The Future of History

I read a newspaper article by the journalist David Aaronovitch writing for The Times on the seemingly impossible nature of teaching the history of Britain on top of expanding their knowledge (however brief) on the history of Europe, Australasia, Africa, Russia and the Americas to secondary school and University students in the time they partake in studying History. He noted how the recent change in the national curriculum relating to History, put in place by the Education Secretary Michael Gove, completely altered how school children and University undergraduates would go about questioning the centuries gone before them and limit their ability to assess the importance of different epochs in history that have changed the politics of the world for better or for worse. Aaronovitch seemingly concurs, as do I, with the feelings put across by the travel writer and historian William Dalrymple. Complaining about how his children have a limited knowledge of history, Dalrymple berates the repeated teachings of the Tudors and Nazis, with not even a 'whiff of Indian history.' Dalrymple further states how it is his firm belief that through this new found curriculum, the teaching of history will almost be defunct and pointless if schools are merely going to teach issues that have been analysed and evaluated into the ground beneath our feet. He shows how it not only narrows students' perspectives on the outside world and their histories, but also deprives them of a chance of studying aspects of history through which they could see patterns, see where generals failed on the battlefields across the Continents, and envisage what the future may possibly hold for governments currently in office around the world. Or is that Gove's intention? To narrow the teaching of History as much as he possibly can without resorting to Francis Fukuyama's 'end of history' argument put across in his compelling book 'The End of History and the Last Man'.

In his book, Fukuyama refers to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Bloc as the point in history from which events led to, in his opinion, 'the end of mankind's ideological evolution and universalisation of Western democracy as the final form of human government.' As Ishaan Tharoor, a writer for TIME magazine wrote last year, it was this mentality that continued the 'World is flat' notion, where the idea that a continuously evolving and prosperous world was unforeseeable on the assumption that the success of liberal Democracy, and the evolution of what Fukuyama defines as 'laissez faire capitalism', would lead to the collapse of a better and progressive society. So is the future of History really this dire? Is this notion of narrowing pupils study of history a concept that we should collaborate with or rebel against in the desire to allow for the further development of future Historians as well as developing students into more worldly knowledgeable people rather than recent graduates with only limited knowledge on issues such as the already over-studied Nazi regime and wives of Henry VIII?

Having studied History throughout school (notably European (Nazi's) and that of Britain at home throughout the ages), as well as at University where I was able to widen my gaze in relation to the knowledge of different areas in history I wanted to focus on, I believe that this notion that Gove wants to narrow such a curriculum as being terribly blind and naive. Whilst at University, I was able to focus my attention on all kinds of history; from the troubles faced within the African Diasporas, the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, to the the construction of the notion of Men and Women throughout the ages, the Enlightenment, and General Historical Problems. As a result, I would feel comfortable in saying that I have profited from a wide range of subjects on offer to me and has enabled me to look on different cultures and countries in different lights when relating to the histories of each one at any given time. To deny a student that option would lead to grave side effects, and severely dent the attraction to study History for students in their post-School days. 

On to the televised side of History. The History Channel has been under the pseudonym of 'the Hitler Channel' for many a year now, and if it isn't showing a black and white video of a battle between Montgomery and Rommel in Africa during the Second World War or Hitler's attempt to invade Russia in the Winter, then it is only dispersed by the odd money loan adverts and the annoying guy off the Go Compare adverts being sucked into a black hole, or have they found a new way to get rid of the wannabe Pavarotti? I have to say, if I was to pinpoint any given History based TV show that got me involved in wanting to further my studying of History, I would have to say it was the World At War series (filmed between 1973 and 1974) that gave me my History fill when I was a kid of 12 or 13 - forever inquisitive and wanting to know more about what the past held and how it shaped the world we lived in then. Several years down the line, it was the Snow family father and son (Peter and Dan) combination that furthermore attracted me to evolve my interest in History. Their 2004 TV series 'Battlefield Britain' gave a 14 year old boy interested in History everything he wanted, from interactive battlefields, to interesting and informative, yet not dull commentary and offering up of facts. Dan Snow's spin off series of 'Filthy Cities' and the more recent 'History of Railways' further added to my inquisitive side. Through these TV series, Peter and Dan Snow looked at combining new techniques to teach and put across the history of Britain in an informative and easy to understand format for those with a basic knowledge of the chosen topic of discussion. Nevertheless, there has been an argument that programmes such as these look to glamorise the nature of a historian's work, showing a fun element as well as a celebrity status arising as a result of successful TV series. It has led to a fear that some people may go forward and study, graduate, teach or research history based concepts and be led astray by the success of these programmes and presenters. A play for which I am, to this day, grateful for showing the much needed alternative side to the coin to being a History teacher and researcher was Alan Bennett's 'The History Boys'. In the play, it shows Irwin become this successful TV presenter doing programmes on the dissolution of British monasteries, whereas on the flip side there is Hector, a chubby, lonely, and depressed teacher who graduated from Hull University and is teaching in a public school where expectation is as low as a pendulum on a great grandfather clock, locked in a continual perpetual motion where one can only look to continue a trend, to send students to mediocre Universities at the time: Leeds, Leicester and Exeter, not Cambridge, Durham or Oxford. Nonetheless, Hector believed in breaking this so called 'trend' and with the help of Irwin and Mrs Lintott, the students achieve the unexpected and get places at Oxford and Cambridge alike. The inclusion of thinking the unexpected, arguing the previously grey matter within history, and knowing knowledge for the sake of knowing it, all brought a different perspective to my approach towards studying and dissecting the nature of certain events in history and the people involved in bringing these events to the forefront of everyone's world.

So I conclude with a simple message, that History is not a subject within which one should confine oneself to only a couple of topics, but to expand their knowledge surrounding the subject as broad and wide-ranging as they possibly can. There is no such thing as being too knowledgeable. Each day will be history once it has come and gone so History is a subject that can never be 'dead' or 'forgotten'. True, there have been instances in past ages when History repeats itself but what historians must do, along with politicians and analysts is to prove that there could be a way to deny it happening once more over.

I leave you with a quote from the same article I opened this blog on;

'History, the endless curiosity about how people have lived; the discipline of discovering the past by using and evaluating sources, balancing claims, coming to senses of likelihood and causality.' (David Aaronovitch)

Jonathan Whitehead

Falling from Stardom

Hypocrisy. Lies. Cheating. Disguise. Drugs. These are words that people never want to have associated with any form of lifestyle, and for the purpose of this blog and this blog alone, any form of sport either. However through recent happenings in the sporting world, such words are thrown around like confetti at a wedding. Lance Armstrong, Oscar Pistorius, OJ Simpson to name but a few sportsmen who have had the red carpet treatment pulled from underneath them through one reason or another. We can all look at the newspapers over the course of the last few months and see journalists and ex-sports stars taking their frustration out on other sports stars when things start turning to pot in their field. Rory McIlroy the latest to get such treatment after walking off the Honda Classic golf tournament due to tooth pain. After this happened he began to get chastised by public and journalists alike for showing a lack of professionalism, however, if it was one of us waking up with toothache, not only would there be a probability we'd call a 'sickie' but not feel like working altogether. Hence, purely on the celebrity pedastool that McIlroy finds himself on, it is almost impossible to escape the limelight, no matter the enormity of the event.

On the topic of being unable to escape the limelight, Oscar Pistorius, the 6 Gold, 4 Silver and 1 Bronze Paralympic Games champion, came under close scrutiny from journalists and police alike when he was accused of shooting his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at his home in Pretoria, South Africa, on the 14th February 2013. Immediately put on trial, he defended himself on the basis that he thought Reeva was an intruder and he had every intention of killing the intruder, not Reeva. Evidence for the defence and prosecution were placed in court over the following few days, with the initial status being that Oscar Pistorius would be placed on bail. Having become the 'poster boy' for the Paralympic Games, everything looked bright for the future of Oscar Pistorius. He had 5 modern homes all around the world, an Olympic legacy paved in gold for his contribution to raising the sport from the ashes, and a loving family. So where did it all go wrong? Is a celebrity status of such a nature of Pistorius's something too much for a person to cope with? I suppose we'll find out when the jury and court adjourns again later this year for a final sentence.

Continuing along the sporting fall from stardom, we come to the issue of OJ Simpson, his rise to fame through American Football and his ultimate demise into one of the first sporting figures of such notoriety to be involved with such a large scandal. Having become the first American Footballer to have passed the 2,000 rush yard mark in a season, his sporting career was turning into a great success, until he was tried on two counts of murder following the deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in June 1994. Having been given a verdict of 'not guilty' from the court on October 3rd 1995, OJ Simpson followed this up subsequently by releasing a book entitled 'If I Did It: Confessions of the killer' in 2007. Copies flew off the shelves in the public's desire to find out the mentality behind OJ Simpson, not noticing the minuscule print of 'if' rather than the presumed title 'I Did It'. 

Tumbling from grace has been something that is quite frequently happening to sports stars. Furthermore to Oscar Pistorius and OJ Simpson, there was the massive trial of Lance Armstrong, the record seven time Tour De France winner from 1999 to 2005, regarding his use of doping. Being an individual who himself fought off cancer, and having set up 'Livestrong' (a foundation that helps to serve people affected by cancer and empowers them to take action to gain a a healthier body), to have such a large story come out that such a man had taken dope throughout his cycling career shocked the world. He ultimately got stripped of his seven Tour De France titles and his reputation turned to soot with all his sponsorship deals turning the other way too. His interview on Oprah Winfrey was to be the turning point of the whole story, a chance for Lance Armstrong to set the story straight. Although he admitted to taking dope to enhance his sporting capability, his overall body language showed he withheld information which he later publicly announced, ultimately dampening his ever decreasing and capitulating reputation. Fellow cyclists condemned his actions to the utmost of their ability and set about looking for an increased drug testing centre for people not only involved in cycling but other sports too. As Simon Barnes, the Sports commentator for the newspaper 'The Times', stated in his recent article 'When Hipocrisy becomes a lifestyle choice', 'Armsrong chose to live by a means of lying, bullying, cheating: as a system, a career.' - This, in my opinion is a grand summation of what Lance Armstrong's lifestyle path choices not only condemned him as a reputable sportsman for the rest of his career but also made his 'Livestrong' campaign strongly hypocritical.

In turn, I want to leave you with a couple of questions, does celebrity status bring with it a greater sense of needing to strive for bettering your career path no matter how you go about it, just so long as you don't get found out in the long run? Furthermore, does being a celebrity mean that whatever nonsensical or fatal action they undertake or accidentally participate in, they get a grossly over emphasised criticism from fellow celebrities and members of public? An extended court sentence for those put on a pedastool, and one from which they would never be able to get back on no matter how big their ladders were or how large the bridges were they try to re-build. Once your a celebrity who falls from fame with such large side effects as OJ Simpson, Oscar Pistorius or Lance Armstrong, to name a few, you will be forever trampled on like sawdust in a carpenter's workshop.

Jonathan Whitehead