Dominic Sandbrook's blog
If I ran the country, I’d throw Halloween on the bonfire
Mon, 2011-10-31 08:00
Submitted by Dominic Sandbrook
Paying our MPs has proved an utter failure
Mon, 2011-01-17 08:00
Submitted by Dominic Sandbrook
Ignore the killjoys – Christmas has a long and prosperous future
Thu, 2010-12-09 09:00
Submitted by Dominic Sandbrook
The jury's still out on Thatcher's legacy
Tue, 2010-11-23 17:03
Submitted by Dominic Sandbrook
Whitewashing black historical figures demeans us all
Sun, 2010-10-03 07:50
Submitted by Dominic Sandbrook
Who needs washerwomen when you’ve got Spitfires and Drake?
Thu, 2010-09-09 07:00
Submitted by Dominic Sandbrook
For all their flaws, I admire Britain’s empire builders
Mon, 2010-08-02 08:53
Submitted by Dominic Sandbrook
Politicians have been scared of discussing immigration for years
Wed, 2010-07-07 10:00
Submitted by Dominic Sandbrook
Historians are wrong to kick football into touch
Wed, 2010-06-16 09:00
Submitted by Dominic Sandbrook
It is also a welcome reminder that sporting stories, so often consigned to the back pages of the tabloids, can shed just as much light on the past as any well-worn political or economic narrative.
Popular history should not only encompass the twentieth century
Wed, 2010-05-12 09:00
Submitted by Dominic Sandbrook
Merely to glance at a list of titles published around the time of BBC History Magazine’s launch is to be reminded of the extraordinary depth of talent to be found among today’s historians.
In the spring of 2000, a keen reader might have had on his bedside Piers Brendon’s The Dark Valley, Norman Davies’s The Isles, Andrew Roberts’s life of Lord Salisbury or Francis Wheen’s biography of Karl Marx.
Dominic Sandbrook is a freelance writer on history and current affairs. His most recent book is State of Emergency: The Way We Were: Britain, 1970-1974 (Allen Lane). He is the regular columnist for BBC History Magazine.
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On this day...
HMS Beagle set sail from Plymouth harbour
27 December
1831
HMS Beagle set sail from Plymouth harbour on what would turn out to be a five-year expedition. Charles Darwin, who had been given a place on board as assistant to the captain, Robert Fitzroy, immediately felt seasick and regretted taking up the offer.
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Hugely entertaining, always compelling, often hilarious"
Simon Sebag Montefiore, Sunday Telegraph
Simon Sebag Montefiore, Sunday Telegraph
Mad As Hell
Other books
Coming soon
Mad As Hell
The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist RightPublished by Alfred A. Knopf (New York, 2011)
Buy it at Amazon (US)
Mad As Hell is a portrait of perhaps the gloomiest years in modern American history, from the fall of Richard Nixon in 1974 to the inauguration of Ronald Reagan in 1981. The title comes from Howard Beale, the fictional anchorman in 1976′s hit film Network, whose demented rant — “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more!” — struck a chord with a generation of Americans.
In some ways this book is the sequel to my biography of Eugene McCarthy, whose career reached a peak in the turbulent presidential election of 1968. Mad As Hell is set a decade later, amid the fallout from Watergate, the humiliation of the fall of Saigon and the apparently endless catastrophes of the Carter presidency. I started researching it about seven years ago, wrote a first draft that was more than half a million words long, and then cut it down to its current svelte dimensions.
The book gives a panoramic portrait of mid-1970s America, from the music of Bruce Springsteen to the triumphs of the Dallas Cowboys, but woven through it is a theme that jumped out at me the more I read — the rise of a new kind of right-wing populism, setting the people against the establishment.
Of course this is a time-honoured theme in American history, going right back to Jefferson, Jackson and the Populists themselves, but it gathered enormous momentum in the late Seventies and has arguably defined American politics ever since. Jimmy Carter tapped the anti-establishment mood brilliantly in 1976, but the real master of the new populism was Ronald Reagan. And although my narrative stops dead in January 1981, many readers may spot parallels with today’s Tea Party movement — even though I wrote most of the book before Barack Obama had even been elected.
Reviews
“Inspired by the famous scene in Network in which TV watchers howl their inchoate rage, Sandbrook offers a shrewd, sparkling politico-cultural history of post-Watergate America. Sandbrook locates the decade’s heart in the popular distrust and subsequent resentment of all institutions–governments, corporations, and unions. The individualism that results, Sandbrook argues, resonates with the roots of evangelicalism and develops into the beginnings of right-wing Christian populism … [He] offers insightful interpretations of 1970s watersheds, from Jimmy Carter’s canny “outsider” presidential campaign to property-tax revolts and battles over school busing and the ERA. Sandbrook sets his chronicle against a panorama of gasoline lines, stagflation, and epochal changes in race relations, women’s roles, and sexual mores, woven together with cultural touchstones from Bruce Springsteen to Charlie’s Angels … His subtle, well-written narrative of wrathful little guys confronting a faltering establishment illuminates a crucial aspect of a time much like our own.” Publishers Weekly“Mad as Hell is frisky and intelligent; it’s among the most readable histories of the 1970s I’ve come across … What kept me reading Mad as Hell are Mr. Sandbrook’s deft, dryly funny observations … He brings a certain fresh perspective [and] a shrewd eye for detail.” Dwight Garner, New York Times
“Impressive and evenhanded … Sandbrook is a muscular writer with an eye for the telling detail … This is the best history I’ve yet read of the 70s.” Brian C. Anderson, Commentary
“Mad as Hell is a sweeping and compelling look at the rise of the populist right, offering serious reflection as to how we got to this point in history … Sandbrook is brilliant in how he ties these events together and offers candid portrayals of presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan … He illuminates pieces of our history, affording us a deeper understanding of their resonance in our own time.” Dennis Moore, San Diego Union-Tribune
“Throughout this incredible book there are insights, observations, and the intricate crafting of words and phrases that leave the reader breathless … Characters, including Henry Kissinger, Anita Bryant, Jerry Falwell, and Spiro Agnew, float through its pages likes escapees from some mad gypsy circus. Somehow, Sandbrook has captured all of the history missteps and bumps in the road that made the 1970s one of the most intriguing decades ever. This is historical reporting by a gifted writer at the top of his game.” Larry Cox, Tucson Citizen
“Dominic Sandbrook starts out with a challenging task: He must make us care about a scorned and lampooned decade whose tragicomic history still echoes like the last notes of the Bee Gees’ “Nights on Broadway”. To the surprise of at least one reader, he more than meets that challenge … Mad as Hell is an entertaining yet substantial book about a wince-inducing era. When it comes to the Seventies, Sandbrook knows the way we were, even if we wish we hadn’t been.” Chris Tucker, Dallas Morning News
“British historian Dominic Sandbrook brings the 1970s back to vivid life in Mad as Hell, his entertaining, opinionated take on the politics, economics, and cultural signifiers of a decade he views as the incubator of today’s right wing … Sandbrook casts a fresh and skeptical outsider’s eye on a grey decade of rampant inflation, heated political rhetoric, the slow death of the union movement, and tax revolts climaxing in Proposition 13 … Packed with anecdote and insight … his book is a terrific read.” Carlo Wolff, Christian Science Monitor
“Brisk and plenteous … a rich stew of popular culture (All in the Family, Bruce Springsteen, The Deer Hunter), politics (court-ordered desegregation in Boston, Proposition 13 in California, two presidential races), and social history (the rise of the Sunbelt, various self-actualization movements, the simultaneous growth of religious evangelicalism and sexual permissiveness). An Englishman, Sandbrook brings a fresh perspective to this material [and a] knack for blending social, cultural, and political history.” Mark Feeney, Boston Globe
“First-rate … He is able to view history panoramically, almost as a living, breathing organism, by collecting and effectively using vast numbers of on-the-ground anecdotes. In Mad as Hell, he weaves in everything from school busing and the riots it triggered to the rise of gay culture and disco music … When it comes time for a future Edward Gibbon to explore the decline and fall of the American Republic, it is quite possible that he or she will zero in on the cultural trends and economic upheavals of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. If that is the case, Mad as Hell will be there as a guiding light.” Sasha Abramsky, Columbia Journalism Review
“The story of the ’70s has been told many times in many books, but bears repeating now that its influence on the country’s politics and morale has become somewhat clearer. Mad As Hell is a useful contribution to this literature … Sandbrook knows the territory well and analyzes it with understanding and sympathy.” Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post
“‘I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore,’ screamed antihero Howard Beale in the 1976 blockbuster motion picture Network. British historian Sandbrook … uses this iconic jeremiad to aptly portray the decade that featured a populist resurgence against big government … A compelling narrative, reminiscent of William Manchester and Theodore White, that will engross general readers and scholars.” Library Journal
“Sandbrook surveys a multitude of ’70s phenomena, including redneck chic, the booming of the Sunbelt, the revival of country music, the surprising nostalgia for the ’50s, Bobby Riggs v. Billy Jean King, Norman Mailer v. Germaine Greer, New York as Fear City and California Dreaming becoming the Golden State Nightmare. The author’s frequent allusions to the era’s films, TV shows, books and music lend color and context to an already penetrating and evenhanded political analysis.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Dominic Sandbrook’s swashbuckling, capacious account of 1970s populism – aptly titled Mad as Hell – captures the inchoate fury that seemed to permeate the nation … The book offers striking vignettes from the rise of a populist insurgency.” Kim Phillips-Fein, Bookforum
“Starting with Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974, all the touchstones of the period are detailed: America’s humiliating defeat in Vietnam, an uptick in serious crime, economic malaise, rising fuel costs, environmental degradation, the Iranian hostage crisis, and an overall breakdown in respect for institutions, among others … Sandbrook lays out just how this discontent found its expression in the emergence of Ronald Reagan and the Republican Right by decade’s end … readers will be rewarded for their effort” Booklist
“Intensely readable … chock-full of insights about the moments those of us who survived the 70s remember all too clearly” Sacramento News & Review
Dominic Sandbrook
Dominic Sandbrook is a historian and author. His books include Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles and White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties. He writes the What If... column for the New Statesman.Articles by Dominic Sandbrook
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Books of The Times
Carter, Reagan and Freaky Times
By DWIGHT GARNER
Published: February 15, 2011
The cultural politics of the 1970s is irresistible to historians, the way the decade’s dance music is irresistible to D.J.’s at weddings. Thus a book like Dominic Sandbrook’s “Mad as Hell: The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist Right” arrives in bookstores every six months or so. Nixon, Ford, Carter: there’s little greatness there, but these presidencies are so familiar that you can hum nostalgically, dismally along.
Chris Haigh
Dominic SandbrookMAD AS HELL
The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist Right
By Dominic Sandbrook
Illustrated. 506 pages. Alfred A. Knopf. $35.
The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist Right
By Dominic Sandbrook
Illustrated. 506 pages. Alfred A. Knopf. $35.
Harvey Georges/Associated Press
Jimmy Carter before a nationally televised “fireside chat,” 1977.At first glance, there’s not much that makes “Mad as Hell” — the title is a reference to a famous scene from the film “Network” — stand out on the history table at your local Borders. (If your town still has its Borders.) But if you look closer, some not uninteresting details pop out.
For one thing, Mr. Sandbrook is British. For another, he’s young. Born in 1974, he was in a pram during several of the years he describes here, so he brings a certain fresh perspective. Now flip his book open to its table of contents, and breathe deeply of its invigorating chapter titles: “Southie Won’t Go,” “Let’s Look Ferocious,” “The Weirdo Factor.”
I skimmed the acknowledgments, too, before committing to read “Mad as Hell.” Here’s the lovely way Mr. Sandbrook thanks his wife at book’s end: “With the self-control of Pat Nixon, the guts of Betty Ford, the drive of Rosalynn Carter and the glamour of Nancy Reagan, she deserves a lot better than to be married to a man with the memory of Ronald Reagan, the humility of Jimmy Carter, the wit of Gerald Ford and the charm of Richard Nixon. It is my good fortune, however, that fate has dealt her such a poor hand.”
Clearly, as historians go, this man is a Hugh Grant-level charmer.
Back home in England, however, where Mr. Sandbrook is a leading figure among a new generation of historians, he has not always enchanted everyone. He’s published three best-selling books on modern British history, and his youth and his frenetic output have rankled some. So has his streaming ease on the page. Writing in The Independent, Charles Shaar Murray called Mr. Sandbrook “the Hoodie Historian,” who throws “whatever passes for gang signs in the history department of the University of Sheffield.”
That “hoodie” line is pure hyperbole; if anything, Mr. Sandbrook is a bit of a young fogy, albeit an appealing one. His gifts are as much those of the journalist as of the historian.
Mr. Sandbrook’s not daring thesis in “Mad as Hell” is that during the ’70s a “new kind of populism” became “the most powerful political and cultural force” in America. “The notion of the virtuous citizen locked in battle against big government, big business and a decadent elite,” he writes, “was the single most compelling theme of the 1970s.”
He hashes through topics like busing, the Equal Rights Amendment and tax revolts, and the rise of evangelism, and he posits that class bitterness fed the decade’s roiling anger. He sternly criticizes progressives for not taking their opponents’ full measure.
“One of the biggest mistakes liberals ever made,” he writes, “was to underestimate their adversaries as kooks, eccentrics, losers, blindly lashing out against progress and modernity.”
It’s not a putdown, or not much of one anyway, to remark that Mr. Sandbrook’s heart isn’t entirely in this thesis. He circles regularly back to it, of course. But he’s drawn to the floppy 1970s writ large — its music, films, fads, cults, sitcoms, bumper stickers, best sellers and bad juju. Can you blame him? The decade was a steaming heap of gas station nachos, and it would be a pity to ignore the salty cheese and canned jalapeños and simply nibble at the beans.
What kept me reading “Mad as Hell” are Mr. Sandbrook’s deft, dryly funny observations. About one of Mr. Carter’s televised fireside chats, he observes: “It was hard to imagine George Washington striding across the battlefield in a cardigan.”
He refuses to blame Ford for missing a chance to dine next to a famous Russian dissident: “Ford had spared himself an awkward hour,” he writes, “of making small talk into Solzhenitsyn’s beard.” Compared with the sunny Reagan, he notes, “Carter could have played the personification of Gloom in some bleak Scandinavian film.”
He’s got a shrewd eye for detail. He reminds us how stunning it was that the single heroine of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” was not a virgin. And that “Midnight Cowboy” won an Oscar for best picture a scant four years after “The Sound of Music” did. He effortlessly links popular entertainment and politics. In the second “Godfather” film, he writes, Al Pacino “broods in the shadows like Nixon in his final days, his vampiric face glimmering in the darkness.”
He captures, neatly, the freak shows and freak-outs that conservatives imagined being visited on innocent folk. “An Alabama farmer can flick a dial,” one said, “and there’s Allen Ginsberg on a talk show.” Talk about U.F.O.’s.
Mr. Sandbrook seeds his narrative with references to (and apt quotations from) writers like Updike, Roth and Pynchon, and he’s on intimate terms with the decade’s landmark sociology texts, from Robert Nozick’s “Anarchy, State, and Utopia” (1974) to Sissela Bok’s “Lying” (1978). He scans European newspapers as well as American ones.
For all his charms, though, he can be ham-handed. He has zero feel for American pop music. A small, artless chapter on Bruce Springsteen makes it clear that he’s barely listened to the Boss. There are many words you might use to describe Tanya Tucker, the fiery country singer. But one Mr. Sandbrook selects — “crooner” — is not among them.
Mr. Sandbrook’s prose can be off in other ways. About the mood in the room when Reagan conceded defeat in the Republican contest for the 1976 presidential nomination, he says, “the air crackled with sadness.” Sadness doesn’t crackle, except on occasion in Trent Reznor’s songs and Nabokov’s prose.
Every sentence in a 500-page book can’t be expertly lighted and framed, but you begin to take note of the clichés that sprout in “Mad as Hell.” In a formulation that needs to be placed on literature’s Do Not Fly list, he writes, “If Bruce Springsteen had not existed, they would have had to invent him.”
Some passages sound as if they had been composed to fill a lesser Ken Burns documentary and spoken over an adagio piano version of Meat Loaf’s “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.” Here’s one short example: “The bicentennial celebrations spoke of a zest for life and a sense of fun too often overlooked in all the gloom about inflation and energy crises.”
“Mad as Hell” is frisky and intelligent; it’s among the most readable histories of the 1970s I’ve come across. At moments, though, you worry that the talented Mr. Sandbrook was already composing his next book in his head while he typed out this one.
For one thing, Mr. Sandbrook is British. For another, he’s young. Born in 1974, he was in a pram during several of the years he describes here, so he brings a certain fresh perspective. Now flip his book open to its table of contents, and breathe deeply of its invigorating chapter titles: “Southie Won’t Go,” “Let’s Look Ferocious,” “The Weirdo Factor.”
I skimmed the acknowledgments, too, before committing to read “Mad as Hell.” Here’s the lovely way Mr. Sandbrook thanks his wife at book’s end: “With the self-control of Pat Nixon, the guts of Betty Ford, the drive of Rosalynn Carter and the glamour of Nancy Reagan, she deserves a lot better than to be married to a man with the memory of Ronald Reagan, the humility of Jimmy Carter, the wit of Gerald Ford and the charm of Richard Nixon. It is my good fortune, however, that fate has dealt her such a poor hand.”
Clearly, as historians go, this man is a Hugh Grant-level charmer.
Back home in England, however, where Mr. Sandbrook is a leading figure among a new generation of historians, he has not always enchanted everyone. He’s published three best-selling books on modern British history, and his youth and his frenetic output have rankled some. So has his streaming ease on the page. Writing in The Independent, Charles Shaar Murray called Mr. Sandbrook “the Hoodie Historian,” who throws “whatever passes for gang signs in the history department of the University of Sheffield.”
That “hoodie” line is pure hyperbole; if anything, Mr. Sandbrook is a bit of a young fogy, albeit an appealing one. His gifts are as much those of the journalist as of the historian.
Mr. Sandbrook’s not daring thesis in “Mad as Hell” is that during the ’70s a “new kind of populism” became “the most powerful political and cultural force” in America. “The notion of the virtuous citizen locked in battle against big government, big business and a decadent elite,” he writes, “was the single most compelling theme of the 1970s.”
He hashes through topics like busing, the Equal Rights Amendment and tax revolts, and the rise of evangelism, and he posits that class bitterness fed the decade’s roiling anger. He sternly criticizes progressives for not taking their opponents’ full measure.
“One of the biggest mistakes liberals ever made,” he writes, “was to underestimate their adversaries as kooks, eccentrics, losers, blindly lashing out against progress and modernity.”
It’s not a putdown, or not much of one anyway, to remark that Mr. Sandbrook’s heart isn’t entirely in this thesis. He circles regularly back to it, of course. But he’s drawn to the floppy 1970s writ large — its music, films, fads, cults, sitcoms, bumper stickers, best sellers and bad juju. Can you blame him? The decade was a steaming heap of gas station nachos, and it would be a pity to ignore the salty cheese and canned jalapeños and simply nibble at the beans.
What kept me reading “Mad as Hell” are Mr. Sandbrook’s deft, dryly funny observations. About one of Mr. Carter’s televised fireside chats, he observes: “It was hard to imagine George Washington striding across the battlefield in a cardigan.”
He refuses to blame Ford for missing a chance to dine next to a famous Russian dissident: “Ford had spared himself an awkward hour,” he writes, “of making small talk into Solzhenitsyn’s beard.” Compared with the sunny Reagan, he notes, “Carter could have played the personification of Gloom in some bleak Scandinavian film.”
He’s got a shrewd eye for detail. He reminds us how stunning it was that the single heroine of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” was not a virgin. And that “Midnight Cowboy” won an Oscar for best picture a scant four years after “The Sound of Music” did. He effortlessly links popular entertainment and politics. In the second “Godfather” film, he writes, Al Pacino “broods in the shadows like Nixon in his final days, his vampiric face glimmering in the darkness.”
He captures, neatly, the freak shows and freak-outs that conservatives imagined being visited on innocent folk. “An Alabama farmer can flick a dial,” one said, “and there’s Allen Ginsberg on a talk show.” Talk about U.F.O.’s.
Mr. Sandbrook seeds his narrative with references to (and apt quotations from) writers like Updike, Roth and Pynchon, and he’s on intimate terms with the decade’s landmark sociology texts, from Robert Nozick’s “Anarchy, State, and Utopia” (1974) to Sissela Bok’s “Lying” (1978). He scans European newspapers as well as American ones.
For all his charms, though, he can be ham-handed. He has zero feel for American pop music. A small, artless chapter on Bruce Springsteen makes it clear that he’s barely listened to the Boss. There are many words you might use to describe Tanya Tucker, the fiery country singer. But one Mr. Sandbrook selects — “crooner” — is not among them.
Mr. Sandbrook’s prose can be off in other ways. About the mood in the room when Reagan conceded defeat in the Republican contest for the 1976 presidential nomination, he says, “the air crackled with sadness.” Sadness doesn’t crackle, except on occasion in Trent Reznor’s songs and Nabokov’s prose.
Every sentence in a 500-page book can’t be expertly lighted and framed, but you begin to take note of the clichés that sprout in “Mad as Hell.” In a formulation that needs to be placed on literature’s Do Not Fly list, he writes, “If Bruce Springsteen had not existed, they would have had to invent him.”
Some passages sound as if they had been composed to fill a lesser Ken Burns documentary and spoken over an adagio piano version of Meat Loaf’s “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.” Here’s one short example: “The bicentennial celebrations spoke of a zest for life and a sense of fun too often overlooked in all the gloom about inflation and energy crises.”
“Mad as Hell” is frisky and intelligent; it’s among the most readable histories of the 1970s I’ve come across. At moments, though, you worry that the talented Mr. Sandbrook was already composing his next book in his head while he typed out this one.
A version of this review appeared in print on February 16, 2011, on page C4 of the New York edition with the headline: Carter, Reagan and Freaky Times.
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Telegraph.co.uk
Once upon a time there was a subject called history . . .
A profound and pitiful ignorance of our national past is the shameful legacy of so-called progressive educationalists, says Dominic Sandbrook.
Canterbury Cathedral still stands proud Photo: GETTY
In April 1942, the Luftwaffe launched a series of night bombing raids against the historic cathedral cities of Exeter, Bath, Norwich, York and Canterbury. The targets had been picked out of the Baedeker Guide to Britain, not because they were militarily important or commanded crucial transport routes, but because they represented something vaguer but more profound.
The Nazis' aim was to smash Britain's moral and historical heritage – and, of course, they failed. More than 1,500 people were killed, but York Minister and Canterbury Cathedral still stood proud and unbowed amid the flames, symbolising the long centuries of England's past. Not even the might of the Nazi empire, it seemed, could break the thread of our national history.
What a tragic irony, then, that where Hitler's bombers failed, a generation of home-grown political meddlers and "progressive" educationalists have succeeded all too well. For to anyone with even a passing interest in the teaching, reading and writing of our national past, the Historical Association's massive new survey on history teaching in secondary schools reads like the report of some callous, devastating military barbarism.
Across the board, history teaching is in retreat. Seven out of ten teenagers say they enjoy the subject, yet barely three out of 10 study it to GCSE level. Among younger children, the hours set aside for history are being slashed to make way for supposedly vocational subjects. And almost unbelievably, 12-year-olds in half of Tony Blair's beloved academies study history for just one hour – one! – a week.
An entire generation, in other words, is leaving school ignorant of what their parents and grandparents once took for granted: the solid, reassuring knowledge of what we all once recognised as our national story.
Terrible as they are, the Historical Association's figures come as little surprise. A few years ago, when I was a lecturer at one of northern England's biggest redbrick universities, I quickly realised that it was a mistake to assume any prior knowledge of British history on the part of our 18-year-old students. Most had studied the Nazis and the American civil rights movement in great detail at A-level, but few had heard of, say, David Lloyd George or Stanley Baldwin, or could explain why Britain had won and lost a global empire.
They were bright and keen to learn, but had been betrayed by a system that fed them titbits of knowledge, and by a culture of continuous testing that left little time to appreciate the broad sweep of our national past. But by today's standards, they were lucky. For as the Historical Association points out, if the trend continues, history may well decline into virtual irrelevance as a school subject, overtaken by Media Studies and Beauty Therapy.
It is too easy to blame the students, who find themselves under intense pressure to get the best possible grades for their university applications – which inevitably means that they pick subjects that are seen as "easier" or that offer more "value". And it is too easy, I think, to blame their teachers.
Whenever I give sixth-form talks, whether in private or state schools, I am always struck by the sheer love of history shown by most teachers, whose attitudes often put academics themselves to shame. Only a few weeks ago, giving a lecture to a talented and engaging group of A-level students on the Isle of Man, I felt almost humbled by the enterprise and sheer commitment of their history teachers, a husband-and-wife team who might have been an advertisement for education as one of life's most enriching vocations.
But there is no doubt that something has gone badly wrong when seven out of 10 schoolchildren are no longer studying history at the age of 16, when two out of 10 think Britain was once occupied by the Spanish, and when some identify Sir Winston Churchill as the first man on the moon. And the blame lies at the very top, shared by politicians of both parties, who have been systematically cheating and betraying our children since the 1980s.
During the Thatcher years, it was meddling from the top that downgraded history from a compulsory to an optional subject at the age of 16 – which, because it was seen as "difficult", made it easy pickings for Mickey Mouse subjects such as Beauty Therapy. It was supposedly "progressive" interference, meanwhile, that did away with old-fashioned essay questions and replaced them with empathy exercises and multiple-choice quizzes that sacrificed any sense of intellectual depth or discipline.
And perhaps above all, it was in Westminster and Whitehall that officials designed our absurd Yo! Sushi approach to history, in which schools randomly pick unrelated historical topics like saucers from a conveyor belt, instead of studying our national story as a continuous narrative, which is how any sensible person sees it.
What makes this betrayal all the more depressing is that in society at large there is clearly such an eager appetite for historical narrative. Even now, 20 years after I was forced to do empathy exercises ("Imagine you are a housewife in Hamburg in 1932 …") as part of my history GCSE lessons, British readers devour more popular history than almost any other nation, helping to keep Andrew Roberts in silk pyjamas and Simon Schama in leather jackets.
With almost four million members happily forking out to visit its country houses, castles, factories and workhouses, the National Trust is the biggest membership organisation in the country. Even the latest Booker shortlist reflects our deep shared thirst for history, from A S Byatt's lovingly evoked Edwardian social landscape to Sarah Waters's haunting recreation of Attlee's Britain and Hilary Mantel's coruscating portraits of Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII. And, of course, it was the readers of this very paper who contributed £25,000 to the reprint of H E Marshall's Our Island Story, the children's history of England first published in 1905 that still gives a more entertaining overall account of our national story than most modern textbooks, even if it is a bit dated.
Any sensible government, recognising the extent of the popular enthusiasm for history, would have intervened long ago to restore the subject as a central, compulsory element of the national curriculum. Instead, Labour have flapped and floundered, bleating about Britishness lessons and citizenship classes instead of doing the one thing guaranteed to inculcate a sense of community and identity: teaching children their national history.
One reason that America has proved so successful as a melting pot for immigrants, after all, is that its schools give their children a solid and reassuring sense of themselves as Americans, embedded in a shared national past which is studded with patriotic landmarks from the Declaration of Independence to the Gettysburg Address. And we have only to look across the Irish Sea, where schools in the Republic patiently trace their national story from Ireland's first Christian missionaries to its bloody struggle for independence, to see that teaching your national history from start to finish is hardly rocket science. Nor is it necessarily reactionary or old-fashioned or even conservative, as its critics suggest. It is simply common sense.
"The past is a foreign country," L P Hartley famously wrote at the beginning of his great novel The Go-Between. "They do things differently there." Exploring that vast and impossibly rich continent ought to be one of the most exciting intellectual adventures in any boy or girl's lifetime: a chance not just to tread the fields of Hastings or Bosworth, or to see Shakespeare and Milton at work, but to encounter an enormously, uproariously diverse range of characters, to make lifelong acquaintances, to draw lessons and parallels, to meet humanity in the raw.
In any sane and decent society, that journey ought to be the centrepiece of the education system, a long and thoughtful expedition, not a botched and half-hearted day-trip to which most children are no longer invited. And one day, I suspect, we will look back and judge that our Government's ignorance and neglect of that wonderful, dazzling, irresistible country was among the greatest of its failures and the most unforgivable of its many betrayals.
'White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties' by Dominic Sandbrook is published by Abacus, £12.99
They were bright and keen to learn, but had been betrayed by a system that fed them titbits of knowledge, and by a culture of continuous testing that left little time to appreciate the broad sweep of our national past. But by today's standards, they were lucky. For as the Historical Association points out, if the trend continues, history may well decline into virtual irrelevance as a school subject, overtaken by Media Studies and Beauty Therapy.
It is too easy to blame the students, who find themselves under intense pressure to get the best possible grades for their university applications – which inevitably means that they pick subjects that are seen as "easier" or that offer more "value". And it is too easy, I think, to blame their teachers.
Whenever I give sixth-form talks, whether in private or state schools, I am always struck by the sheer love of history shown by most teachers, whose attitudes often put academics themselves to shame. Only a few weeks ago, giving a lecture to a talented and engaging group of A-level students on the Isle of Man, I felt almost humbled by the enterprise and sheer commitment of their history teachers, a husband-and-wife team who might have been an advertisement for education as one of life's most enriching vocations.
But there is no doubt that something has gone badly wrong when seven out of 10 schoolchildren are no longer studying history at the age of 16, when two out of 10 think Britain was once occupied by the Spanish, and when some identify Sir Winston Churchill as the first man on the moon. And the blame lies at the very top, shared by politicians of both parties, who have been systematically cheating and betraying our children since the 1980s.
During the Thatcher years, it was meddling from the top that downgraded history from a compulsory to an optional subject at the age of 16 – which, because it was seen as "difficult", made it easy pickings for Mickey Mouse subjects such as Beauty Therapy. It was supposedly "progressive" interference, meanwhile, that did away with old-fashioned essay questions and replaced them with empathy exercises and multiple-choice quizzes that sacrificed any sense of intellectual depth or discipline.
And perhaps above all, it was in Westminster and Whitehall that officials designed our absurd Yo! Sushi approach to history, in which schools randomly pick unrelated historical topics like saucers from a conveyor belt, instead of studying our national story as a continuous narrative, which is how any sensible person sees it.
What makes this betrayal all the more depressing is that in society at large there is clearly such an eager appetite for historical narrative. Even now, 20 years after I was forced to do empathy exercises ("Imagine you are a housewife in Hamburg in 1932 …") as part of my history GCSE lessons, British readers devour more popular history than almost any other nation, helping to keep Andrew Roberts in silk pyjamas and Simon Schama in leather jackets.
With almost four million members happily forking out to visit its country houses, castles, factories and workhouses, the National Trust is the biggest membership organisation in the country. Even the latest Booker shortlist reflects our deep shared thirst for history, from A S Byatt's lovingly evoked Edwardian social landscape to Sarah Waters's haunting recreation of Attlee's Britain and Hilary Mantel's coruscating portraits of Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII. And, of course, it was the readers of this very paper who contributed £25,000 to the reprint of H E Marshall's Our Island Story, the children's history of England first published in 1905 that still gives a more entertaining overall account of our national story than most modern textbooks, even if it is a bit dated.
Any sensible government, recognising the extent of the popular enthusiasm for history, would have intervened long ago to restore the subject as a central, compulsory element of the national curriculum. Instead, Labour have flapped and floundered, bleating about Britishness lessons and citizenship classes instead of doing the one thing guaranteed to inculcate a sense of community and identity: teaching children their national history.
One reason that America has proved so successful as a melting pot for immigrants, after all, is that its schools give their children a solid and reassuring sense of themselves as Americans, embedded in a shared national past which is studded with patriotic landmarks from the Declaration of Independence to the Gettysburg Address. And we have only to look across the Irish Sea, where schools in the Republic patiently trace their national story from Ireland's first Christian missionaries to its bloody struggle for independence, to see that teaching your national history from start to finish is hardly rocket science. Nor is it necessarily reactionary or old-fashioned or even conservative, as its critics suggest. It is simply common sense.
"The past is a foreign country," L P Hartley famously wrote at the beginning of his great novel The Go-Between. "They do things differently there." Exploring that vast and impossibly rich continent ought to be one of the most exciting intellectual adventures in any boy or girl's lifetime: a chance not just to tread the fields of Hastings or Bosworth, or to see Shakespeare and Milton at work, but to encounter an enormously, uproariously diverse range of characters, to make lifelong acquaintances, to draw lessons and parallels, to meet humanity in the raw.
In any sane and decent society, that journey ought to be the centrepiece of the education system, a long and thoughtful expedition, not a botched and half-hearted day-trip to which most children are no longer invited. And one day, I suspect, we will look back and judge that our Government's ignorance and neglect of that wonderful, dazzling, irresistible country was among the greatest of its failures and the most unforgivable of its many betrayals.
'White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties' by Dominic Sandbrook is published by Abacus, £12.99
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Sue Griffiths
2 years agoMy daughter is in the history class taught by the husband and wife team at a school in the Isle of Man, mentioned in this article. Both my children have had the good fortune to be taught by Mr and Mrs Tucker, who are truly inspirational. As a result my daughter now wishes to study History at University. Mr and Mrs Tucker have brought history alive not only to my children, but to my husband and myself, as we listen to the animated re-counting of that day's history lesson. We are hugely grateful to them both.
- Lady Muck
2 years agoGeoffrey Warner
It's true that Hitler implied that Germany's destiny was forged in its history, but this glorification of a nation's past is nort restricted to totalitarian states.
Many would agree that Great Britain is fettered by its own national history and reverence for the past.
I instance the continued reference to anniversaries of both World Wars and even the structure, dress and procedures of our government.
- Stevie
2 years agoDear Geoffrey,
Congratulations on a well tempered reply. We are not so far apart, you and I, believe it or not; I agree with most of what you have written. I can't speak for Lady Muck, but I have a keen interest in history and do not denigrate the value of a strong understanding of the past. However, my principal argument is that studying it at undergraduate level is a luxury at best and pointless at worst (if Broon can study it for four years as an undergraduate and still know nowt about it, what's the point?).
I agree with you (and mentioned this is my first post) that schools should continue to teach history, but universities should only teach undergraduate degrees to those who self fund or are on a scholarship. Anyone else with an interest should read the same books whilst being paid by the taxpayer to study something productive, or they should read those books whilst working for a living if they want to 'grow', as the argument goes.
It's not as if history students actually spend much time at university - if you add up their hours in class during a 3 year degree, they would likely come to less time than I spent at work in my first six months after university. It's all about reading books and I'd rather not pay them to do it!
As for Bliar and Broon, it would take a particularly special sort of person to make it to Prime Minister without have some idea of what happened when Britain, and then the Soviet Union, tried to occupy Afghanistan (especially with the highly priviliged education that both men received). History is a big subject, but all they had to do was watch the news whilst they were growing up and read a few papers to have some idea of how Ole Osama came to be. They effectively lived through that portion of history so they have no excuses. Bush was a retard and His Masters sinister, so they don't count towards any argument.
Finally, with regard to history being a big subject, even with Broon's typically tribal PhD title, to study history from the age of 16 to the age of 26 and have never read a book on the history of the middle east or afghanistan would mark one out as a freakishly blinkered sort of person who lacked intellectual flexibility, an interest in the world and an ability to see beyond one's own personal ambitions.
Hang on a minute.....
- Geoffrey Warner
2 years agoStevie (08:51 AM) and Lady Muck (06:42 AM).
Thank you for your comments on my recent post.
In reply to Stevie, I would suggest, with respect, that it is you who have undermined your own argument when you write that 'Personalities decide actions in politics...Blair and Brown are both sociopaths'. I believe that the first sentence is much too simplistic, as there are structural elements in all societies which individuals find difficult to modify and to which they have to adapt. If your second claim is true (and as I am not a qualified psychologist, I cannot judge), then all bets are off, as you are talking about a mental condition which is not open to empathy or reason in the first place. As for Gordon Brown's historical expertise, his Ph.D. was on 'The Labour Party and Political Change in Scotland 1919-1929', the study of which is hardly the most reliable guide to understanding the situations in Iraq or Afghanistan at the beginning of the 21st century. History, like physics or chemistry, is a huge subject and an expert in one aspect of it is not necessarily an expert in all of it, as I am sure you would agree.
Lady Muck suggests I am being naive in believing that neither Bush nor Blair were aware of 'the previous problems of deploying military resources to Iraq' as their advisers could not possibly have been that ill-educated. In so doing, she betrays a touching faith in the mechanics of government. In the case of Blair we know from the Hutton and Butler enquiries, as well as from other sources, that much sound advice was either played down or ignored. As for Bush, we know that he was heavily dependent upon the likes of Cheney and Rumsfeld. If the right people aren't asked or, if asked, not listened to, their views are of no practical importance. I should very much like to know how many professional historians of Iraq or Afghanistan were called into the White House or No. 10 Downing Street when the wars against these countries were being planned. Few, if any, I suspect.
Finally, I note that neither of you addresses my earlier post in which I pointed out that totalitarian states pay a great deal of attention to the writing and teaching of history. Whatever else they were, Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler were masters in the exercise of power and they certainly did not believe that history should be treated as a mere 'hobby', but regarded their version of it as a key element in the maintenance of their respective regimes. An educational system which encourages the proper study of history can at least supply future generations with one potent weapon with which to counter attempts at mind control from whatever quarter.
- Lady Muck
2 years agoMessage to those who oppose my view that teaching history is pointless
Igonikon Jack has weighed in on your side. I urge you to read his comment in full (just joking...its a small history book)
With friends like this....
- Stevie
2 years agoGeoffrey says: 'In the meantime, however, I would refer her to my earlier post and simply add that anyone who knew much about the history of Iraq or Afghanistan would have been much less likely to have made the present pig's ear of our policy towards both countries.'
Gordon Brown has an MA and PhD in history! He was effectively joint prime minister for the last 12 years.
I would have thought that demolishes your argument completely, doesn't it?
Personalities decide outcomes in politics, not the knowledge of what has gone before. Blair and Brown are both sociopaths - one a crusading megalomaniac and one so flawed and angry that you wouldn't want him looking after your kids for an evening for fear that he beat them to death in a fit of rage.
They both knew everything they needed to know about Iraq and Afghanistan and chose to ignore it.
- Lady Muck
2 years agoGeoffrey Warner 10.35
Are you seriously suggesting that Bush & Blairs lack of history learning meant that they were unaware of the previous problems of deploying military resources to Iraq & Afghanistan ?
Even the DT readers would not think they or their advisors were that ill-educated.
On the other hand.....
Angus 08.56
Your comments about the value of knowledge of history being 'that we can learn from our past' may be valid. Unfortunately, history shows that we have learnt nothing from history !
Congratulations on your degree and A Levels - the country needs bright boys like you to pay my pension.
- Igonikon Jack
2 years agoThis is an interesting article
by Dominic Sandbrook. It will
inspire Comment-Telegraph readers; especially younger
people of school age. Nothing
shapes one's understanding of the world than histiry. Media
studies without history is
utterly meaningless. In a world
were the media follow teeny-
weeny teeny-boppers going in and
out of rehabs for drug abuse;
thriving on their notoriety,
often, due to connections
through relations in the movie
industry, media or hollywood,
time was when many great men and
women were recognized long after
they have gone. They wrote books that were read by few,
because of limited publishing,
distridution and promotion
mechanisms. By the time it reached a "global" audience, the
author might have long been gone.
It was not like today's media
world where a good book can
get an author instant, global
recognition; and, perhaps, lots
of money, along with inherent
merchandizing rights. It takes
a combination of knowledge of
history and contemporary events to appreciatiate ideas through
media studies. Because, besides
limited publishing resources and
facilities, a book might enjoy
limited circulation, because of
the nature of the subject. It
might be a taboo then. If the
book embraced a subject depicted
as heresy--against religious
teaching--the author might be
summoned to ecclesiastical
authorities. Sometimes, the
author could go straight to jail; or worse, lose his or her life for what he or she wrote.
There was the case of a radical,
anti-clerical, protesting
English nationalist whose writings were discovered by religious authorities; where he was kind of advocating separation of Church and State, proclaiming that the Church had too much influence, even went as far as advocating the use of tithes as part of taxation to develop impoverished Britain then. At an episcopal council in the early 15th century somewhere in Europe, when portions of his works were read, Council was infuriated and wanted him dead.
When told Wycliffe had died, the
Council ordered that his bones
be exhumed and burned in
retaliation. But, he had been
summoned before to defend his
works before an eccliastical
panel. He died before he was
to appear before the panel
willingly, or most likley
handcuffed and bound like a
prisoner and shipped abroad to
a famous Church city in Europe,
where he faced almost certain
death.
Never mind this same author
initiated the first translation
of the English Bible, and was a
cleric, student and teacher at
Oxford University (1356-82), and
got his doctorate in theology in
1372. But, still, the Church
declared him a heretic--even
after his death. The inference
here is that his combustible
outburst of English nationalism
and criticisms of some Church
teachings--made him a wanted
author--dead or alive by the
Church. His name: John Wycliffe.
I have profiled him in some more
details in earlier commentaries.
But, here I want to be a little
more reserved. But, I brought
this example to show the
relevance of history to media
studies. Someone who reads media
studies--dealing with ubiquitous
celebrities and contemporaneous
events without knolwedge of history wouldn't know that some acts or written books that made them rich and famous could have sent them to jail or cost them their lives in the past.
History has enabled me to know
many subjects more in-depth,
because, I could, in many cases,
trace them to their origins.
This brings broader knowledge
and understanding of the issues.
There are still a lot I have to
learn, which is where constant
reading is the key to knowledge.
But, going back to Sandbrook's
article, I, like some students,
I almost regrettably dropped
history as an elective for my
high school dioploma exam. But,
my spiritual and organizational
education rekindled my interest
in history. Because, here,
regardless of what you learned in the Church, you will be taken through the alleys of
history to see atrocities. Here,
you see how people were killed
in vain on the orders of the
Church for teaching what was
today, the ultimate truth in
science that has revolutionized
civilization through secular,
technological applications. It
was the secular that created the
nemesis, because the powers were
not attributed to divine,
heavenly, superhuman agancy,
which was the prevailing
construct of most teachings:
Supernaturalism. This is where
history and science have a lot
in common: The truth--what
happen. But, science goes further with will happen, which
eventually will become part of
history. Here, there are no rooms for beliefs, fables,
assumptions, superstition or
supernaturalism.
Because of this inspiration,
history became an obession. But,
it started with when I left
organized religion. I was
obsessed in knowing what happened in at least, the last
5,000 years--not about floods wiping out the entire world, or someone splitting the oceans with the stick. What people are learning from some of my findings shared in my commentaries, is that there are
two different kinds of histories
here: One is taught in religious
orders, which in all probability
never happened, partially
happened; happened, but with gross exaggerations and cute
embellishments of idealistic
supernaturalism of sentimental,
scriptural writers. But,
history is what happened. No
distortions. No exaggerations.
No embellisments. No beliefs.
No faith. But, there are some
parallelisms. Here, religion and
history intersect, whereupon
religious figures taught in
congregations and ecclesiastical
institutions are the same taught
in history. But, religion would
likely make them look like
immortal saints. On the other
hand, if there were sins,
aberrations and trangressions,
history will not ignore them.
On the other hand, historical
revisionism is a problem and
challenge of our time. This is
where ideological despotism or
institutional, governmental and
revolutionary authoritarianism
will shape, revise or distort historical events and impose them on brain-washed students through indoctrination. This
happens in state-controlled
communist countries like China and North Korea. Here most
historical trends are derived
from achievements (not atrocities of national leaders).
Anybody who opposed or criticized them--even justly--is
branded a counter-revolutionary.
History has shaped my knowledge a lot. I'll give credit to Will and Ariel Durant's the Story of
Civilization in my home library.
There are 11 near-encyclopedic
volumes, and I have read lot of
them. For Dr. Durant, he's one
of the world most distinguished
historians. History shaped my
knowledge and non-sectarian
intellectualism. It didn't lead
to atheism, because of a personal, mystical experience
that pulled me out from mundane
extravagance and put me on the
spiritual quest for knowledge.
Most great world leaders like
Winston Churchill are, also,
great historians. Sometimes, it's not history as they learned
in schools, but history they,
also learned through avid reading. And, to know more about
the implications of ignorance
of history, just remember what
George Santayana said: "People
who forget their past are
condemned to repeated it."
Igonikon Jack, USA
- Ed
2 years agoThank you very much for respecting my opinion enough to publish my earlier post.
I want to add a PS - more interesting information about important trade partner Libya is found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
Main article: Human rights in Libya
According to the U.S. Department of State�s annual human rights report for 2007, Libya�s authoritarian regime continued to have a poor record in the area of human rights.[51] Some of the numerous and serious abuses on the part of the government include poor prison conditions, arbitrary arrest and prisoners held incommunicado, and political prisoners held for many years without charge or trial. The judiciary is controlled by the government, and there is no right to a fair public trial. Libyans do not have the right to change their government. Freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, and religion are restricted. Independent human rights organizations are prohibited. Ethnic and tribal minorities suffer discrimination, and the state continues to restrict the labor rights of foreign jobs.
In 2005, the Freedom House rated political rights in Libya as "7" (1 representing the most free and 7 the least free rating), civil liberties as "7" and gave it the freedom rating of "Not Free".[52]
Religion
[91] By far the predominant religion in Libya is Islam with 97% of the population associating with the faith.[92] The vast majority of Libyan Muslims adhere to Sunni Islam, which provides both a spiritual guide for individuals and a keystone for government policy, but a minority (between 5 and 10%) adhere to Ibadism (a branch of Kharijism), above all in the Jebel Nefusa and the town of Zuwarah, west of Tripoli.
. . . unorthodox views on the hadith, sharia, and the Islamic era [which] aroused a good deal of unease. They seemed to originate from Qadhafi's conviction that he possessed the transcendent ability to interpret the Quran and to adapt its message to modern life. Equally, they reinforced the view that he was a reformer but not a literalist in matters of the Quran and Islamic tradition. On a practical level, however, several observers agreed that Qadhafi was less motivated by religious convictions than by political calculations. By espousing these views and by criticizing the ulama, he was using religion to undermine a segment of the middle class that was notably vocal in opposing his economic policies in the late 1970s. But Qadhafi clearly considered himself an authority on the Quran and Islam and was not afraid to challenge traditional religious authority. He also was not prepared to tolerate dissent.
The revolutionary government gave repeated evidence of its desire to establish Libya as a leader of the Islamic world. Moreover, Qadhafi's efforts to create an Arab nation through political union with other Arab states were also based on a desire to create a great Islamic nation.
This information led me to Google another search of Libyan Muslim Sunni Islam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... states:
Islam Sovereign states \
Algeria � Angola � Benin � Botswana � Burkina Faso � Burundi � Cameroon � Cape Verde � Central African Republic � Chad � Comoros � Democratic Republic of the Congo � Republic of the Congo � C�te d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) � Djibouti � Egypt1 � Equatorial Guinea � Eritrea � Ethiopia � Gabon � The Gambia � Ghana � Guinea � Guinea-Bissau � Kenya � Lesotho � Liberia � Libya � Madagascar � Malawi � Mali � Mauritania � Mauritius � Morocco � Mozambique � Namibia � Niger � Nigeria � Rwanda � S�o Tom� and Pr�ncipe � Senegal � Seychelles � Sierra Leone � Somalia � South Africa � Sudan � Swaziland � Tanzania � Togo � Tunisia � Uganda � Zambia � Zimbabwe
Dependencies, autonomies, other territories \
Canary Islands / Ceuta / Melilla (Spain) � Madeira (Portugal) � Mayotte / R�union (France) � Puntland � St. Helena (UK) � Socotra (Yemen) � Somaliland � Southern Sudan � Western Sahara � Zanzibar (Tanzania)
The above-noted wikipedia site states:
It is said above that Qadhafi has a personal conviction that he possesses the transcendent ability to interpret the Quran and to adapt its message to modern life.
That would make him the awaited saviour of the world. Would it be possible Kadaffi might expect acceptance of this philosophy from the many Islam Sovereign states, dependencies, autonomies, and other territories that embrace the Islam faith? What if, again (as stated above), he is not prepared to tolerate dissent on this topic, either?
It may be well of consider Kadaffi a man with a greater measure of political aspiration over a larger segment of the world than general society has previously recognized!
- HYUFD
2 years agoThis article is rather exaggerated. History remains one of the most popular A Levels with more pupils studying it than Geography, French, Business Studies, Chemistry and Physics. Surely the decline in many of these subjects should be of more concern? I would though require all pupils to study History or Geography until 16, alongside Maths, English, Science and a Language and ICT, Sport and the Arts.
- Pavo Absolutus
2 years agoWithout the truthful and honest teaching of our British past, and by this I do not mean some sanitised politically correct version created by the social engineers of our times, we will lose our sense of identity as people and as a nation.
This is of course precisely why the EU commissars have placed such importance on the rewriting of the last century, to exclude mention of genocides and the insane wickedness of some in high places, to be replaced by a more nondescript 'evolutionary' European Civil War concept airbrushing out the fact that the whole of the Continent was NOT under a single communal benign government before hostilites broke out, and to which they allude we are only now beginning to return to !
Apparently the Kaiser had nothing to do with earlier disagreements even, and the truth of this is claimed in the family history of the various royal families !
When it comes to History, let us beware the spin-doctors, the Goebbels and the Mandelsons, the Kinnocks and the Alastair Campbells to name but mainly "British" ones, in case Frau Merkel gets 'the hump' at me naming the bosch !
History is supposed to reflect a balanced view of the truthful rendering of past events - not some Disneyland Fairytale version to be used as a tool for further social engineering by unscrupulous government.
Proper History teaches us all lessons, and this is the principle reason for it being sidelined by autocratic governments - the warning signs are clearly written for all to see !
"O miseras hominum mentes, o pectora caeca !"
( Oh wretched minds of men, oh their blind hearts ! )
- Geoffrey Warner
2 years agoI see that Lady Muck has returned to the charge (06:43 PM) with her assertion that the study of history is a waste of time compared with that of maths and the sciences, the only subjects which, according to her, 'will ultimately benefit the country.' I suppose it depends to some extent upon what you mean by 'ultimately'. After all, as Keynes once said, 'in the long run we are all dead'.
In the meantime, however, I would refer her to my earlier post and simply add that anyone who knew much about the history of Iraq or Afghanistan would have been much less likely to have made the present pig's ear of our policy towards both countries.
- Ed
2 years agoThanks, Rob!
I wanted to add a footnote. I have realized that I know nothing at all about the history of an important trading partner of Britain, so I Googled Libya and explored the first 2 links presented.
The first link was:
Libya - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Revolution of Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi
On September 1, 1969, a small group of military officers led by then 27-year-old army officer Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi staged a coup d��tat against King Idris.[9] At the time, Idris was in Turkey for medical treatment. His nephew, Crown Prince Sayyid Hasan ar-Rida al-Mahdi as-Sanussi, became King. It was clear that the revolutionary officers who had announced the deposition of King Idris did not want to appoint him over the instruments of state as King. Sayyid quickly found that he had substantially less power as the new King than he had earlier had as a mere Prince. Before the end of September 1, Sayyid Hasan ar-Rida had been formally deposed by the revolutionary army officers and put under house arrest. Meanwhile, revolutionary officers abolished the monarchy, and proclaimed the new Libyan Arab Republic. Gaddafi was, and is to this day, referred to as the "Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution" in government statements and the official press.
Politics
Libya is a dictatorship run by Colonel Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi. [1]
In theory, there are two branches of government in Libya. The "revolutionary sector" comprises Revolutionary Leader Gaddafi, the Revolutionary Committees and the remaining members of the 12-person Revolutionary Command Council, which was established in 1969.[21] The historical revolutionary leadership is not elected and cannot be voted out of office; they are in power by virtue of their involvement in the revolution.
The General People's Committee building in Benghazi.
(This is how to ensure control): Every four years, the membership of the Local People's Congresses elects their own leaders and the secretaries for the People's Committees, sometimes after many debates and a critical vote. The leadership of the Local People's Congress represents the local congress at the People's Congress of the next level. The members of the National General People's Congress elect the members of the National General People's Committee (the Cabinet) at their annual meeting.
The government controls both state-run and semi-autonomous media. In cases involving a violation of "certain taboos", the private press, like The Tripoli Post, has been censored,[22] although articles that are critical of policies have been requested and intentionally published by the revolutionary leadership itself as a means of initiating reforms.
Political parties were banned by the 1972 Prohibition of Party Politics Act Number 71.[23] According to the Association Act of 1971, the establishment of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) is allowed. However, because they are required to conform to the goals of the revolution, their numbers are small in comparison with those in neighbouring countries. Trade unions do not exist,[24] but numerous professional associations are integrated into the state structure as a third pillar, along with the People's Congresses and Committees. These associations do not have the right to strike. Professional associations send delegates to the General People's Congress, where they have a representative mandate.
The second link was:
CIA - The World Factbook � Libya (under the link Transnational Issues):
Disputes - international
Libya has claimed more than 32,000 sq km in southeastern Algeria and about 25,000 sq km in the Tommo region of Niger in a currently dormant dispute; various Chadian rebels from the Aozou region reside in southern Libya
Trafficking in persons
current situation: Libya is a transit and destination country for men and women from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation
tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - Libya is on the Tier 2 Watch List for its failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to address trafficking in persons in 2007 when compared to 2006, particularly in the area of investigating and prosecuting trafficking offenses; Libya did not publicly release any data on investigations or punishment of any trafficking offenses (2008)
This historical information makes me feel very uncomfortable about some things that MAY be occurring. As I am unsure of British military law in this regard, so I am unsure if this is actually happening. I recall history tells of a fateful Trojan Horse, so I am asking.
The families of monarchs throughout the world do visit Great Britain, as do heads of state from a variety of countries. Ordinarily, special arrangements for arrivals and departures have to be made for these groups to assure their safety. The many necessary airplanes required to transport accompanying groups may or may not be accommodated by (and so land at) local military bases. Does this occur? Are visiting dignitaries provided with secure, private airports or do they land at British military bases?
It is my strong opinion that routinely becoming accustomed to visiting heads of state landing on military base air strips, possibly with legions of trained military personnel to protect them, is foolhardy. Not only are military base layouts (and assorted base goings-on) supposed to be secret, but the landing planes may be armed with nuclear power. If any great number of planes stuffed with armed military personnel and nuclear bombs landed at military bases at one time, it would be over for Britain.
Now, it is not my intention to send readers panicking and shrieking into the streets with this warning. There is ample room to reassure citizens that such an event probably will never occur. For example, citizens can be reassured that the new BP oil trading partner will not get involved in such behaviour because Gaddafi promised to disarm his country�s nuclear program. No one has any reason at all to doubt his word and that is not what I am saying. He probably has discontinued the expensive research it takes to create nuclear power, as he said. However, missing from the statement made by Gaddafi is reassurance that Libya will not purchase nuclear power from a rogue, uncontrolled country, and Britain possesses no other credible assurances from other countries would not attempt a stunt like that, either.
So, out of an abundance of caution, I am suggesting that in future no monarch and no head of state from any country be allowed to come and go by using British military base landing strips. Ever. Is the government too broke to arrange for the military to just go pick em up?
- Lorna Doom
2 years agoNevan Hutchinson:How will the next generation appreciate the freedoms and equality enjoyed today if they have no appreciation of how they got them?
How will understand the impact of the Slave Trade, and the continuing legacy of the British Empire in the world, or how genocide and indiscriminate warfare came about in World War 2?
Because under the soon-to-be-ratified EU Lisbon Treaty, we won't have any freedom of speech. Check it out.
- Carol
2 years agoDr X - you need to have the PGCE so that they can brainwash you into becoming a Social Engineer in order to teach the PC curriculum.
- Sam
2 years agoMy 7 year old daughter has read 'Island Story' and we discussed it together. She loves it and has since come across other history references where she now feels confident enough to recognise the characters and events, reinforcing them in her mind.
She can even recite the Kings and Queens from William the Conqueror onwards in this light-hearted poem:
'Willie, Willie, Harry Steve
Harry, Dick, John, Harry Three.
Edward One, Two, Three, Dick Two,
Henry Four, Five, Six then who?
Edward Four, Five, Dick the Bad,
Harrys Twain and Ned the Lad.
Mary, Bessie, James you ken,
Charlie, Charlie, James Again.
William and Mary, Anne of Gloria,
Georges (4), Will Four, Victoria.
Edward Seven, Georgie Five.
Edward, George and Liz (alive).
Yet her teachers at school seem to show her no encouragement whatsoever. It is disheartening.
- Angus
2 years agoLady Muck: 'The important subjects are Chemistry, Physics, Maths etc
It is knowledge of these subjects which will ultimately benefit our country.'
Pity you didn't get A level Maths and Physics - I did as well as History. A study of history will tell you how our engineers and scientists, once the envy of the world, were let down time and again by successive governments. If we can learn from the past we can shape our future. Incidentally I work - at a senior level - in the science and technology arena but my original degree is in history. As our American friends say..go figure.
- Nick R
2 years agoJimmy R 6-32pm. There's an interesting analysis of the Lubeck raid on Wikipedia that is probably worth looking at for an overview- especially the massive use of incendiary bombs and the rationale to the raid. My original point was that Hitler was not seeking to destroy British culture as suggested in this article, he was seeking revenge which he took. There was an article in the British press in the war that declared "Weston hardly knows there's a war on" which led to a savage Luftwaffe attack on Weston super Mare which reminds us of the Nazi mindset. I thought I had made the point that the Germans were happy to use bombing- especially dive bombing as a terror device. They did, however, become transfixed with dive bombing and failed to build 4 engined bomber fleets like the Allies so that as the war became a Total War, the destruction that they received was of a much greater magnitude-( I am sure they would have done the same to us with such aircraft). Someone earlier suggested that this destruction, somehow, suggested that I was sorry that the Germans had lost the war. Sometimes, it is best not to comment when such protozoan reactions start to become the norm, but hey, this is the internet and everyone has a voice.
- Nevan Hutchinson
2 years agoI'm glad that the frightening widespread ignorance, and disinterest in history has been noticed by others at last.
It's despairing that seemingly the majority of young people, and the public in general are entirely ignorant on what happened in the First and Second World Wars - the most devastating conflicts in human history, or who Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill are. Perhaps most worryingly, some have never heard of the Holocaust, or what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Any knowledge of British history is small to non existent - 1066, William the Conqueror, the Magna Carta, Henry VIII, the Reformation, the Slave Trade, the Suffragette Movement, that Britain once had an Empire and its consequences on the world today would all be meaningless.
That trained professionals would actively advocate a policy of particularly not teaching the most important aspects of modern British and world history that have shaped the country that exists today is deplorable.
How will the next generation appreciate the freedoms and equality enjoyed today if they have no appreciation of how they got them?
How will understand the impact of the Slave Trade, and the continuing legacy of the British Empire in the world, or how genocide and indiscriminate warfare came about in World War 2?
- Lady Muck
2 years agoJ O 01.29
Yes I studied Latin and History up to A Level (and have O level Physics and Maths...the boring subjects). I consider that I have a good knowledge of history, but I don't want to personalise this debate.
In my mind, the study of History or even Literature is no more than a hobby and their study and degrees in these subjects should not be subsidised by the state (ie you and me).
The important subjects are Chemistry, Physics, Maths etc as pointed out by Stevie 01.24.
It is knowledge of these subjects which will ultimately benefit our country.
- Noble Lord
2 years agoFOR WHAT IT�S WORTH:
@All down Hill now
on September 15, 2009
at 02:20 PM
I agree and didn�t mean to offend, but I do become concerned when we pay homage to the brave young of yesterday, who died for a pack of lies and a Jewish war, then we sit idly by and allow their deaths to become a waste, by virtue of allowing someone else with a vested interest, to air brush the past, hand down a NARRATIVE!
Freedom isn�t free, it must be fought for, nurtured, appreciate with a zeal, defended to the death and handed down, with a caveat, do NOT allow any tribe to ask you to self censor your research into what was, do NOT allow any tribe to tell you the history of your forefathers, do NOT allow any tribe to tell you that they agree with freedom of speech, but!, Do not allow any tribe to tell you to abide by their customs, if you cannot see a land where they had a civilisation to which you can say the same, Do NOT allow any tribe to cry and whimper at the mere suggestion of their guilt, thus you disband your right to seek truth and justice.
Today, we have conceded much to a tribe, that seeks over all control and a world Feudal system our progeny will never forgive us for ensuring they be enslaved to.
One thing worse than having no history taught, is having a bogus history taught and the truth buried for ever. Alas the Lord works in mysterious ways and those who would attempt to hide the truth, are now worried, because the Internet hides none of it.
The Zionists caused WWII, the British people ignored those MP�s that knew of this plot and brave MP�s like Archibald Mauld Ramsey were silenced, by being imprisoned for the duration of the Jewish war.
Hitler did not want war with England, ever wondered why his second in command flew to the UK to explain what occurred in Poland and who was behind it, but he too was locked up for over 50 years in Spandau, because he was always going to expose the Jewish crime!
Imagine, Rudolf Hess played NO PART in WWII, yet he was sentenced to life, for seeking to make peace with Britain, alas even then, the Jews controlled and they demanded their �Blood price�!
Furthermore, it was that half Jew Chruchill that bombed civilian targets in Germany and commenced a war of terror.
Some may scoff and laugh, but the truth must be revealed not hidden and if Operation paper Clip can have all manner of scientist traded between the Coalition of the Talmudists, one has to ask question as to why Rudolf Hess was the exception and had to be kept quiet.
A lesson we humans must learn, is not to go along with evil, less we pay the price at an appointed time and place we are not expecting. Many will cite the Berlin conference and a disregard for another�s truth, justice and right to life.
I say again, do NOT allow the tribe to tell you of your history, in other words, CAN WE STOP LISTENING TO HOLLYWOOD AND ITS POISON and pick up an interesting book.
This is a good start:
http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/tf...
It is my view, that good people should not be threatened by deeds they did not commit and do not condone. Those who are covering up and profiting from a lie, need only do what you always do and let us know you are still at it.
- Ed
2 years agoI apologize if the following explanation seems lengthy, but I hope the Telegraph can accommodate so many words because important history relevant to everyone is being made in the UK today.
In your current blog, This vetting monster will harm children, Bgeldof stated:
These state Checks are secret, British parents are being sent to jail if they consult family lawyers, kids are being taken without a jury.
Such legal powers are given to county court judges by our MP's, and one such case was so unjust even the court staff at HMCS had to let it go through to the Court of Appeal, because, they too now know unless this mass state funded child abduction scam stops, everyone with children will fear and are living fear of some state funded child worker taking away their kids.
I BELIEVE YOU. HOW SCARRY! (how many people turn into drug addicts from the emotional pain?) PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
Bgeldof, in October, THE COURT OF APPEAL YOU SAID ONE SUCH CASE TURNED TO FOR A FAIR RULING WILL NOT BE ABLE TO HELP ANYMORE because a new Supreme Court with more power has been appointed by the Labour government. They will be able to overrule any lower court decision, including the existing Court of Appeal.
I would like to explain why these appointments are so meaningful to the country.
Reference: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/11/20...
All citizens should pay keen attention to the unveiling of the country�s new Supreme Court, as arranged by Tony Blair. His new court, which sits for the first time in October, is being established as part of a series of constitutional reforms announced by Tony in 2003. The judges appointed by Tony Blairs government will pronounce new laws and amend existing laws.
It is reported at Yahoo UK and Ireland that Lord Neuberger (a former law lord) declined to move to the Supreme Court and questioned the need for any of the changes to take place. "The danger is you muck around with a constitution at your peril, because you don't know what the consequences of any change will be," he said.
It is also reported at that site that Lord Turnbull, who was cabinet secretary in 2003 when Blair announced the new court, said the idea had not been "thought up on the back of a fag packet". He added that the removal of Tony Blairs close confidant Lord Irvine of Lairg as lord chancellor was pivotal in creating the new court. "The prime minister was clear that this was something he wanted to do and he also knew that it would be very difficult to achieve with Lord Irvine in place, because he was not enthusiastic about it," Lord Turnbull said (so Tony fired Lord Irvine to get his way).
Is that why video of admirers congratulating Mr. Blair surfaced 2 days ago?
**Bgeldof (and others): the newly established Supreme Court judges have the full power of the highest appeals court in Britain, which means:
1. Starting in October, Court of Appeal rulings can be appealed by prosecutors hired by the government to the new Supreme Court. The new Supreme Court will be the highest court in the land.
2. As all appeals court judges are, the new Supreme Court judges hired by Labour are free to select which cases they will hear or not. Any judgment they issue becomes law, without appeal.
3. All that is required to get a case to the Supreme Court is for a prosecutor to file appeals of lower court decisions. Government pays lawyers with taxpayer money to do that job. If a citizen is required to attend various courts because of government prosecutor appeals (until the matter reaches its last hearing at the new Supreme Court), you pay for your own lawyer, missed work, travel and court fees.
4. By appointing like-minded individuals whose decisions can be expected to support theirs, Labour will establish enormous power for themselves, regardless of who is elected in future.
5. No wonder Tony was being congratulated publicly! Talk about a real live coup!
6. The new Supreme Court judges have ultimate power. These judges identify the behaviours deserving of criminal conviction, and how much punishment is warranted. In some countries, punishment can be physically cruel and harsh, while other countries explore kinder behaviour modification techniques. The new Supreme Court judges have the power and authority to lengthen or shorten jail sentences, as they choose, without restraint or accountability to the people.
7. The new Supreme Court judges will interpret human rights and constitutional matters.
8. Supreme Court rulings (should) reflect and interpret the society in which they live. For example, emotional remarks made in blogs could be defined by government as damaging to the country because those statements deteriorate citizen confidence in the government system generally. The turmoil could even cause government to arrange for police to lay charges for something (such as inciting unrest). An accused could be found totally innocent in a local lower court for the reason that one is (or should be) able, in a free society, to express discontent with one government party (without violence) in order to help replace them with a preferred political party. That is openly done and no matter for prosecution. Prosecutors paid by government can repeatedly appeal any decision made by lower court judges and juries, until the decision reaches the new Supreme Court. The new highest court will proclaim binding moral judgments on behalf of everyone in British society now (for real). If the highest court in Britain were to decide that strongly worded blog criticisms of the elected representatives were threatening to the country�s political stability generally, bloggers could be found guilty of trying to undermine the entire governmental system with their comments. That is called treason. Iran has this kind of political structure right now. Their harsh punishment nets discouragement of inappropriate and unwanted citizen behaviours (such as posting critical criticisms that are not anonymous).
How will parents appeal apprehension of their children without merit?
According to a Telegraph competitor, BBC, yesterday at (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_..., (this is quoted): new health bodies are going to be established to appoint named individuals at executive director and non-officer levels who will focus on the problem of violence within their own organizations.
That means, in support of existing medical policies, that one new body of people is about to be hired and paid to then turn around and appoint a second group of medical workers at director and non-director levels.
There are already many foreign workers in the country. Will the foreign hospital workers imported to address chronic shortages caused by lack of quality medical education in Britain be awarded the hundreds of higher paying, decision making jobs, instead of the Brits who cannot get the quality training they need to work competently in the hospital system? In October, citizens of Britain will end up having to complain about NHS workers (many of whom will be foreign) to the new Supreme Court. Right now, the government does not encourage raising concerns in order to remedy problems by setting up an independent body to look into problems. Right now, people are being threatened with loss of NHS benefits if they complain.
Try to imagine appealing a decision about a NHS injury to the new Supreme Court, remembering that all judges have been appointed and are paid by the same government you are trying to complain about. As well, already established is the publicized government belief that the medical system they established is good and will be improved by spending more money to import more foreign workers for the Care Pathway (to address shortages) and by appointing more medical board and council members to control violence.
If the new Supreme Court team of judges decides that all injuries caused by NHS workers in the performance of duty should be considered accidental, should be expected in the routine operation of a hospital, and so compensation should not be paid to victims, then there is no appeal from that decision. That one decision would be imposed on everyone. No one would be able to claim compensation for damages from negligence, omission or blunder anymore. Mistakes within the medical system would then become permanently entrenched and user complaints effectively silenced.
The new Blair Brown Supreme Court appointments have international significance, too. These appointments could affect any of the many Commonwealth countries that have adopted British common law.
Why was one set of elected representatives allowed to appoint judges to positions which will definitely change an established constitution, without referendum votes from the people they supposedly represent? The answer is probably history. Recent school history lessons have not taught students to analyze political good, nor bad, change. Struggling workers and job seekers are distracted with pressing daily life needs, so change to them is confusing. School did not teach political wisdom. No one knew to object in 2003.
How and why has Labour been given the power to create a new Constitution with their new Supreme Court judge appointments. Who gave them the power to appoint the highest appeals court for the entire country, possibly the Commonwealth, too?
And what if citizens disagree with the decisions made by the new Supreme Court? Tough.
The problem is that, over the last 6 years, the Labour government has been expecting and preparing for these judges to influence and change British law and constitution. That is the job description of the new judge positions, which start in October. The judges appear to be planning on making law for Great Britain indefinitely. It is like Labour has become a huge underwater iceberg, when once they seemed just inept buffoons floating on the surface.
Are there any learned citizens left who have studied history enough to understand the downfall of governments, monarchies, dictatorships, revolutions and countries?
Remarkable history is being made right now.
- Jimmy R
2 years ago�The Germans were so incensed over the destruction of this beautiful, historic city, which had little or no military significance� Englishman in Exile, 08:53 am.
Similarly, "This was not a military target at all" Nick R, 11:38 am.
You both omit to mention the small detail that Lubeck was a port which also had U-boat building facilities. Not that U-boats were of any military significance, of course.
September 1939 - Air raids, beginning before day-break, were made on dozens of Polish towns. The raids are described by the German authorities as "attacks on aerodromes". That was before anybody had dropped so much as a lighted match, never mind bombs, on Germany.
I would also suggest that you check the details of the German area bombing and threats of further bombings made against both Holland and Belgium in May 1940 before you portray Germany as the poor little victim of nasty British aggression with respect to bombing towns and cities. Rotterdam was bombed into oblivion with the warning from the Germans that they would continue destroying further towns and cities until the tiny country of Holland surrendered to them.
It might also help to remember that Belgium had declared itself to be a Neutral Country which had no intention of involving itself with either side, a minor detail Hitler decided to totally ignore before sending in his troops and bombers to destroy them.
The Germans had, right from the start of WW2, made clear that they were more than willing to make use of bombing as a terror weapon against civilian targets to force Countries into surrender. To pretend that such activities by the Germans was simply as a reaction to attacks made against them is typical of the manner in which history is now being manipulated to justify certain modern political ideologies.
- Derek Frankland
2 years agoSomebody,far
brighter than me once said:-
Those that do not know their history are condemned to forever repeat it.
Any comments?
- Kered Ybretsae
2 years agoHistory may well be the poor relation of education. But it should not be forgotten that by looking into the past, we often see the present and sometimes the future.
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Dominic Sandbrook
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2010) |
Previously a lecturer in history at the University of Sheffield, he has been a senior fellow of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University and a member of its history faculty, and is now a freelance writer and newspaper columnist. In 2007 he was named one of Waterstone's 25 Authors for the Future.
Sandbrook's first book, a biography of the American politician and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, proved extremely controversial on its release in the United States in 2004. The book was described by Louis Menand in The New Yorker as "intelligent and well written" but "unremittingly unsympathetic" toward its subject. McCarthy himself called the book "almost libellous".
In 2005, Sandbrook published Never Had It So Good, a history of Britain from the Suez Crisis to the Beatles, 1956–1963. It was described as a "rich treasure chest of a book" by Anthony Howard in the Daily Telegraph, who wrote of his "respect for the sweep and scope of the author's knowledge",[4] while Nick Cohen wrote in the Observer that it was "a tribute to Sandbrook's literary skill that his scholarship is never oppressive. Alternately delightful and enlightening, he has produced a book which must have been an enormous labour to write but is a treat to read".[5]
The sequel, White Heat, covering the years 1964–1970 and the rise and fall of Harold Wilson's Labour government, was published in August 2006. "Sandbrook's book could hardly be more impressive in its scope," wrote Leo McKinstry in The Times. "He writes with authority and an eye for telling detail.".[6] In November 2009, it was named by the Telegraph as "one of the books that defined the Noughties".[7]
Unlike some previous historians of the 1960s, Sandbrook argues that the period was marked by strong conservatism and conformity. His books attempt to debunk what he sees as myths associated with the period, from the sexual revolution to student protest, and he challenges the "cultural revolution" thesis associated with historians like Arthur Marwick. This approach has not always endeared him to professional veterans of the period. The rock critic Charles Shaar Murray, for example, called him "the Hoodie historian ... throwing whatever passes for gang signs in the history department of the University of Sheffield".[8]
Sandbrook continued the history of post-war Britain with State of Emergency (2010) covering the period 1970–1974.[9] A fourth and final book in the series will cover the remaining years of the 1970s up to the election of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister in 1979.
Sandbrook has written articles and reviews which have appeared in the Daily Mail, Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph, The Observer and The Daily Telegraph, and has appeared on BBC radio and television. His Radio Four series Slapdash Britain, charting the rise and fall of British governance since the Second World War, was described by the radio critic Miranda Sawyer as "very brilliant".[10]
He currently lives in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire with his wife Catherine. He is currently working on a biography of the professional wrestler Koko B Ware, provisionally entitled The Birdman and the Life Thereafter. [11]
[edit] Bibliography
- Eugene McCarthy and the Rise and Fall of Postwar American Liberalism, Dominic Sandbrook, Publ. Alfred A. Knopf (2004) ISBN 1-4000-4105-8
- Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles, Dominic Sandbrook, Publ. Little, Brown (2005) ISBN 0-316-86083-2
- White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties, Dominic Sandbrook, Publ. Little, Brown (2006) ISBN 0-316-72452-1
- State of Emergency: The Way We Were: Britain 1970–1974, Dominic Sandbrook, Publ. Allen Lane (2010) ISBN 1-84614-031-5
- Mad as Hell: The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist Right, Dominic Sandbrook, Pub. Alfred A. Knopf (2011) ISBM 1-40004-262-3
[edit] References
- ^ http://dominicsandbrook.com/wordpress/about/
- ^ The Malvern Experience 11–31 July 2010. Malvern College official website. Retrieved 16th July 2010.
- ^ The week ahead Sunday 21st January until Sunday 28th January. Wellington College official website. Retrieved 16th July 2010.
- ^ Daily Telegraph, 1 May 2005, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3641340/The-actor-managers-greatest-production.html
- ^ The Observer, 1 May 2005, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/may/01/historybooks.features
- ^ The Times, 5 August 2006.
- ^ Daily Telegraph, 13 November 2009, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/6554803/100-books-that-defined-the-noughties.html
- ^ Independent, 11 August 2006, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/white-heat-by-dominic-sandbrookseventies-by-howard-sounes-411335.html
- ^ Simon Sebag Montefiore "State of Emergency by Dominic Sandbrook: review", Sunday Telegraph, 10 October 2010
- ^ Miranda Sawyer "Nicky Campbell; SlapDash Britain; Jeremy Vine", The Observer, 20 June 2010
- ^ About Me. Dominic Sandbrook's own website http://dominicsandbrook.com/wordpress/about/
[edit] External links
- dominicsandbrook.com, Dominic Sandbrook's official website
- Dominic Sandbrook on Twitter
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Dominic Sandbrook's recent articles
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