Dr Gary Dickson: Why is History Sweet?
How much do you know about Columbus?
First published in the Scottish Review, September 2012.
When she was in primary school, my daughter, knowing my line of work,
asked me with a half-smile, 'Daddy, why is history sweet?'. Looking puzzled and
shaking my head, I said I didn't know. Triumphantly, she replied: 'History is
sweet because there are lots of dates in it!'.
Well, that's true. History, to the discouragement of high school students, is chock-full of dates. But chronology is not history, just as the alphabet is not English literature (although knowing alphabetical order is helpful in using the dictionary and filing documents). Getting chronology wrong is not just confusing 1492, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, with 1066 when the Normans conquered a certain country. It calls to mind the deadliest of historiography's deadly sins: anachronism. That also operates on the imaginative, psychological level.
For example, when 19th-century romantic artists and poets pictured lovely maidens with long blond tresses leaning over the balcony and gazing amorously at a lovelorn troubadour below, it was a fantasy of medieval courtship. Medieval aristocratic marriages had more to do with property agreements between families
than the feelings of the spouses to be.
High school history can be boring when it's taught as a memory game, a succession of names and dates. All I remember about being taught the first world war was the five causes (or was it four?) and the four consequences (or was it five?). It was all cut and dried. There was no intellectual or emotional quickening of the pulse. I don't recall hearing anything about the war poets.
American history was taught with greater enthusiasm, especially the civil war – slavery and abolition, Abe Lincoln, north vs south. (As a Californian, my loyalty was naturally on Lincoln's side.) Of course, American history, like all national histories, was meant to inspire patriotism, which it did. National histories tend to stress exceptionalism. Our collective experience (whoever 'we' are) differs from all others. 'Comparative history? Never heard of it!'
At university I thought I'd major in English literature, but something surprising happened. Stanford had an obligatory freshman year course, 'History of Western Civilisation'. So here they all were: Greeks and Romans, the Medieval centuries, the Enlightenment, Modernity...And this was not political narrative. No, it was about ideas, philosophies, religion, scientists, writers, artists – culture (or civilisation) in the broadest (but not anthropological) sense.
We read original and secondary sources, we discussed, we wrote. I was captivated by how inclusive history could be. It was not, as had been claimed, 'the biography of states', nor did it culminate, as some British constitutional historians assumed was God's greatest gift to mankind, in parliamentary democracy. In sum, Western civilisation made me a convert. The prospects of history opened wide. After that, it was history all the way.
So what is history? Everything human beings had ever thought, felt, imagined, created, built, exchanged, destroyed, fought over. To grasp a period, any period, one would have to understand its visual arts, architectural styles, political organisation, religions, social structure, competing philosophies, scientific outlook, laws, diseases and doctors, technical achievements, literature, wars and peace. It was, of course, asking too much of any mortal. There had to be a division of labour. Specialists, however, should never be allowed to forget a sense of the wide screen, the 3D picture.
Nowadays, Western civilisation seems a bit provincial. What about Asian or African history? Not old-fashioned world history (which in the past meant European imperial history), but global history. And women? Hadn't they disappeared from history, barring a few good and bad queens? No longer. We now
have wives, mothers, single women, virgins and prostitutes, saints and sinners, craftwomen and businesswomen, in every time and place. And children? Can't forget them. The history of childhood is a big field. (I've even written about the medieval rite de passage when childhood becomes adulthood). So we have histories of memory, family, sport, sexuality (including, of course, homosexuality), emotion (anger is a great topic), gestures (eg medieval prayer gestures), facial expressions (the smile in history). Everything is fair game for historians: food, place names (toponymy), personal names (anthroponymy)...
History is inclusive in another sense as well. At one time US history departments were split down the middle: an identity crisis! Do we belong to the humanities (or in the UK, arts) or are we part of the social sciences? The question is now absurd. Historians, like magpies, take what they want wherever they find it. Demography? Sure. Sociology? Why not? Anthropology? Of course. Psychology? I confess to not being a fan of psycho-biography, but I've written about medieval crowd psychology.
The original question now needs re-phrasing. History is not only sweet, but also sour, bitter, and salty. Why? Because it's for everyone's taste buds.
Gary Dickson is formerly a reader in history and is an honorary
fellow at the school of history, classics and archaeology, University of
Edinburgh
When she was in primary school, my daughter, knowing my line of work,
asked me with a half-smile, 'Daddy, why is history sweet?'. Looking puzzled and
shaking my head, I said I didn't know. Triumphantly, she replied: 'History is
sweet because there are lots of dates in it!'.
Well, that's true. History, to the discouragement of high school students, is chock-full of dates. But chronology is not history, just as the alphabet is not English literature (although knowing alphabetical order is helpful in using the dictionary and filing documents). Getting chronology wrong is not just confusing 1492, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, with 1066 when the Normans conquered a certain country. It calls to mind the deadliest of historiography's deadly sins: anachronism. That also operates on the imaginative, psychological level.
For example, when 19th-century romantic artists and poets pictured lovely maidens with long blond tresses leaning over the balcony and gazing amorously at a lovelorn troubadour below, it was a fantasy of medieval courtship. Medieval aristocratic marriages had more to do with property agreements between families
than the feelings of the spouses to be.
High school history can be boring when it's taught as a memory game, a succession of names and dates. All I remember about being taught the first world war was the five causes (or was it four?) and the four consequences (or was it five?). It was all cut and dried. There was no intellectual or emotional quickening of the pulse. I don't recall hearing anything about the war poets.
American history was taught with greater enthusiasm, especially the civil war – slavery and abolition, Abe Lincoln, north vs south. (As a Californian, my loyalty was naturally on Lincoln's side.) Of course, American history, like all national histories, was meant to inspire patriotism, which it did. National histories tend to stress exceptionalism. Our collective experience (whoever 'we' are) differs from all others. 'Comparative history? Never heard of it!'
At university I thought I'd major in English literature, but something surprising happened. Stanford had an obligatory freshman year course, 'History of Western Civilisation'. So here they all were: Greeks and Romans, the Medieval centuries, the Enlightenment, Modernity...And this was not political narrative. No, it was about ideas, philosophies, religion, scientists, writers, artists – culture (or civilisation) in the broadest (but not anthropological) sense.
We read original and secondary sources, we discussed, we wrote. I was captivated by how inclusive history could be. It was not, as had been claimed, 'the biography of states', nor did it culminate, as some British constitutional historians assumed was God's greatest gift to mankind, in parliamentary democracy. In sum, Western civilisation made me a convert. The prospects of history opened wide. After that, it was history all the way.
So what is history? Everything human beings had ever thought, felt, imagined, created, built, exchanged, destroyed, fought over. To grasp a period, any period, one would have to understand its visual arts, architectural styles, political organisation, religions, social structure, competing philosophies, scientific outlook, laws, diseases and doctors, technical achievements, literature, wars and peace. It was, of course, asking too much of any mortal. There had to be a division of labour. Specialists, however, should never be allowed to forget a sense of the wide screen, the 3D picture.
Nowadays, Western civilisation seems a bit provincial. What about Asian or African history? Not old-fashioned world history (which in the past meant European imperial history), but global history. And women? Hadn't they disappeared from history, barring a few good and bad queens? No longer. We now
have wives, mothers, single women, virgins and prostitutes, saints and sinners, craftwomen and businesswomen, in every time and place. And children? Can't forget them. The history of childhood is a big field. (I've even written about the medieval rite de passage when childhood becomes adulthood). So we have histories of memory, family, sport, sexuality (including, of course, homosexuality), emotion (anger is a great topic), gestures (eg medieval prayer gestures), facial expressions (the smile in history). Everything is fair game for historians: food, place names (toponymy), personal names (anthroponymy)...
History is inclusive in another sense as well. At one time US history departments were split down the middle: an identity crisis! Do we belong to the humanities (or in the UK, arts) or are we part of the social sciences? The question is now absurd. Historians, like magpies, take what they want wherever they find it. Demography? Sure. Sociology? Why not? Anthropology? Of course. Psychology? I confess to not being a fan of psycho-biography, but I've written about medieval crowd psychology.
The original question now needs re-phrasing. History is not only sweet, but also sour, bitter, and salty. Why? Because it's for everyone's taste buds.
Gary Dickson is formerly a reader in history and is an honorary
fellow at the school of history, classics and archaeology, University of
Edinburgh