This page represents only my own views, and not those of any university or other body.
Posted Thursday 13th March 2014 at 1.44pm
Wolf Hall
I'm reading Wolf Hall at the moment - thanks Gemma! I also read this column in the Guardian by Richard Evans just now - thanks Kat! I don't entirely agree, but this paragraph chimed with something I have noticed myself:
'It's also a form of intellectual atavism in another sense: "what-ifs" are almost invariably applied to political, military and diplomatic history: they represent a "kings-and-battles" view of the past that the education secretary Michael Gove and his friends might want to shove down schoolchildren's throats, but which historians know is thoroughly outdated – outdated because it is crudely simplistic and desperately unsophisticated. That's not to say we shouldn't study these things, but it's also important to recognise that they form only a tiny part of the past.'
Putting the irresistible Michael Gove dig aside, history is much more interesting when it talks about the details, the reasons for things happening. My sister asked me recently to name Henry VIII's wives, which I struggled with, and then to put them in order, which proved totally beyond me. That's no doubt partly because I learnt about the Tudors when I was 7 and now I'm 30, but still: why haven't I revisited this clearly interesting chunk of the history of England?
Wolf Hall has been helpful because it gives the facts context; it puts some inspiration behind the reformation. Not to mention that it's beautifully written.
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