Comments on: History: The Balm for All (Political) Ills

By: HalfEmpty

HalfEmpty — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 17:54:22 +0000

The world's safest cheery. Boo Nixon, Boo Nixon.

(but thanks for ending the draft)

By: Rueful Red

Rueful Red — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 15:59:09 +0000

More along the lines of spending a couple of centuries being a miserable peasant, with people now and then coming up with new ways of storing cheese or wine. Glacial progress, if any, the peasant condition etc etc. I bought Fernand Braudel’s “Le Mediterranee” in about 1974 and I’ve still only ever used it to put down people with their holiday snaps from Espain. I’m like that.

I’m just reading Robert Dallek’s JFK biography (Kennedy not Kerry, I’d liked his LBJ book) and I’ve been really taken aback at the “see Nixon be nasty. Boo Nixon, boo! See JFK get us into Vietnam but he didn’t mean to so that’s OK! Boo Nixon boo!” way he writes.

I guess it must help him get tenure.

By: HalfEmpty

HalfEmpty — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 15:31:23 +0000

La longue duree"? Was that some sort of Franco-trickery prior to the launching of HMS Warrior?

By: RC2

RC2 — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 12:42:30 +0000

Took the words outta my mouth, Half. Me dear ol’ Da’ used to say History is someone else’s Current Events. ‘Cept the way they teach it here is not only insufferably deconstructionist and PC, but also written in simple declarative sentences that drain the life out of it (which is a blessing considering what’s being taught.) See McCarthy. See McCarthy torment Mr. Hiss. Bad McCarthy, Bad. See Congress. See Congress defund the war effort. Good Congress, Good. Bad Vietnam War, Bad!

By: Rueful Red

Rueful Red — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 09:39:22 +0000

Yup. Always liked that Jean Seberg.

So you’re not a fan of the “Annales” school? “La longue duree”? Can’t say I blame you, there’s only so much transhumance in the Mediterranean hinterland a bloke can take. Best headline of a history review ever, of a book by the tendentious Emmanuel le Roi Ladurie, in “The Spectator”: “Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel”.

By: HalfEmpty

HalfEmpty — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:19:11 +0000

History is politics writ large. All gawds chillrun got politics, belief systems and fear.

And Ima steal that ditty. Is that from Bang Yur Flagon?

By: ninme

ninme — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 17:31:39 +0000

History is always interesting. They only teach the stuff that ended up mattering. It’s politics that’s boring.

By: Rueful Red

Rueful Red — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 10:11:08 +0000

Sojourner Truth, anyone?

At least you guys aren’t stuck with Angevins and Plantagenets and such. And quite how, say, Walpole’s construction of his web of interest and obligation is supposed to grab the kids defeats me. Quite a lot of British history is really rather dull, frankly. But then again, if you just taught the interesting bits children would get a lot more out of it than they do now.

“French are made for kicking, Spaniards to bash We’ve never seen an alliance that we didn’t want to smash. We were born under a warlike star, a warlike, warlike star.”

By: HalfEmpty

HalfEmpty — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 12:29:03 +0000

I used to steal my sisters history books from the 3rd grade on. She whooped me pretty good a couple of times when I didn’t get it back into her book bag in time for next days lerning process.

By: ninme

ninme — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 19:03:27 +0000

‘Cept schools aren’t good enough that anyone would have heard of Alger Hiss et al.

My cousins hated Canadian history. “It’s all beavers! ‘Ooh, beavers!’”