Moving on.
Our reading, which I'll term 'History and Policy' based on the title given at the very top of the page, consists of three readings. The first of these is an article by John Tosh regarding his new book, Why History Matters; a book I've never read. According to its author--hopefully a reliable source--its contents deal primarily with the estrangement of history and politics. Tosh's argument is that lack of genuine historical context is responsible for many of our current problems; without the ability to recognize trends in national relationships, we become prey to the same traps over and over again.
His point is quite valid, if somewhat oversimplified, and his use off the Iraq War as an example particularly insightful. As a US citizen, the British perspective on the war is a bit lost on me, but our own history with Iraq and Afghanistan--of enemies made in the last major military action the US committed, and of militant groups funded during the Cold War now coming back to haunt us--remains quite relevant. And Tosh's main explanation for the failure of popular history--its increased specialization and refusal to accommodate itself to public media--seems particularly fitting given Bush's still-so-recent political actions; appealing to the masses in the face of so-called leftist elitism.
Yet it is Tosh's book, so his criticisms are usually mitigated by his own need to self-promote. For genuine criticism we look to different sources; namely, How History Matters Now, by Ludmilla Jordanova, and Why History Matters--and Why Medieval History also Matters, by John Arnold.
Jordanova's criticism is by far the more biting; while she praises the theory behind Tosh's book, she thinks he fails to take seriously the problems of implementation. She thinks that there is already a considerable appetite for history amongst the public but that the appetite is dangerous precisely because it "panders to the very myths about the past that many commentators would like to see dislodged". Further, she believes that Tosh overestimates the importance of historical context in political decisions, and thus narrows the scope of his proposal too much; rather than simply proposing a new, more pervasive and broader sweep of history for the public, such a curriculum should be applied to all the major areas of scholarship, including sociology, psychology, and literary scholarship.
All valid points, if mainly ones working off of Tosh's original point. Jordanova's pointing out of how narrow Tosh's idea is seems petty; if one type of analysis should be better taught and lowered from its highly specialized pedestal, surely the principle applies to all those specialties whose basics would be useful to the public but whose too-technical practice makes relating them to current culture difficult. I have to agree with her completely on Tosh's over-emphasis on historical context. People's personalities and ideas may be determined by their environments and upbringings, and their choices tempered by the information they have at hand, but none of those things are going to be altered by a knowledge of what has come before. If the political reasons for invading Iraq remain intact, historical context will only point to a possible end, and will do little to dissuade the politician from continuing on his way. Making history relatable is certainly important, but the changes it would create are likely less pervasive than Tosh would have us believe.
John Arnold makes much the same point in his article. In the course of the paper he wonders vaguely "...how much of John Tosh's book is really a call for better politicians and a better press?" He expresses admiration for John Tosh's idea of a sweeping reform of general historical education and supports it, but disagrees with what Tosh's plan will accomplish. Arnold accepts the gap between the public and historians--he quotes Thucydides to demonstrate that this gap has almost always existed--and so expresses support for Tosh's proposition. But contemporary history won't change the flow of current events; those are the result of public opinion and political motivations, which aren't subject to change at the hands of historical context. Yet the general ideas that make a nation and a culture--those ideas that have been in the process of forming for hundreds of years--remain important, and can provide a great deal of context as to where current cultural preconceptions have come from.
For me, Arnold's response is the most articulate and most accessible of the three (an important factor, given their subject matter). While I don't quite agree with the idea that contemporary history isn't likely to affect current decisions--after all, information and news have changed the course of history enough times for us to know their importance--but his point is well-taken. Tosh's proposal isn't necessarily as important as he'd like us to believe, but it is still important. The details remain to be decided, but on the essence of it--on a general reform of education and history to make it more accessible to the public and provide proper context for decisions--all three of the historians agree.
Which in itself, given the fact that each of them deals at least briefly with debate between historians, is pretty significant, right?
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