The Western Way of History?

[Erpingham]

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.

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.

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?

[Patrick Waterson]

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.

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 ...

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.

[Erpingham]

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).

[Imperial Dave]

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.

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 ...

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  

[Paul Innes]

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

[Mark G]

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 .

[Erpingham]

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.

[aligern]

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

[Patrick Waterson]

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.

[Andreas Johansson]

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.

[Erpingham]

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).

[Patrick Waterson]

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.

[aligern]

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

[Erpingham]

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).

[Andreas Johansson]

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?

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 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).