heathenhistory.co.uk

Again I am not going to repost all the articles that were lost. However, the racism row between Niall Ferguson and Pankaj Mishra, is chronicled well in this Observer article provides a good summary. Two questions do seem apposite here;

1. Why do such gifted individuals end up in a slanging match (see the earlier posts on the legendary bad blood between AJP Taylor and Hugh Trevor Roper) ?

2. Why is another historian  (see the earlier post on David Starkey and his comments on the riots) involved in accusations of racism ?

In part, both these issues are a reflection of the human condition at the start of the Twenty first century. But beyond this, how far are they a product of  the nature of studying History ?

Mr Kydd.

You will probably remember from an earlier post that Eric Hobsbawn is a British Marxist historian, most famous for his trilogy of books on the nineteenth century – The Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital and The Age of Empire.

You will certainly remember from your studies of Italian Unification, that 1848 was the year that revolutions swept Europe. Now in his 90s, here Hobsbawm reflects upon 2011 in an interview with Radio 4. He states  “It was an enormous joy to discover once again that it’s possible for people to get down in the streets, to demonstrate, to overthrow governments,” and even compares the Arab Spring to the events of 1848.

See how far you agree with him…

The Origins of The Second World War is of course one of the great historical debates of modern times. To be honest it is not really a topic that sets me on fire. I have however included this link from the Wall Street Journal as it contrasts five very different books from five very different historians. They all approach the topic from different directions. For us, it is a good reminder, that the conclusions that a historian draws will often depend upon their starting point.

Perhaps most noteworthy here is the reference to “The Origins of The Second War” by A.J.P. Taylor. This is a massively controversial revisionist text in which Taylor presents Hitler in 1939 not as the bringer of the Holocaust, but as another German stateman with a vague idea to rip up the Treaty of Versailles. For Taylor, the origins of the Second World War should not be seen as a moral question. Hitler was as an opportunist who blundered into war without a master plan. It is perhaps the most controversial history book of the Twentieth Century, but as Taylor’s pupil, Kathleen Burke states, “it broke the log jam of history”.

You might like to wtach the youtube clip below of Taylor discussing the book with his great rival, Hugh Trevor Roper.