far, throwing the historical baby out with the mythological bathwater when some academics brush aside any source-mentioned evidence they feel is not in keeping with their own weltanschaung. One really needs to pull the plug on this practice. Humility when considering evidence is the mark of the true historian.
fair point. Other than more a more disciplined professional approach, how do we achieve it?
That Shakespeare drew on existing Tudor-influences attitudes is certainly true, just as when writing Macbeth for James I he pulled out all the Stuart prejudices about the rival line.
Quote from: Erpingham on January 31, 2014, 12:17:13 PM
I think it was Edward II he was supposed to have cuckolded. As Edward II is, in modern interpretation, supposed to have been gay Gibson is playing with that story, showing himself as a romantic hero and insulting the English all at once.
My memory of my one viewing of the film has Edward I on his deathbed being told by his queen that his heir was not his son. Always remembered it as a Gibson own goal ...
Quote
Quote
There is one problem with myth-busting, and that is it can be taken too far, throwing the historical baby out with the mythological bathwater when some academics brush aside any source-mentioned evidence they feel is not in keeping with their own weltanschaung. One really needs to pull the plug on this practice. Humility when considering evidence is the mark of the true historian.
Fair point. Other than more a more disciplined professional approach, how do we achieve it?
This I shall have to ponder, but as some opening thoughts:
1) Look out for trends in academic thinking - and avoid them like the plague. A trend usually encompasses a simplification and often enough a distortion.
2) Always when possible work from original sources. Secondary sources will sooner or later invariably let one down.
3) If a thought/theory/approach is not working out, drop it and go back to the start. Gather more evidence (if any is to be had) and try a wider perspective. Some things may drop into place.
4) Assume a primary source is (most probably) correct until proven wrong. However unlikely the information may seem, it was recorded as such for a reason and until we
know that reason was carelessness, prejudice or misinformation we should not discard it.
5) Try to build as full a network as possible of events/persons/places as suggested by the primary source information. This helps to create perspective and identify good fits and anomalies.
6) The approach/reconstruction that requires least special pleading is most probably correct.
Naturally, never couple a favourite theory to the ego - both could get damaged. Defence of the ego distorts most if not all other considerations whenever it feels threatened. History has enough conflict without this.
And finally
7) Never be afraid to let go. We are all wrong sometimes - the trick is to identify it early and drop the dead end as expeditiously as possible so one can get on with finding out something closer to what really happened.
Don't want to sidetrack us from more serious matter but below from the wikipedia page on the film Braveheart :
In the film, Isabella of France is shown having an affair with Wallace prior to the Battle of Falkirk. She later tells Edward I that she is pregnant, implying that her son, Edward III, was a product of the affair. In actuality, Isabella was three years old and living in France at the time of the Battle of Falkirk, was not married to Edward II until he was already king and Edward III was born seven years after Wallace died. (This aspect of the plot may however have been inspired by the play The Wallace: a triumph in five acts by Sydney Goodsir Smith).
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on January 31, 2014, 12:59:19 PM
That Shakespeare drew on existing Tudor-influences attitudes is certainly true, just as when writing Macbeth for James I he pulled out all the Stuart prejudices about the rival line.
Quote from: Erpingham on January 31, 2014, 12:17:13 PM
I think it was Edward II he was supposed to have cuckolded. As Edward II is, in modern interpretation, supposed to have been gay Gibson is playing with that story, showing himself as a romantic hero and insulting the English all at once.
My memory of my one viewing of the film has Edward I on his deathbed being told by his queen that his heir was not his son. Always remembered it as a Gibson own goal ...
Quote
Quote
There is one problem with myth-busting, and that is it can be taken too far, throwing the historical baby out with the mythological bathwater when some academics brush aside any source-mentioned evidence they feel is not in keeping with their own weltanschaung. One really needs to pull the plug on this practice. Humility when considering evidence is the mark of the true historian.
Fair point. Other than more a more disciplined professional approach, how do we achieve it?
This I shall have to ponder, but as some opening thoughts:
1) Look out for trends in academic thinking - and avoid them like the plague. A trend usually encompasses a simplification and often enough a distortion.
2) Always when possible work from original sources. Secondary sources will sooner or later invariably let one down.
3) If a thought/theory/approach is not working out, drop it and go back to the start. Gather more evidence (if any is to be had) and try a wider perspective. Some things may drop into place.
4) Assume a primary source is (most probably) correct until proven wrong. However unlikely the information may seem, it was recorded as such for a reason and until we know that reason was carelessness, prejudice or misinformation we should not discard it.
5) Try to build as full a network as possible of events/persons/places as suggested by the primary source information. This helps to create perspective and identify good fits and anomalies.
6) The approach/reconstruction that requires least special pleading is most probably correct.
Naturally, never couple a favourite theory to the ego - both could get damaged. Defence of the ego distorts most if not all other considerations whenever it feels threatened. History has enough conflict without this.
And finally
7) Never be afraid to let go. We are all wrong sometimes - the trick is to identify it early and drop the dead end as expeditiously as possible so one can get on with finding out something closer to what really happened.
hear hear...
in addition to that I would add use of archaeology where available (even if disputed!), if its a battle. trying to visit the location or locations to get a feel for the place and sequence of events and look at maps!!!. Lastly try to establish the reason why something happened as much as possible as this may help strengthen or erode a particular theory
and the ego bit is spot on. I always assume other people know more than me so I am either always pleasantly surprised or at worst confirmed in my opinion of my sleuthing abilities :D
By no stretch of the imagination am I a historian, but my jobs means that I specialise in literature and drama. At the moment I'm teaching the contemporary novel in English, and I am always having to remind my students that the term 'history' encompasses not only what happened, but the accounts of what happened, because of the term's etymology. So 'history' means both history and story, and it is the confluence of the two that is so often exploited by writers: what we understand by history is inevitably influenced by how it is told, the narrative strategies and inevitable bias of the historian. Furthermore, extra meanings can be generated that were perhaps never intended by the writer of history, as the work becomes more and more widely circulated and read by people from other cultures and times from the text's initial recipients (essentially this last point is the major contribution made by literary theory). This is a source of great inspiration in literature, just as of potential confusion in historiography. In practice, it is exceptionally difficult to distinguish between the facts and the 'story' that is made out of them. This is exactly why the effort must be made, and in fact why it can be so rewarding because of the ways in which a supposedly dominant paradigm can be challenged.
I suppose this is a long-winded way of saying that I agree with those who have sounded a note of caution in the discussion so far; that the Western way of history, or indeed any other, needs to be very carefully analysed for its cultural proclivities; and that this is a really interesting discussion so far. Which I've probably just killed...
Just don't get me started on Shakespeare!
Paul
I take it that i am alone in thinking that history in schools is best served by ignoring your own national story entirely and focussing on teaching students how to read and understand history as a skill / discipline using the best world historical examples possible.
Teach them to fish, and you feed them for life.
So best avoid all national myths by avoiding your own nation and its neighbours .
Quote from: Mark G on January 31, 2014, 03:47:46 PM
So best avoid all national myths by avoiding your own nation and its neighbours .
While I entirely agree with the idea that the importance of providing the critical and analytical tools, I am more wary of abandoning the field of understanding the place you live in to more nationalistic concerns. That way has (to me) left English heritage hostage to right wing extremists. I'd much rather grapple with the challenge of a balanced approach to your own local history than give up on it. How one designs a curriculum that provides meaningful coverage of world affairs in a structured manner and local concerns, plus themes like the growth of scientific understanding in the time allowed in schools, however, defeats me.
Another way one might approach history that avoids some of the problems might be thematically. While two of my daughters studied modern European history in a fairly structured way, the middle one opted for a course based on social historical themes like the history of medicine. Because of her general interest in history, she has assembled a chronological framework for her knowledge but I think this can be a weakness of the thematic approach - that topics tend to free-float in time without being clear how they relate chronologically.
Nations appear to need a national myth. That may be because there is something innate in people that seeks identity, it may be that it is attractive to political leaders who want to mobilise opinion to create a homogenous society , to justify their power over others, to get the people to fight on their behalf.
This is not a matter of right wing 'extremism', both Hitler and Stalin , who are imo left wing extremists were happy enough to use a view of history to buttress their power. Apologists for monarchy, Empire or religion who are ,again imo, right wing extremists are just as likely to produce a mythic history to justify their position.
The job of historians ought to be to ferret out the facts and expose the myths of either side. However, it is extremely difficult to produce History without a degree of interpretation and without relating the story to the interests of the audience.
Its a bit like newspapers in the UK, most of which have a degree of prejudice in their coverage. I imagine most of their readers understand their paper's slant, but also think that is a reasonable way to see the world ir they would not keep buying them.
Many years ago I read an article called, I think. The Tyranny of Concepts. Its thrust was that once a historian took on board a conceptual structure such as liberalism or marxism they would unwittingly fit information into the structure. Of course many would knowingly shoehorn the information into their pre arranged structure especially if working in an environment in which promotion, research grants or , in the case of dictatorships, life itself , might be dependent on giving the right spin to History.
Roy
Quote from: Erpingham on January 31, 2014, 04:43:03 PM
Another way one might approach history that avoids some of the problems might be thematically. While two of my daughters studied modern European history in a fairly structured way, the middle one opted for a course based on social historical themes like the history of medicine. Because of her general interest in history, she has assembled a chronological framework for her knowledge but I think this can be a weakness of the thematic approach - that topics tend to free-float in time without being clear how they relate chronologically.
Very true (and thanks for sorting out my Braveheart misconception). Thematic approaches tend to be like fish fillets - tasty but short of a skeleton to give shape (and with the occasional sharp bone that one discovers the hard way).
To my mind, the best way to give history shape - or at least a suitable bone structure that fits everything else into a meaningful framework - is to teach military history and build everything else around that.
Quote from: aligern on January 31, 2014, 05:47:20 PM
This is not a matter of right wing 'extremism', both Hitler and Stalin , who are imo left wing extremists were happy enough to use a view of history to buttress their power. Apologists for monarchy, Empire or religion who are ,again imo, right wing extremists are just as likely to produce a mythic history to justify their position.
But a mythic history needn't be put in terms of nation. Where I'm from, at least, (what I would characterize as) the far left generally prefers to see history, real or mythical, through the lens of class. If schools were to abandon teaching an outline of "Sweden's history", nationalists would jump to try and fill the void while bits of the left would complain about the failure to dedicate classroom time to showing how the very concept is plot to keep the masses down.
Tangentially, we've got a longstanding controversy on how much of school history should be on "kings and wars" as opposed to social history. A common argument in favour of the later is that it is more relevant to pupils and therefore more likely to foster interest in history. Somewhat unfortunately for the thesis, the history books people buy for themselves rather than being given in school tend to focus on wars and personalities. It has been argued, of course, that this is because old-fashioned teaching have left people with the impression that's what history should be like, but that hardly flies, as bestselling pop-hist (a relative term, as you'll guess) is more focused on "kings and wars" than what school history has been for decades.
It is interesting that Sweden has similar issues to the UK around history teaching. On the topic of what interests about history, my own view would be it's about people and stories. History best sellers in the UK are often biographical, which means that, in pre-modern times, they are usually about the upper classes, because we don't have the information about the lower orders. Television plays a large part, with various tie ins and writers becoming household names through TV. Because there is quite a social history strand to TV history, this does mean you get sales of unexpected topics (Victorian rural economics would be hard sell but repackage as Victorian Farm with lots of stills of the TV series and voila).
As a reader of historical novels, dare I mention (on the basis of local librarians' impressions) that girls prefer stories about people and boys (and men) stories about war, great men and plenty of action? Women, incidentally, seem to prefer detective stories ...
Social history books do not exactly top the bestseller lists nor have I seen them on the shelves of local libraries. Their narrow thematic focus does make for an occasionally effective TV programme. (It is anyway rare to find breadth in a UK TV programme these days, the excuse being that programmes are made for the people with the least attention span, and the best documentaries seem to be imported from Discovery Channel or elsewhere. Such at least are my impressions.)
Conversely, the limited book shelf space in my local libraries contains numerous contributions from Bernard Cornwell, Simon Scarrow, Valerio Manfredi, Conn Igulden etc. etc. all of whom write historical novels featuring plenty of warfare. Military history fiction is a very popular genre (witness the career of Tom Clancy).
Andreas' comment about the far left seeing history through the lens of class is true wherever there is a far left - not just class, but means of production and control of same. Perhaps reflecting this, during the 20th century there was a prevailing tendency among British historians to rewrite history in terms of economics and edge 'great men and great deeds' onto the sidelines. Success in war and history was a matter of economics, and that was that. Explaining the fall of the Roman Empire became somewhat difficult under this school of thought, as the Empire had at least 90% of whatever economy was going in Europe at the time, so bankruptcy was mooted and cherished as the reason for the fall of empire - Rome could not afford the upkeep of its armies and administration, and so it fell.
This outlook replaced the traditional Gibbon-embodied outlook that the fall of the empire came about through misrule and moral decline (including the endemic habit of Christian sects and prominent Romans to prefer fighting each other to uniting against barbarians) with any economic collapse being an effect and not a cause.
One may note in passing how an outlook that measures everything significant in terms of economics and considers individual morality and responsible rulership to be largely irrelevant optional extras seems to be reflected in the mid-late 20th-early 21st century approach to politics. Greek and (pagan) Roman philosophers and thinkers believed that national recovery should begin with individual responsibility and collective morality and all else would fall into place; the modern outlook in Western Europe (and beyond) seems to be that if one can get the economy 'kick-started' then everything else will fall into place.
The Greco-Roman approach did seem to work. Time will tell whether the modern one can. What this illustrates (or what I think it illustrates) is that a nation's perception of history is very much reflected in its handling of day-to-day affairs even when those doing the handling are largely ignorant of history.
In all honesty Anthony for most of history lower class people do not have very interesting lives. it is fair enough to dedicate some time to the condition of the poor through the ages and it is an area where archaeology has something to say, but for most people life was a matter of going out and kneeling in the mud digging a ditch, except for Sunday when they kneeled in a cold church.
i think you made a good point about history being at least in part story. I suggest that writing that story is at least as important as assembling the 'facts' that are woven into it.
Looking at the professional historians work on the Late Roman Gaul and its army debate, a lot of them have subjected the facts to rather less criticism than the posters on our list. People here are quite tough on asking for proof and sometimes there just is no proof, only educated inference.
Whilst on the subject of political points of view , what do we think of Victor Davis Hanson who does have quite a dry political position. I was looking for some quick stuff on VDHs Western way of war and downloaded , to my kindle, a short booklet that quite shocked me with its Tea Party/neo con attitude.
Roy
Quote from: aligern on February 01, 2014, 11:30:28 AM
Whilst on the subject of political points of view , what do we think of Victor Davis Hanson who does have quite a dry political position. I was looking for some quick stuff on VDHs Western way of war and downloaded , to my kindle, a short booklet that quite shocked me with its Tea Party/neo con attitude.
Roy
Well, you are posting in a thread called "The Western Way of History" :) Hanson is a good example of a historical interpretation firmly linked to a political position and proof that politically related history isn't just a left-wing thing. That said, he still has provided some insights into classical Greek warfare and he has stirred up interest in what was a dry and moribund period (witness the hoplite warfare book boom).
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on February 01, 2014, 11:21:56 AM
As a reader of historical novels, dare I mention (on the basis of local librarians' impressions) that girls prefer stories about people and boys (and men) stories about war, great men and plenty of action?
That I think is largely undisputed. The minefield starts when we cross to the question of why - patriarchal plot or natural result of biological tendencies?
QuoteOne may note in passing how an outlook that measures everything significant in terms of economics and considers individual morality and responsible rulership to be largely irrelevant optional extras seems to be reflected in the mid-late 20th-early 21st century approach to politics. Greek and (pagan) Roman philosophers and thinkers believed that national recovery should begin with individual responsibility and collective morality and all else would fall into place; the modern outlook in Western Europe (and beyond) seems to be that if one can get the economy 'kick-started' then everything else will fall into place.
The ancient idea has made a comeback of sorts in the form of the thesis, popular among development economists, that the secret to kick-starting the economy is "good institutions", which largely amounts civic-mindedness among the ruling strata (you can't have good politics without decent politicians, nor impartial jurisprudence without decent judges, and so on).
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on February 01, 2014, 11:21:56 AM
Andreas' comment about the far left seeing history through the lens of class is true wherever there is a far left - not just class, but means of production and control of same. Perhaps reflecting this, during the 20th century there was a prevailing tendency among British historians to rewrite history in terms of economics and edge 'great men and great deeds' onto the sidelines. Success in war and history was a matter of economics, and that was that. Explaining the fall of the Roman Empire became somewhat difficult under this school of thought, as the Empire had at least 90% of whatever economy was going in Europe at the time, so bankruptcy was mooted and cherished as the reason for the fall of empire - Rome could not afford the upkeep of its armies and administration, and so it fell.
This outlook replaced the traditional Gibbon-embodied outlook that the fall of the empire came about through misrule and moral decline (including the endemic habit of Christian sects and prominent Romans to prefer fighting each other to uniting against barbarians) with any economic collapse being an effect and not a cause.
On the subject (and slightly off it), I increasingly get the idea that the Western Empire fell, not because of economic troubles (it had survived those in the 3rd century), nor religious quarrels (those were resolved by the end of the 4th century), but because of the separation of the offices of emperor and Magister Militum, compounded in the West by a full-scale civil war in the early 400's that left the legacy of Western emperors being unable to control their generals, along with major barbarian invasions at precisely the moment when the army was distracted. The only truly impressive emperor in the 5th century is Majorian, and he took direct control of the army again. Other emperors relied on generals to fight their battles, and since traditionally an emperor had been a successful general, mistrust became endemic between the high command and the imperial government. This mistrust meant that a general like Aetius who was too successful in restoring the situation was assassinated. Conversely, an emperor that did indulge in decisive military action tended himself to get assassinated by his C-in-C, such as happened to Majorian and Anthemus. It was a paralysis at the top more than anything else that finally killed off the Western Empire.
The Eastern Empire was lucky in that it did not suffer from civil war or serious invasions in its core provinces during this period. But it might easily have gone the same way. By the time of Justinian the emperor seems to have acquired sufficient prestige as a non-military ruler to keep his generals in line. But it could still go wrong, as when Phocas marched on Constantinople with the Balkan army in 602, killed the incumbent emperor and his family, and seized the throne.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on February 01, 2014, 11:21:56 AM
As a reader of historical novels, dare I mention (on the basis of local librarians' impressions) that girls prefer stories about people and boys (and men) stories about war, great men and plenty of action? Women, incidentally, seem to prefer detective stories ...
There is some truth in this but it can be exaggerated. Women make up a lot of the audience for Gothic romance, for example, which is often quite a violent form (I blame Buffy :) ).
Quote
Social history books do not exactly top the bestseller lists nor have I seen them on the shelves of local libraries. Their narrow thematic focus does make for an occasionally effective TV programme. (It is anyway rare to find breadth in a UK TV programme these days, the excuse being that programmes are made for the people with the least attention span, and the best documentaries seem to be imported from Discovery Channel or elsewhere. Such at least are my impressions.)
Conversely, the limited book shelf space in my local libraries contains numerous contributions from Bernard Cornwell, Simon Scarrow, Valerio Manfredi, Conn Igulden etc. etc. all of whom write historical novels featuring plenty of warfare. Military history fiction is a very popular genre (witness the career of Tom Clancy).
Agreed, biography tends to top the best sellers. There are occassional social history hits (Ian Mortimer's Time Travellers books, for example) Military seems to sell well and certainly in my local waterstones has as much shelf space as general history.
On documentaries, I find discovery stuff can be quite inconsistent but then so can BBC. Channel 4 aren't as good as they were and Channel 5 are a bit bargain basement. I don't know about ITV - rarely anything on that attracts me in their programming. A lot of documentaries I find are too heavily padded (Oh look, they're reshowing that clip of a handful of re-enactors again) and I'm growing to hate the false-quest style (wher e they dress the presenter the same in every shot, so they can pretend shots made at the same time represent revisits to places seeking further information, as if documentaries aren't scripted and planned in advance).
we might think of social history as dry and largely pointless for most of time.
But I was talking with a primary school teacher here a few years ago, and she was bemoaning the options given to her for history that year - pirates and the local 18th/early 19th century weavers.
After explaining the fun to be had with talk like a pirate day and recommending the Muppets treasure island, I was surprised when she came back a few weeks later amazed at the reaction to the local weavers. these kids had no conception that where they lived wasn't part of the city until recently, and couldn't conceive of it being a different town entirely let alone people being different from the way they are now - and they were totally engaged with the lives of these people from the very start.
I should add that these kids are about as far removed from the middle class as you can get, so to engage them in anything is an achievement in itself.
so it just goes to show.
Quote from: Paul Innes on January 31, 2014, 03:27:01 PM
By no stretch of the imagination am I a historian, but my jobs means that I specialise in literature and drama. At the moment I'm teaching the contemporary novel in English, and I am always having to remind my students that the term 'history' encompasses not only what happened, but the accounts of what happened, because of the term's etymology. So 'history' means both history and story, and it is the confluence of the two that is so often exploited by writers: what we understand by history is inevitably influenced by how it is told, the narrative strategies and inevitable bias of the historian. Furthermore, extra meanings can be generated that were perhaps never intended by the writer of history, as the work becomes more and more widely circulated and read by people from other cultures and times from the text's initial recipients (essentially this last point is the major contribution made by literary theory). This is a source of great inspiration in literature, just as of potential confusion in historiography. In practice, it is exceptionally difficult to distinguish between the facts and the 'story' that is made out of them. This is exactly why the effort must be made, and in fact why it can be so rewarding because of the ways in which a supposedly dominant paradigm can be challenged.
I suppose this is a long-winded way of saying that I agree with those who have sounded a note of caution in the discussion so far; that the Western way of history, or indeed any other, needs to be very carefully analysed for its cultural proclivities; and that this is a really interesting discussion so far. Which I've probably just killed...
Just don't get me started on Shakespeare!
Paul
Very well said, Paul. That's the post I wish I had written :)
Cheers, Aaron, English teachers unite!
Paul
Quote from: Andreas Johansson on February 01, 2014, 11:59:31 AM
The ancient idea has made a comeback of sorts in the form of the thesis, popular among development economists, that the secret to kick-starting the economy is "good institutions", which largely amounts civic-mindedness among the ruling strata (you can't have good politics without decent politicians, nor impartial jurisprudence without decent judges, and so on).
Then there is yet hope. :)
Curiously enough, Europe's previous resurgence in the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment seems to have corresponded with the adoption of Hellenistic values (substantially if not completely). There was of course also the spice trade ...
Ah yes Patrick, Hellenistic values. We can look forward to the arbitrary rule of kings then.
What about the nineteenth century was not that the period of Europe's greatest achievement?
After Darwin, Wagner and Nietsche its all downhill :-))
Actually Hellenistic kings were usually anything but arbitrary - with the exception of Demetrius Poliorcetes, who incurred great odium thereby. The king was the expression of nationhood but he was also expected to behave himself and rule in accordance with law and tradition - this being the essential point that Aristotle used to separate a monarch from a tyrant (rather than the illegitimacy of the latter's rise to power). It was also the main point of distinction between the lawful/traditional rule of an aristocracy and the arbitrary, selfish rule of an oligarchy, or for that matter the difference between the legal and custom-dependent rule of a constitutional government compared to the arbitrary and selfish rule of a democracy.
The nineteenth century is an interesting expression of Hellenistic and (even more) Roman values - an emphasis on philosophers, oratorical public speaking and an emphasis on 'great men' in history and statesmanship, muses in art, order and regularity in music and an obsession with constitutions - not to mention Latin and Greek being imposed upon an ever-increasing number of hapless schoolboys.
And then the landslide ... the descent into materialism, uncertainty, strange political doctrines and pre-packaged economics that was to bring us the Twentieth Century. The fall of Napoleon was followed by the concert of Europe and almost a century of relative peace. The fall of Imperial Germany was marred by the League of Nations, a crippling war and almost a century of widespread unpleasantness. Still, as long as we have hot water, good dentistry and soft lavatory paper it is not a total loss ... ;D
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on February 03, 2014, 11:35:38 AM
The fall of Napoleon was followed by the concert of Europe and almost a century of relative peace.
Ah the peaceful 19th century. The Greek War of Independence, Carlist Wars, Wars of Italian Unification, the 1848, German expansion under Bismark (wars with Denmark, Austria-Hungary and German allies, France), Russo-Turkish War. But at least we got the Red Cross :) .
Not sure this search for a Golden Age is fruitful in our examination of the practice of history, mind.
Quote from: Erpingham on February 03, 2014, 11:58:32 AM
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on February 03, 2014, 11:35:38 AM
The fall of Napoleon was followed by the concert of Europe and almost a century of relative peace.
Ah the peaceful 19th century. The Greek War of Independence, Carlist Wars, Wars of Italian Unification, the 1848, German expansion under Bismark (wars with Denmark, Austria-Hungary and German allies, France), Russo-Turkish War. But at least we got the Red Cross :) .
Not sure this search for a Golden Age is fruitful in our examination of the practice of history, mind.
Still, it's preferable to two World Wars, the Gulag, the famine in the Ukraine, the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, the Khmer Rouge, etc. etc.
I often wonder what a time traveller from any period pre-1900 would think of us. He'd probably run screaming. :o
But we are rather off topic.
Quote from: Justin Swanton on February 03, 2014, 12:04:32 PM
Still, it's preferable to two World Wars, the Gulag, the famine in the Ukraine, the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, the Khmer Rouge, etc. etc.
Alas, the global situation is equally dire in the 19th century - Slavery, Serfdom, Pogroms, exploding volcanoes and tsunamis and so on.
Quote
But we are rather off topic.
Yes we are. I think some of this could be down to our perspective, which is quite Western (note cunning reference back to thread title there :) ). Dan Snow published an interesting set of facts about WWI recently in which he opined that the Taiping Rebellion was the world's bloodiest conflict - given the two World Wars that is a sobering thought. Now, I have no idea whether he is right - I only know the war existed because I read a series about it as a wargame period - but we do need to remind ourselves to the wider picture sometimes. I'm not saying we shouldn't have a Western perspective - it is hard not to start from the perspective of your culture - but we need to be mindful of it and bring it to the forefront sometimes.
Quote from: Erpingham on February 03, 2014, 11:58:32 AM
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on February 03, 2014, 11:35:38 AM
The fall of Napoleon was followed by the concert of Europe and almost a century of relative peace.
Ah the peaceful 19th century. The Greek War of Independence, Carlist Wars, Wars of Italian Unification, the 1848, German expansion under Bismark (wars with Denmark, Austria-Hungary and German allies, France), Russo-Turkish War. But at least we got the Red Cross :) .
Not sure this search for a Golden Age is fruitful in our examination of the practice of history, mind.
Not forgetting the Burma War, the Opium Wars, the Indian Mutiny and the Tai Ping Rebellion, plus the odd action in Africa and an exciting century for much of the New World. Trade, the flag and missionaries all featured on the agenda as the rest of the world tried to absorb Europe's incomprehensible mix of science, Hellenism, Christianity and emergent cultural theory.
The consensus - especially in Russia - was that it was more of a silver age. It was also one in which most European armies were able to get seriously out of practice, which is why it was unusual.
European history as taught in the 19th century was for the most part seriously patriotic - but as the century went on it seems to have become increasingly nationalistic. The difference? A patriot loves his own country, A nationalist hates other countries. Or so I was told ...
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on February 03, 2014, 12:30:49 PM
European history as taught in the 19th century was for the most part seriously patriotic - but as the century went on it seems to have become increasingly nationalistic. The difference? A patriot loves his own country, A nationalist hates other countries. Or so I was told ...
Reminds me of those children's poems in the opening scene of
Joyeux Noel. They weren't made up for the movie.
French poem:Child, upon these maps do heed
This black stain to be effaced
Omitting it, you would proceed
Yet better it in red to trace
Later, whatever may come to pass
Promise there to go you must
To fetch the children of Alsace
Reaching out their arms to us
May in our fondest France
Hope's green saplings to branch
And in you, dear child, flower
Grow, grow, France awaits its hour.
English poemTo rid the map of every trace
Of Germany and of the Hun,
We must exterminate that race.
We must not leave a single one.
Heed not their children's cries.
Best slay all now, the women, too
Or else, someday again they'll rise
Which, if they're dead, they cannot do.
German poem:One enemy is our's, and one alone,
yet he chisels Germany's gravestone.
Full of hatred his breast, full of envy to the bone.
One enemy is our's, and one alone.
Now the malefactor lifts his murderous hand,
his name, you know him, is England.
Quote from: Erpingham on February 03, 2014, 12:23:58 PM
Dan Snow published an interesting set of facts about WWI recently in which he opined that the Taiping Rebellion was the world's bloodiest conflict - given the two World Wars that is a sobering thought.
If "bloodiest" means deadliest, that's very uncertain. Death tolls cited range as high as 100 million, but most (gu)estimates are much lower. WP goes for 20 million as the likeliest, which is within the range of estimates of the WWII death toll of China alone.
My take is that no century has piled up corpses quite like the 20th, and the 21st is still young.
There is of course a Timur (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur) who in the 14th century is supposed to have killed 17 million people, though there is no way of verifying that figure.
The Spanish Inquisition, that horror of horrors, by contrast, executed about 4000 people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition#Death_tolls) in its three centuries of existence. And these were people who by and large could be reasonably seen to be a threat to state stability, as the religious wars in Germany and France demonstrated. The maxim cuius regio eius religio meant that if you made enough converts in a particular place, the next thing you did was raise an army and oblige the local authorities to uphold your religion. Sort of like modern day revolutionaries.
And now back to the point... ::)
I believe it was the lack of warning which made the inquisition so detestable, rather than the simple body count.
Non-Monty Python fans may miss that one ...
Quote from: Erpingham on February 03, 2014, 12:23:58 PM
Quote from: Justin Swanton on February 03, 2014, 12:04:32 PM
Still, it's preferable to two World Wars, the Gulag, the famine in the Ukraine, the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, the Khmer Rouge, etc. etc.
Alas, the global situation is equally dire in the 19th century - Slavery, Serfdom, Pogroms, exploding volcanoes and tsunamis and so on.
I am intrigued by this 'equally dire' outlook: was this conclusion arrived at by personal evaluation or by replicating the essence of history as read/taught/imbibed? What were the reference points/criteria used to evaluate the assessment?
(This could be a first-class example of the way history is taught influencing perceptions or it could be pure personal evaluation and judgement with/without cultural factors acting as significant influences. Finding out which seems to be an essential preliminary to making comments. ;) )
Quote
... it is hard not to start from the perspective of your culture - but we need to be mindful of it and bring it to the forefront sometimes.
Seconded.
I didn't expect that response, Pat.
Si, senor.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on February 04, 2014, 05:34:25 PM
I am intrigued by this 'equally dire' outlook: was this conclusion arrived at by personal evaluation or by replicating the essence of history as read/taught/imbibed? What were the reference points/criteria used to evaluate the assessment?
Alas, in the absence of a tardis or other temporal device, personal evaluation was out of the question. I therefore fell back on what I had read, been taught and otherwise imbibed. I think this is quite common when dealing with historical events outside one's own lifetime :)
The question of how I evaluated the data available is, of course, of interest. In my case, I have made an impulsive statement ("equally dire") without any attempt to establish a measure of direness on which to make a judgement. I will therefore revise it to there was a lot of direness in both centuries, including war, intolerance, disease and natural disasters.
It can be difficult to ascertain just how much human misery was being produced in different centuries by different causes.
In this case though one can form an idea of the lot of the Russian peasant in the 19th century as described by Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, compared to his lot in the 20th as described by Solzhenitsyn. I've read the Gulag Archipelago several times. It shows just what a government built on a social doctrine that is completely liberated from all the constraints imposed by religion and tradition is capable of.
The interesting point for me is that the worst king or emperor of the Middle Ages did not have the power to do what a dictator could do during the last century.
On the nefarious methods (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_1je7r7RYE) of the Inquisition (for the Monty Python uninitiated).
Quote from: Erpingham on February 04, 2014, 06:30:06 PM
The question of how I evaluated the data available is, of course, of interest. In my case, I have made an impulsive statement ("equally dire") without any attempt to establish a measure of direness on which to make a judgement. I will therefore revise it to there was a lot of direness in both centuries, including war, intolerance, disease and natural disasters.
If we attempt to map where the 'direness' was most often and most concentratedly manifested in the 19th century, we find it principally - with a few short exceptions - in the non-leading nations of the world. Conversely, in the 20th century it strikes most prominently, if not always most viciously, in and at most of the the leading nations. The effects on history (and our perception of it) are quite noticeable: 'direness' that is not confined to 'backward' areas is deemed to be dire indeed.
One reason for this is that there does seem to be a tendency to measure history by looking at the progress or decline of certain 'beacon' cultures and nations that exert disproportionate influence on the world. If these are seen to be growing and expanding and not suffering overmuch from intestinal troubles, then the era seems to be one of human progress overall. If the 'beacon' nations are struggling and disintegrating, the result is viewed as a 'dark age', not least because the citizenry of the 'beacon' nations provide us with most of our historical records.
Quote from: Justin Swanton on February 04, 2014, 07:28:51 PM
In this case though one can form an idea of the lot of the Russian peasant in the 19th century as described by Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, compared to his lot in the 20th as described by Solzhenitsyn. I've read the Gulag Archipelago several times. It shows just what a government built on a social doctrine that is completely liberated from all the constraints imposed by religion and tradition is capable of.
And one can get an idea of the impact of communist China's 'Great Leap Forward' - described in my schooldays as a bold effort that did not quite make the grade ('a small step backwards') - on mainland China's peasants and workers from
Mao's Great Famine by Frank Dikotter (who lives in Hong Kong). Working from communist records of the period, he shows that far from being 'a small step backwards' it was a catastrophe unparallelled in Chinese history.
My impression, seeing what was (and presumably still is) taught in schools and universities about communist regimes contrasted with what people who lived under them have to say about them, is that the favourable portrayal of these regimes in the west materially contributed to their continued existence: we created our own myth of communism which was much more favourable and acceptable than the real thing.
One can see something of this in Greek and Latin authors' portrayals of the Roman Republic as 'wise' and 'just' - it was sometimes, but from the 3rd century BC its actions increasingly look like spite, perfidy and callous destruction of mildly antagonistic populations. By the late 2nd/early 1st century this kind of behaviour seems endemic, and it is perhaps no coincidence that around this time revolts against the Romans became the norm rather than the exception. I get the impression that a number of smaller powers fooled themselves into becoming allies and clients of Rome through wishful thinking, in a haze of delusion created by Rome's ostensible reputation for fair dealing and their own readiness to believe rather than evaluate - and then paid the price.