- Reaction score
- 20
- Points
- 430
Four takes on British history
Poor history teachers. Rarely a week goes by without a debate on how schoolchildren
should be learning about the past. Here, historian Margaret Macmillan shows how
subjective history can be, by presenting four versions of the past 450 years.
History is the past so therefore it cannot change.
Wrong, quite wrong. History has changed, is changing now, and will continue to change. We find out
new things all the time. Archaeologists are sifting through gardens and rubbish dumps to find out what
people who are long dead grew and ate; archivists turn up bundles of long forgotten papers or families
root through their attics.
We start with facts and solid objects, of course, but in writing history we move beyond them very
quickly. Looking at the events of our own time, we do so through a variety of lenses - liberal,
conservative, radical, religious, feminist. We do the same with the past.
So let's take one important period in British history and see how historians might tell the story in
different ways without, of course, getting the facts wrong. See if you can guess what the viewpoints
are in each version.
RISE AND FALL OF AN EMPIRE
Monarchy was restored by Charles II
The golden age of the Tudors brought unity to a divided England and peace with Scotland. The arts
flourished - Shakespeare, Holbein, Purcell - and reflected the vigour and pride of a bold and brave
people.
Henry VIII stood up to Rome and his glorious daughter Elizabeth saw off the might of the Spanish
empire. English seafarers roamed the world, discovering new routes and laying the foundations for
the British Empire. While the 17th Century brought civil war, peace came again with Charles II who
wisely decided to compromise with Parliament. In the 18th and 19th Centuries Britain, safe behind
its navy, grew powerful and prosperous. Its manufactures flooded the world, its money built railways
and ports across the globe, and its empire brought peace and prosperity to millions of Asians and
Africans.
In the 20th Century, though, Britain exhausted itself standing up to the threats from the Continent,
first from the Kaiser in the 1914-1918 war and then in the even more deadly struggle against the
dictators. Its empire crumbled and by the end of the century Britain was again a small power. Yet
its institutions, even its fashions, remain models for much of the world.
That was the standard viewpoint, seeing history as a glorious story. Next is...
CLASS EXPLOITATION
History is driven by economic forces not made by individuals. At the start of our period, England was
dominated by a feudal aristocracy whose wealth and power rested on ownership of land. The Tudors
gradually brought the great lords under control and allowed a merchant class to grow.
The Elizabethan explorers were driven by their search for profits and that was to remain the guiding
motive for the creation of the Empire. Even Henry VIII's break with Rome was about wealth, not
religion : he and his supporters wanted to get their hands on the Church's enormous wealth. By the
17th Century, the growing middle-class was chafing under monarchical and aristocratic rule: that's
what the Civil War was about. The triumph of Parliament was a victory for the middle classes which
took support from the farmers and workers and then turned around and betrayed them.
Although the 18th Century saw the renewed dominance of the landed aristocracy, by the 19th Century
Britain was changing fast. The great growth of industry produced hugely powerful industrialists and
a large middle class who mercilessly exploited the working classes.
Although the workers reacted by organizing themselves and might one day have seized power in a
revolution, they were bought off by increased wages and benefits, largely financed by Britain's
ruthless exploitation of its Empire.
The world wars of the 20th Century were largely about economic mastery of the globe. Britain may
have defeated Germany but in the end it could not withstand the challenge from the new capitalist
superpower, the United States.
That was according to the Marxists, who put economics at the centre of the story. Now who's
speaking?
A TERRIBLE HUMAN COST
The industrial revolution spread from Britain to elsewhere
Life for the ordinary English man and woman for the past centuries was miserable and short. Until
the middle of the 19th Century, life expectancy for the lower classes, most of them peasants but
also artisans and small shopkeepers, was about 30 years.
Their children had little education and few chances to rise out of the class into which they were
born. They could not vote or hold office. The courts existed to protect the propertied classes and
punishments for even minor crimes were savage. The Reformation was a mixed blessing for them.
On the one hand Protestantism brought the notion that every man - note not every woman - had
the right to interpret the scriptures in his own way; on other it brought the dissolution of the
monasteries which, for all their faults, had provided a minimum of charity for the poor.The results
of the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century were equally mixed. Yes, it provided jobs in the new
industries but at a terrible human cost.
Think of the descriptions in Dickens' novels of the factories and slums of Victorian England. Eventually
a strong trade union movement brought political and social reforms but class still matters today when
it comes to living standards and opportunities. Yet we should not write off the lives of the lower classes
as impoverished in all senses; they had rich traditions and culture, folk wisdom, and strong social
institutions which have helped them to survive.
That was a social interpretation of the period, that looks at what happened to the poor and the powerless.
Next...
LATIN AND GREEK SCHOLARS
Women's voices from the past are sometimes hard to hear because they were part of a patriarchal society
in which power and property and authority were the preserve of men. We know something about elite
women in the Tudor period. It was possible, as it had always been, for such women to gain power and
influence through men.
The Renaissance also brought with it the idea that education, at least some education, was desirable
in a woman. Elizabeth I or Lady Jane Grey knew the Latin and Greek classics that had been rediscovered.
For women lower down the social ladder, we must read between the lines, in wills for example or by
looking at illustrations, to discover that women often shared in the work of their husbands in the small
crafts or in the fields.
It was not until the Enlightenment of the 18th Century that women started to claim their share of the human
rights that were being talked about. The great changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution opened up
new jobs for lower-class women as they did for men but women of the middle and upper classes largely
remained confined to their roles as wives and mothers. A few pioneering women such as Florence Nightingale
forced their way into the professions and the universities. By the 20th Century, women were organizing
themselves to demand their independence from social and legal restrictions.
The two World Wars, when women's contributions to the struggle were essential, helped to bring change
to a male-dominated society. After 1945, the development of new methods of contraception, most notably
the pill, finally gave women control over their own bodies and liberated them from the fear of unwanted
pregnancies.
Guess what? That was the feminist view.
WHICH VIEWPOINT IS BEST?
It would be easy to write other perspectives: a history of beliefs as Britain moved from a religious age to a
secular one; of the gradual triumph of Parliamentary democracy (actually these days perhaps not so easy);
or from a scientific perspective showing the change from the time when we believed that the sun went
around the earth to the decoding of the genome. We could even focus on something like food, and show
the roast beef and beer of "Merrie England" evolving into the hummus and chardonnay of today.
None of these perspectives is wrong, but on their own they give only a limited view of a much more
complicated past.
You can legitimately write histories of a particular aspect of the past as long as you are clear that that is
what you are doing. Where I have trouble is with mono-causal overviews of the past or single explanations
for a period or for change.
I think you can write good general histories of, say, 20th Century Britain, in which you try and give as
complete a picture of it, from high politics to fashion. Such histories have been written and written well by,
for example, Peter Clark in Hope and Glory. You get the portrait of an age in the round.
History is always changing its shape and that is why it is endlessly fascinating.
Margaret Macmillan is a professor of history at the University of Oxford. She is also author of The Uses
and Abuses of History, published by Profile Books.
Poor history teachers. Rarely a week goes by without a debate on how schoolchildren
should be learning about the past. Here, historian Margaret Macmillan shows how
subjective history can be, by presenting four versions of the past 450 years.
History is the past so therefore it cannot change.
Wrong, quite wrong. History has changed, is changing now, and will continue to change. We find out
new things all the time. Archaeologists are sifting through gardens and rubbish dumps to find out what
people who are long dead grew and ate; archivists turn up bundles of long forgotten papers or families
root through their attics.
We start with facts and solid objects, of course, but in writing history we move beyond them very
quickly. Looking at the events of our own time, we do so through a variety of lenses - liberal,
conservative, radical, religious, feminist. We do the same with the past.
So let's take one important period in British history and see how historians might tell the story in
different ways without, of course, getting the facts wrong. See if you can guess what the viewpoints
are in each version.
RISE AND FALL OF AN EMPIRE
Monarchy was restored by Charles II
The golden age of the Tudors brought unity to a divided England and peace with Scotland. The arts
flourished - Shakespeare, Holbein, Purcell - and reflected the vigour and pride of a bold and brave
people.
Henry VIII stood up to Rome and his glorious daughter Elizabeth saw off the might of the Spanish
empire. English seafarers roamed the world, discovering new routes and laying the foundations for
the British Empire. While the 17th Century brought civil war, peace came again with Charles II who
wisely decided to compromise with Parliament. In the 18th and 19th Centuries Britain, safe behind
its navy, grew powerful and prosperous. Its manufactures flooded the world, its money built railways
and ports across the globe, and its empire brought peace and prosperity to millions of Asians and
Africans.
In the 20th Century, though, Britain exhausted itself standing up to the threats from the Continent,
first from the Kaiser in the 1914-1918 war and then in the even more deadly struggle against the
dictators. Its empire crumbled and by the end of the century Britain was again a small power. Yet
its institutions, even its fashions, remain models for much of the world.
That was the standard viewpoint, seeing history as a glorious story. Next is...
CLASS EXPLOITATION
History is driven by economic forces not made by individuals. At the start of our period, England was
dominated by a feudal aristocracy whose wealth and power rested on ownership of land. The Tudors
gradually brought the great lords under control and allowed a merchant class to grow.
The Elizabethan explorers were driven by their search for profits and that was to remain the guiding
motive for the creation of the Empire. Even Henry VIII's break with Rome was about wealth, not
religion : he and his supporters wanted to get their hands on the Church's enormous wealth. By the
17th Century, the growing middle-class was chafing under monarchical and aristocratic rule: that's
what the Civil War was about. The triumph of Parliament was a victory for the middle classes which
took support from the farmers and workers and then turned around and betrayed them.
Although the 18th Century saw the renewed dominance of the landed aristocracy, by the 19th Century
Britain was changing fast. The great growth of industry produced hugely powerful industrialists and
a large middle class who mercilessly exploited the working classes.
Although the workers reacted by organizing themselves and might one day have seized power in a
revolution, they were bought off by increased wages and benefits, largely financed by Britain's
ruthless exploitation of its Empire.
The world wars of the 20th Century were largely about economic mastery of the globe. Britain may
have defeated Germany but in the end it could not withstand the challenge from the new capitalist
superpower, the United States.
That was according to the Marxists, who put economics at the centre of the story. Now who's
speaking?
A TERRIBLE HUMAN COST
The industrial revolution spread from Britain to elsewhere
Life for the ordinary English man and woman for the past centuries was miserable and short. Until
the middle of the 19th Century, life expectancy for the lower classes, most of them peasants but
also artisans and small shopkeepers, was about 30 years.
Their children had little education and few chances to rise out of the class into which they were
born. They could not vote or hold office. The courts existed to protect the propertied classes and
punishments for even minor crimes were savage. The Reformation was a mixed blessing for them.
On the one hand Protestantism brought the notion that every man - note not every woman - had
the right to interpret the scriptures in his own way; on other it brought the dissolution of the
monasteries which, for all their faults, had provided a minimum of charity for the poor.The results
of the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century were equally mixed. Yes, it provided jobs in the new
industries but at a terrible human cost.
Think of the descriptions in Dickens' novels of the factories and slums of Victorian England. Eventually
a strong trade union movement brought political and social reforms but class still matters today when
it comes to living standards and opportunities. Yet we should not write off the lives of the lower classes
as impoverished in all senses; they had rich traditions and culture, folk wisdom, and strong social
institutions which have helped them to survive.
That was a social interpretation of the period, that looks at what happened to the poor and the powerless.
Next...
LATIN AND GREEK SCHOLARS
Women's voices from the past are sometimes hard to hear because they were part of a patriarchal society
in which power and property and authority were the preserve of men. We know something about elite
women in the Tudor period. It was possible, as it had always been, for such women to gain power and
influence through men.
The Renaissance also brought with it the idea that education, at least some education, was desirable
in a woman. Elizabeth I or Lady Jane Grey knew the Latin and Greek classics that had been rediscovered.
For women lower down the social ladder, we must read between the lines, in wills for example or by
looking at illustrations, to discover that women often shared in the work of their husbands in the small
crafts or in the fields.
It was not until the Enlightenment of the 18th Century that women started to claim their share of the human
rights that were being talked about. The great changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution opened up
new jobs for lower-class women as they did for men but women of the middle and upper classes largely
remained confined to their roles as wives and mothers. A few pioneering women such as Florence Nightingale
forced their way into the professions and the universities. By the 20th Century, women were organizing
themselves to demand their independence from social and legal restrictions.
The two World Wars, when women's contributions to the struggle were essential, helped to bring change
to a male-dominated society. After 1945, the development of new methods of contraception, most notably
the pill, finally gave women control over their own bodies and liberated them from the fear of unwanted
pregnancies.
Guess what? That was the feminist view.
WHICH VIEWPOINT IS BEST?
It would be easy to write other perspectives: a history of beliefs as Britain moved from a religious age to a
secular one; of the gradual triumph of Parliamentary democracy (actually these days perhaps not so easy);
or from a scientific perspective showing the change from the time when we believed that the sun went
around the earth to the decoding of the genome. We could even focus on something like food, and show
the roast beef and beer of "Merrie England" evolving into the hummus and chardonnay of today.
None of these perspectives is wrong, but on their own they give only a limited view of a much more
complicated past.
You can legitimately write histories of a particular aspect of the past as long as you are clear that that is
what you are doing. Where I have trouble is with mono-causal overviews of the past or single explanations
for a period or for change.
I think you can write good general histories of, say, 20th Century Britain, in which you try and give as
complete a picture of it, from high politics to fashion. Such histories have been written and written well by,
for example, Peter Clark in Hope and Glory. You get the portrait of an age in the round.
History is always changing its shape and that is why it is endlessly fascinating.
Margaret Macmillan is a professor of history at the University of Oxford. She is also author of The Uses
and Abuses of History, published by Profile Books.
