Do we focus on the wrong periods in British History

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Our screens and stages are full of Tudor and Stewart shenanigans but the rise of modern Britain is surely Hanoverian and 18th/19th Century history. The age of Empire is surely due public dissection and debate in our media and entertainments; it is when all the interesting stuff happened, and when this nation earned a reputation for imperial violence as well as some good works.

The Madness of King George is a noted exception; or am i failing to recall plays, films, books &c?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There was the Lucy Worsley stuff - especially the series on women's experience in post-Restoration England (and IIRC, she did stick to England) - some of which is still "Stuart shinnanigans" but later Stuart. A couple of years ago there was the remarkable series on John Adams (the important one) which embraced much English & French history at the end of the 18th Century. And social history one-offs like The Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home, and I remember seeing a programme on the East India Company and the morphing into the Empire.

But, you're right - I'm struggling to remember others which focus on colonization.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Pre-Tudor stuff hasn't been neglected - Michael Wood, Robert Bartlett, Janina Ramirez and others.

[Serial_Apologist]

I wouldn't have thought the wrong periods of history. The main problems are social exclusions (eg the working class, women) and poor historical memory (fascism on the return); the main issue learning from history so as to avoid endlessly repeating the mistakes of the past.

[JFLL]

I'd like to see a series on the Big Question of early medieval history, possibly of English history tout court -- why we are speaking English and not Welsh (in England, that is).

[ardcarp]

I actually think that Queen Anne's reign marked the start of 'modern' Britain, she herself being (politically speaking) something a nonentity and by all accounts not very bright, a trend dutifully continued. But from 1702 - 14 Scotland and England became united and Marlborough won his brilliant military campaigns. We usually only hear her name in two contexts, 'Queen Anne' domestic architecture and in the sarcastic phrase 'Queen Anne's dead'.

IMV the structures of government and an embryo civil and foreign service were on their way to becoming the amazing machine which ran the Empire at its height. It is extraordinary how small and efficient were the offices of power. The Navy Board, for instance, responsible for administering the day-to-day operations of that vast engine of Empire, consisted of a small handful of Admirals at Whitehall.

So, a series about the reign and times of Queen Anne, please.

[jean]

Pre-Tudor stuff hasn't been neglected - Michael Wood, Robert Bartlett, Janina Ramirez and others.

But we only get big stories and personalities with the Tudors. Waldemar Januszczak suggested in his recent programme on Holbein that this is because he made them look so human.

He also thought that Hilary Mantel must be wrong about Cromwell because Holbein made him look so very unpleasant, but then spoilt it rather by saying that he invented Henry's image.

[teamsaint]

Not sure if the thread is directed specifically at TV history, but too much high profile history, ( school and TV ) concentrates and on the wrong things, and has its focus hopelessly skewed towards those with power and the status quo.

like this, for example..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01wq65t

Because, in fact, they really didn't make Britain.


that was the hard work of 99.9 5 0f the rest of the people.

[John Wright]

I saw an episode of BBC's Flog It! today which discussed a Benin bronze mask sculpture and the historian told a story that I'm sure is never told in schools in Britain. Now we know how the British Museum came to get all that lovely stuff....

When the British tried to expand their own trade in
the 19th century, the Benin people killed their envoys. So in 1897 the
British sent an armed expedition which captured the king of Benin,
destroyed his palace and took away large quantities of sculpture and
regalia, including works in wood, ivory and especially brass.

more http://www.britishmuseum.org/PDF/bri..._benin_art.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benin_Bronzes

[Historian]

I saw an episode of BBC's Flog It! today which discussed a Benin bronze mask sculpture and the historian told a story that I'm sure is never told in schools in Britain.

Actually, I have seen this story included in a recent textbook, so it may well have been told in some schools at least. Many schools look at the British Empire, mainly in Year Eight or Nine (second and third years of secondary school). They try to look at both positive and negative aspects of the Empire, in order to give their pupils some understanding of colonialism. Until recently, the Slave Trade was also a compulsory subject in the National Curriculum and is still widely studied. However, it is increasingly difficult to make generalisations about what is being taught (and sometimes learnt- it's not always the same thing) in English schools (let alone other parts of the United Kingdom), as academies are free not to follow the National Curriculum.

[french frank]

I wouldn't have thought the wrong periods of history. The main problems are social exclusions (eg the working class, women)

I remember learning about the Corn Laws and 'Reform' but it did seem to be from the 'political'/Parliamentary point of view rather than the social (in my day!). The late 18th c. was fascinating with its radicalism, non conformism, riots - the stuff of EP Thompson's Making of the English Working Class.

[Historian]

Not sure if the thread is directed specifically at TV history, but too much high profile history, ( school and TV ) concentrates and on the wrong things, and has its focus hopelessly skewed towards those with power and the status quo.

Again, I'm not sure how far I would agree about History in schools. Certainly in the first three years of secondary school there is now considerable focus on how 'ordinary people' were affected by events. So, as well as looking at the events of 1066, many Year Seven children (first year of secondary school) will look at how the Norman Conquest affected people's lives. Time will be spent on looking at life in a medieval village, including the role of women, as well as religion, the Black Death, the Peasants' Revolt etc. Similarly in Year Eight there would be some consideration of changes in religion and the Great Fire of London.

At GCSE level, there are courses which look at the History of medicine, or crime and punishment, or Germany 1918-1945 (among others) which will all examine what happened to the majority of people, as well as the monarchs and dictators. Similarly, at A-Level most, maybe all, courses will look at social and economic policy as part of the programme of study.

It's not perfect and it is certainly possible to argue with what is taught, but I imagine in most English schools there is a reasonable amount of time looking at History from below, not merely from the top down. As usual, caveats apply that my comments relate to English schools only and may become less relevant and accurate with the rise in academies.

[aeolium]

To a certain extent I agree with Calum about the focus as it applies to periods of British history, and also agree that there should be more emphasis on the growth of empire in the C18 and C19 centuries, though I think this should be put in a European context: after all, Britain was not the only European imperial power.

But the greater fault for me is that there is simply too great an emphasis on the history of Britain as against the history of Europe and the wider world. Thanks to history curricula and the strange fascination of novelists, film-makers and documentary makers with the Tudor period in particular, people are much more likely to know a fair amount about this period (as well as of course the 2nd World War) than about any of the modern history of any Middle Eastern country. Yet how can one begin to understand the conflicts and ideologies that dominate the Middle East, and affect all our lives directly or indirectly, without knowing something of this history?

[Richard Tarleton]

The thing entirely missing from my own history education (to degree level) was any understanding of environmental issues - of the sort discussed by Jared Diamond in his books - the effect of climate, ecosystems, natural resources, agriculture, disease (of people, animals, crops) as well as cultural and anthropological issues on the rise and fall of civilisations. The tendency to specialise at university didn't help. Looking back I knew a great deal but understood little - thanks to the overwhelming emphasis on political, economic, social, diplomatic and military history, rather than the environmental building blocks of people's lives. Perhaps some of this lies at the interface between different subject areas - history, geography, biology etc., and I confess I have little or no idea of how history is taught in schools these days.

[aeolium]

RT, I think there was an attempt particularly with the Annales school of history to show the way societies changed over a long period, taking into account the influence of geographic and environmental factors. Fernand Braudel's book La Méditerranée et le Monde Méditerranéen à l'Epoque de Philippe II was one of the most influential here, but it never really fed through into mainstream teaching of history AFAIK. I think it is a problem of specialisation: it is difficult to have a comprehensive understanding of so many different areas of study.