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Any particular field?

And if I may ask, did you (by occasion) happen to read The Isles: A History by Norman Davies? Or have you heard of it? I have the book, but I am a bit slow in progress, due to all kinds of circumstances (and other books I wanted to finish earlier ;-). I wonder if this book was a bit controversial in your field because it is very critical on how history has (still) been taught on the (British) Isles.

Quoted from wikipedia:
"... he does want to tackle what he sees as historiographical biases in the treatment of the history of Britain and Ireland."
 
I'm beginning to read "the Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas", as I received it as a gift from a cousin this christmas. I alreday watched the movie, but it seems that the book, as almost always, is going to be better than the movie.
 
Forostar said:
Any particular field?

And if I may ask, did you (by occasion) happen to read The Isles: A History by Norman Davies? Or have you heard of it? I have the book, but I am a bit slow in progress, due to all kinds of circumstances (and other books I wanted to finish earlier ;-). I wonder if this book was a bit controversial in your field because it is very critical on how history has (still) been taught on the (British) Isles.

Quoted from wikipedia:
"... he does want to tackle what he sees as historiographical biases in the treatment of the history of Britain and Ireland."
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No, I haven't. Practically everything I read was heavily analytical and very detailed academic stuff, not very narrative or good for leisure time reading! The way history is taught is always controversial to someone, somewhere. Some people favour the learning dates and (ahem) 'facts' by rote approach - usually accompanied by strong patriotic themes, to promote national or regional heritage. Others advocate the very analytical approach, encouraging kids to question everything, which is great, but takes away the magic of reading history and can confuse kids who don't know the period in the first place.

I started by studying 20th Century European dictatorships and the mindset of people living under them, but then I went very heavily into medieval England, which I love, but think there's way too much misunderstanding and popular miseducation about the period. I really can't watch Horrible Histories or any read modern fiction set in the medieval period without feeling my work is being undone by the writer!
I did re-enactment for about ten years. That's something academic historians don't really like, but I felt I learned a lot about period mindset, and helped non-academic people find an interest in and understanding of history.
 
Too bad, I was curious about someone's opinion on that subject (especially if someone is from the same island and studied history as well, just as the author).
 
I know exactly what you're talking about, Brigantium. I've essentially been a history student for the past seven years, and I went through every phase imaginable. As it is now, I generally don't like reading narratives or historical novels, because of their academic shortcomings. If you present history for laypeople, you will obviously have to simplify some of the more complex aspects, especially when it comes to scholarly disputes. That's fine for everybody except those who are scholars themselves. And since I've been trained as a scholar, these readings never satisfy me, and I always have the impression that a picture is being painted that does not have much to do with reality, and everything with the way the author sees the world.
 
read a few rock memoirs recently

Slash -- Slash
My Appetite for Destruction -- Steven Adler
From Makeup to Breakup -- Peter Criss

All kinds of decadence, women, drugs, dealings with shit bandmates. Of the three, I thought Criss' was the best from a pure reading standpoint.
 
@Perun and Brigantium:
Just in case, this is not a historical novel. There are no fictional characters and events. It's a huge research.
Brigantium said:
there's way too much misunderstanding and popular miseducation about the period.
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That's exactly what's so appealing imo. He not only shows that, he also points out the real miseducation, on schools and universities, but also by notable writers. I thought it would be mighty intriguing, also for scholars, to see how the image of a country's past has come to be, over the course of the centuries. Actually, who knows, he put the stuff you have learnt yourself in a new light. That can be very enlightening.

Historians continue to learn, and no one else made such a comprehesive work about this subject as of yet.
How else, if one wishes, would one wish to learn about miseducation on this subject? It can only be done by doing all the research Davies did, yourself. At least, there's no alternative (academical) book to read abou it. Not yet.

Also I don't think he simplefies much. It's pretty hard to get through. So many names, texts, details, maps, accounts, languages. It's huge. Besides: he gives countless of sources via his notes.

I think the quality of the book is that he makes the picture as complete as possible (certainly more than anyone else before him), telling all sides, instead of e.g. one patriotic side.

If there are mistakes, then it's the historian's task to find them and correct them, and publish them.
And that's exactly what Norman Davies did.
 
I was in Waterstones earlier and I started thinking about what it would be like to read certain books for the first time again...
 
Sounds like he's pretty much agreeing with the academic concensus on the teaching of history today, then. The difference is, the book is probably aimed at the layman and is more easily readable to the layman.
When you do a history dissertation or postgraduate studies, the emphasis is on analysing every last bit yourself and doing all the research from scratch. There are lots of books on historiography (the study of the study of history), but these days it starts to make my brain hurt!
That's a major reason I never took studies any further ;)
 
I don't think anyone is an expert on all the things that were collected, since no one else collected all those things and commented on them as he did.

I don't think he would have written it in the first place if it was already done. And where's another work of the same proportions? I haven't heard about plagiarism yet. This was a first so we're all laymen. Actually it's his trademark to explore areas that have been largely untouched and to go off the beaten track.

As a young student he realized, by accident, that Polish history was not present in the Oxford curriculum at all.
He was attracted to it because nobody else was paying attention to that history. Poland was off the main academic track. He went on in that vein, in all parts of Europe.

Twenty years ago he came up with the strong possibility of Scottish independence, it was thought as outrageous. Now it's on the agenda.

Count on it that in The Isles he says lots of unpopular stuff as well, also unpopular in scholar circles.
 
I may be pushing things a bit too far here, but if you have such feelings about reading popular fiction on historic topics, why read them at all? You can certainly tell whether the author is a scholar, what the plot is (by the annotation at the back cover) and how well established the facts regarding the particular period are.
 
No controversy here, I'm sure it is an original piece of work and maybe the first to look at the whole history of the British Isles in this way. The general direction of going back to original evidence and not accepting what's taught isn't new, though, that's been a trend for a while now, it just tends to get done on smaller, more specific topics in periodicals, rather than in the bigger general history books.
As I said, I don't usually read historical fiction;)
 
Well, others went before him (maybe not as extensive, not sure), but this is what motivated him and you can imagine why I am so curious about your opinion, because you've studied history in England(?). I'd be very pleased if you would read the following. Thanks in advance! :ok: :

.... Well certainly when it comes to being alive and kicking and you came to write The Isles, not the British Isles for very good reasons, you have found yourself, and you must have known this was going to happen in the middle of this great debate about the nature of the national identities of the people who live in the British and the Irish Isles, I'm trying to use my terms as carefully as you do yourself. Was that why you wrote it because you were very dissatisfied with the anglocentric writing about the whole of these isles?

Indeed I have as a British citizen always had a running interest in the history of these islands, and I had developed a certain dissatisfaction with the subject through being a Professor in London University, for example, on sitting on the examination board, and seeing colleagues preparing questions on British History for the biggest history faculty in the United Kingdom, in which there would not be a single question about Scotland, not a single question about Wales. Four hundred or five hundred questions on British history of which 399 were about England . Nothing, absolutely no awareness that the history of Wales or the history of Scotland or the history of Ireland were of interest in themselves, and as it were deserving a similar respect and interest as English matters. So I think that's probably what got under my skin in the first place.

Well certainly a very topical experience and a very topical lesson, something which all politicians are having to debate, and I suppose the essential part of this discussion is that there's now a tendency to say well the Irish know who they are, the Scots seem to know who they are, and at least half the Welsh know who they are, but the English don't, or the English are saying that they don't. Why do you think that the English are finding it so hard to define themselves outside of all the other contexts in which they have existed politically and nationally for the x hundred years?

The English as the domination nation within the British mix have been schooled for longer than living memory certainly, to confuse their own identify, their own Englishness with general Britishness and of course with the imperial family. If you read Rudyard Kipling, he talks about the English garden but what he means is all the
little boys and girls right round the world whether they're in Australia or India or Gibraltar or wherever or in these isles who are part of what you would call the English family. One of the characteristics if you like of the imperial mission of the English which goes right back before the British empire , the English empire within the isles, was this sense of this special divine calling of the English, as opposed to the other lesser nations. This reached its height of course during the Empire where, as it were, the god given right of the British among whom the English were, they're usually called English in those days, even if you were Scots, - the divine mission of the English was accepted as part of the natural order. And because of this special position of the English as the dominant element within the imperial family they somehow lost the awareness of who they were, other than the rulers of this great Empire. So now it's gone of course they're extremely confused, and it's the depth of the confusion which I still can't understand, that there's, one meets you know highly educated people who don't know the difference between what is English and what is British.

We're talking about question of feeling, I mean I, of course am British because I was born in Czechoslovakia, and as a matter of fact I had an English education but otherwise I can't be English, I am British. So I know who I am pretty much. What are the English? Can you help them to say who they are?

Now you've stumped me haven't you. Who are the English?

I mean, are they particularly individualistic? Are they particularly sort of prone to standing up for principle? Are they particularly important in their contribution to democracy and the rule of law, and so on?

No, I don't think so. I had a wonderful letter the other day from my old head mistress in Bolton who reads my books with great care, and marks them as she used to mark my essays. And this is one point that I took up with her because she talked about Englishness as being connected with democracy and tolerance and courtesy. And I wrote back saying, well I think these are ideals which are cultivated though not always put into practice by the Albanians. What is particularly English about tolerance? The English are extremely intolerant for centuries, institutionalised intolerance against Catholics from the early 16th until the mid 19th century. Just to return to your question Englishness is something quite different from Britishness, Britishness is a legal concept, citizenship of the United Kingdom .

But it's rather inclusive, it's a rather generous term I think.

It's inclusive, yes. And there are a lot of people of course who although they may live in England think of themselves as rather British than English, most of the recent immigrants for example, think of themselves as the new British, they have a British passport. They identify very much with the cities where they live, whether it's Bradford or Manchester or wherever, but they don't think of themselves as English. It's as it were the remnants of the old English syndrome who look back to history, to English dominance of the other nations in the isles, who very often don't even notice that there are other nations in these isles. These are the people who set great storm by their Englishness as opposed to their Britishness. ...
source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/davies_transcript.shtml
 
Forostar said:
the depth of the confusion which I still can't understand, that there's, one meets you know highly educated people who don't know the difference between what is English and what is British.
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That annoys the crap out of me. A couple of months ago an American said to an Australian that two English people were British and that I'm Scottish, which annoyed me as it sort of excluded me from being British.
 
From the first answer from that quoted transcripton segment (from a radio interview) I can deduce that this is the way it has been taught in England as well. On the biggest history faculty of the UK even. At least, hardly any questions were asked about Scotland or Wales, thus one gets the impression that these two don't count.
 
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