One of the fiercest historical controversies in recent years exploded last summer, sparked by an essay entitled ‘Is History History?’. Written by James H Sweet, then president of the influential American Historical Association, it was printed in that organisation’s magazine in August 2022. The global social media backlash was overwhelming. Angry readers branded his article “crap”, “smug condescension”, even “white supremacist”. Scholars around the world weighed in, along with media commentators. An opinion piece in The New
York Times called it “one of the confusing messes that pop up from time to time in the highest reaches of academia”, while The Washington Post mocked “academia’s most recent pratfall”.
In his piece, Sweet, professor of African history at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, criticised a shift toward ‘presentism’ – the study of the past through the lens of the present – in historical writing. He warned that more and more historians let current concerns dictate the focus of their scholarship, giving in to the “allure of political relevance” or even, in more extreme cases, using history as a “grab bag” to advance political goals such as identity politics in their work. Moreover, he advised interpreting “elements of the past not through the optics of the present but within the worlds of our historical actors”. If we “read the past through the prism of contemporary social justice issues”, he declared, we risk producing history that “ignores the values and mores of people in their own times, as well as change over time, neutralizing the expertise that separates historians from those in other disciplines”.
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Denne historien er fra June 2023-utgaven av BBC History UK.
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The King They Couldn't Kill -Want to know why Henry VII is remembered as an intensely suspicious king, wracked by paranoia? The answer, writes Nathen Amin, lies in his death-defying rise to power
Henry’s wary nature is typically attributed to his shaky claim to the throne. The first Tudor monarch was unable to escape the taunt that he was a usurper with no right to call himself king. In fact, his renowned paranoia was the inevitable consequence of a traumatic youth – a trait ingrained long before he harboured ambitions to wear a crown. If we delve deeper into Henry’s background, we can draw a fuller picture of one of our most circumspect of monarchs – one that might elicit sympathy for a long misunderstood king.
The Spy Who Hoodwinked Hitler - Dummy tanks at El Alamein. Bogus generals in Algiers. Sham armies on D-Day. All were ruses masterminded by Dudley Clarke. Robert Hutton tells the story of the British soldier who made an art form of duping the Nazis
Examining the reconnaissance photos, Behrendt was convinced that the Allies weren’t in any hurry. They were constructing some kind of pipeline towards the southern end of their line, probably to carry water, which was barely halfway completed. There were supply dumps appearing in the south as well – always a telltale clue about where an attack would come. True, a large number of trucks were parked at the northern end of the line, about 25 miles back from the front, but they hadn’t moved for weeks.
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Parthian chicken
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Æthelstan is one of the greatest of all Anglo-Saxon monarchs. So why, asks Michael Wood, does the first king of the English remain so fiendishly elusive?
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It’s election night 1997, and Jeremy Paxman is grilling Tory grandee Cecil Parkinson.
