Does a Focus on Royalty Obscure British History? | Hacker News Reader

Does a Focus on Royalty Obscure British History?

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41 pointspepys19 comments

G.K. Chesterton and H.G. Wells seemed to think so in their histories of England (though note that Wells' work is controversial due to an accusation of plagiarism).

Both are available at Project Gutenberg and Librivox:

>"A Short History of England" by G. K. Chesterton is a historical account written in the early 20th century. The book provides a unique perspective on English history, challenging traditional narratives often neglected by popular histories. Chesterton seeks to illuminate the experiences of the average citizen throughout England's past, particularly during the medieval period, arguing that important aspects of the populace’s legacy have been overlooked.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20897

>"The Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind" by H. G. Wells is a historical account written in the early 20th century. This comprehensive work aims to provide a continuous narrative detailing the story of life and humanity from its origins to the present, emphasizing a universal approach to history that transcends individual nations or periods. The book serves as an exploration of how human civilizations have developed over vast stretches of time and how they relate to broader scientific and societal changes.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45368

I didn't realize _The People's History of the United States_ had such direct precedents.

A more up-to-date option would be:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61505.A_Little_History_o...

which I greatly enjoyed sharing w/ my kids as an (excellent quality) audiobook.

More generally, focusing on "Great People" [1] obscures actual history and prevents deeper understanding of what actually moves its cogs.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory

I disagree with the framing here. Sure, the great man theory of history is not wholly adequate to explain human history. But neither is it useless to the point that it deserves to be contrasted with "actual history". It happens often enough that history really does change based on the whims of people in power. Dismissing the great man theory of history out of hand (as I understood your post to be doing, maybe I'm wrong) isn't any better than using it as one's only theory of history.

I subscribe to the idea that those "Great Persons" are shaped by the environment they grow in, and allowed to do what they do by the will of the "zeitgeist", for a lack of a better word.

If not for Napoleon, someone else like him would have done what he did. Perhaps slightly differently, but overall history would have followed a similar path. Post-Revolution France was eager to defend against and defeat the monarchies that surrounded and threatened it. The General was only allowed to rise so high because there was a want to militarize the country.

Howard Zinn wrote A People's History of the United States as a counter to the usual histories of the US that focus on presidents, statesmen, and robber barons of the Gilded Age. He covers things we mostly don't learn about in school, including the rise of the Labor movement, native Americans, slaves and post-Civil War freedman, and women.

That paired with 1491 makes for an insightful and markedly different view of history.

Also read Smedley Butler's _War is a Racket_ for an early comment on the "Military Industrial Complex".

I do think that the "big man of history" style narrative has strange effects on the popular perception of things, creating a consensus image of "what a leader should look like". But these stories of great leaders frequently downplay the human costs of their exploits, often rendering their lessers essentially disposable. So our collective historical narrative has a bit of a bias of saying, essentially, "elect someone who would gladly throw you into the fires of combat for personal glory".

This is what a "leader" looks like to many because of that cultural bias.

Of course most people question this narrative strongly today, but I think it has a role in how strong man political figures end up being supported by many despite the obvious risks associated with that.

An interesting antidote for that is to read biographies --- even those of leaders often have a section where the subject is an ordinary person, subjected to the forces of those in power --- reading a series of them in chronological order (I read those of U.S. Presidents to my children as a dry-run for an unfortunately abandoned project to do this for the entirety of world history) yields interesting insights into history and its ebb-and-flow.

Like if your read Macaulay's History of England, he does say very much on the King's and Queens, but he's not heaping praise on them, he is very critical of them, sometimes very entertainingly so.

Most of English history as per Macaulay is of conflict between the King and Parliament, with a good amount of religious discord mixed in, between the major groups like the church of England, Catholics and puritans.

Macaulay is essentially a ripping good yarn. That's the problem with the Whiggish style of history writing: it's so entertaining that you forget the awkward parts.

He would write something cheerful like, "the proud Scots demonstrated the excellence of their industry in the cities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and in the Americas" and then you check the dates and realize that he's writing about the period of the Highland Clearances.

One exact quote comes to my mind, "While Fairfax suppressed the risings in the neighborhood of the capital, Oliver routed the Welsh insurgents, and, leaving their castles in ruins, marched against the Scots. His troops were few, when compared with the invaders; but he was little in the habit of counting his enemies."

https://web.archive.org/web/20250624102940/https://www.histo...

This is like one of the oldest debates in the history profession.

before mass literacy, history books were funded by the folks with all the resources to be read by the future owners of those resources.

And that trend continues because this article is behind a paywall!

I was going to say, even in the age of the internet you often need substantial resources to overcome the competition for attention (and hence relevance) that granting everyone equal publishing rights creates.

Everyone has the same opportunity (to spend the money) to have their voices heard!

Can't really get to the thrust of the article due to paywall but almost certainly yes.

If nothing else the 1066 effect is real--as someone with a vague interest in questionably accurate period fiction novels I seem to have osmosed more basics about 4th to 10th century Britain than most anyone who grew up there was taught/retained

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