Simon Schama: Michael Gove’s history man
Posted on Wednesday 6 October, 2010
Filed Under Education
THE Coalition has declared war on educational inequality, Michael Gove told the Tory conference yesterday. But its decisions to scrap Labour’s schools rebuilding scheme and pass the socially divisive Academies Act can only increase it.
The education secretary’s insistence that young teachers are his ‘heroes and heroines’ was cringe-inducing, and I could have lived without the rewrite of the Monty Python four Yorkshiremen sketch on which he closed.
But there was one thing Gove said that even I agree with, and that is his call for a return to the teaching of straightforward narrative history in British schools.
Simon Schama has been appointed an advisor to this end, he added. My guess is that a lot of lefties will have a problem with this.
Many argue that history is inherently ideological, and therefore cannot be taught in a neutral way. They point to such controversies as the rival functionalist and intentionalist readings of the Holocaust, or the debate between Great Tradition and soft revisionist accounts of the French revolution.
But history at this level is way beyond most kids’ pay grade. In any case, nobody can understand such quarrels without a thorough grounding in kings and battles and dates, of the type I was provided with in a 1970s grammar school.
Schama’s lengthy take on 1789 and all that was way too small-c conservative for my taste. But he is no raving rightwinger, and probably not a Tory. He is openly supportive of Barack Obama, and donated to Oona King’s unsuccessful bid to secure the Labour nomination for mayor of London.
He has real talent as a populariser, and is far too smart to fall foul of the pitfalls of partisanship. I’ll need to see what he comes up with before offering a final verdict, but let us wish him well.
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159 Responses to “Simon Schama: Michael Gove’s history man”
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“Yes I know I have been saying that repeatedly!”
Then this is a tautology. Why say it?
“When I made this point previously you said, “I’m not defending the School: I’m merely pointing out its existence.” So you seem to have changed your own definition while this debate has been ongoing! Wow!”
False. Individual or human agency has a meaning regardless of historical school.
“Hang on you called it dialectical materialism and now you claim it is causal materialism.”
Same thing, Dean. Materialism is determinism, hence the deterministic nature of history (impersonal forces).
“Back to school for you me thinks”
Spare me the patronising tone, Dean, because some of your replies are truly embarrassing to read,
“It was only my questioning that brought forth the ‘qualification’. If it had been left to Sewer and Modernity that statement would have gone unqualified!”
Yes, ideological because it’s teleological, if I didn’t state the word before I’ve stated it now.
Well, if you want some ‘insight’ into some dodgy Marxian type thinking, a form of crude determinism, often seen on the Left you need look no further than this recent comment in the above thread:
http://www.davidosler.com/2010/10/on-the-spurious-equation-of-ahmadinejad-and-hitler/
Modernity, I can’t see what’s so dodgy about that. After all, ‘conditions’ helped to make fascists throughout Europe in the inter-war years. Hitler had plenty of eager bedfellows including the likes of Himmler, Goering, Goebbels,Hess and the like. Nowhere does it say that these fascists would have necessarily come to power in any particular case, but I don’t think there’s any reason to deny that, disturbing as it might be, there were underlying historical reasons for the rise of reactionary right-wing movements, irrespective of their leaders and personnel.
I tend to sympathise with Modernity on this point, notwithstanding Igor’s intelligent observations. I would say the personality of Hitler did shape events, he became the impersonal force on everyone else if you want to put it like that. Certainly some form of state nationalist power in Germany seemed inevitable but Mr Victorystooges inevitability is speculative I think. What I object to is Modernity’s description of this view as necessarily Marxian, I think that is just a caricature of Marxism used by its enemies.
What I would say is that someone like Bill Gates was an inevitability, that if Gates had died young someone would have taken his place.
“Modernity, I can’t see what’s so dodgy about that. After all, ‘conditions’ helped to make fascists throughout Europe in the inter-war years. Hitler had plenty of eager bedfellows including the likes of Himmler, Goering, Goebbels,Hess and the like. Nowhere does it say that these fascists would have necessarily come to power in any particular case…”
Yes, that is the problem with literalism it precludes debating these issues.
You need to see beyond Victorystooge’s words.
The implication is that if Hitler has been murdered, early on, then a similar figure would have been in his *place* and events would have followed or resemble what actually happened.
Now you need to ask, do you agree with that ? Is that how you see history?
I am in partial agreement with that. Obviously events were going to be different, but there was still likely to be a strong role for the far-right in 1930s Germany. You have to remember that, for all Hitler’s presence and his own self-aggrandizing rhetoric, he was effectively put into power by the conservative establishment, much as he went against them later on. Other dictators had come into power in Europe at that time, so it did come along the lines of a historical trend.
Of course there are infinite possibilities in terms of individual occurrences, but they must happen within some sort of framework within which the acts of individuals are constrained. To focus so much on historical accident and to posit numerous counterfactuals is basically to make the study of history redundant.
“Obviously events were going to be different, but there was still likely to be a strong role for the far-right in 1930s Germany. “
That’s not what he’s arguing.
To argue that, is not a significant point, suggesting that there would have been some far right involvement in 1930′s Germany is hardly at issue, it is a bit like saying you get wet when it rains, plainly obvious.
Victorystooge is essentially arguing an impersonal form of history, where individuals are mere pawns of wider forces.
Igor. Hitler was the last resort for the German ruling class and the army elite. It was either Hitler or Communism.
Whao. I just stumbled upon this mighty spat. It escalated, and then……..
nothing. is this how blog wars end? Or did you guys see how much you had in common and head off for a beer?
Nice to see the SWP still exist. I don’t live near a university so I wasn’t aware. In my day I remember June Threadgold shouting away on the uni steps. I quite liked her sincerity, and energy, but then she was often juxtaposed with a young Derek Draper, so anyone would seem appealing in that contaxt! I do hope she’s still fighting the system.
Schama’a main thrust that history is not given enough importance is surely important, whatever school of history you come from. I lived through the 70s and 80s in N Ireland, so I welcome the focus on that as well. Even figures like Paxman seem to shy away from that subject