The Western Way of History?

[Justin Swanton]

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.

[Erpingham]

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 ).

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).

[Mark G]

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.

[Prufrock]

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

[Paul Innes]

Cheers, Aaron,  English teachers unite!

Paul

[Patrick Waterson]

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 ...

[aligern]

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 :-))

[Patrick Waterson]

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 ... 

[Erpingham]

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.

[Justin Swanton]

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. 

But we are rather off topic.

[Erpingham]

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. 

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.

[Patrick Waterson]

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 ...

[Justin Swanton]

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 poem

To 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.

[Andreas Johansson]

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.

[Justin Swanton]

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 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 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...