Postmodernism

12 November 2005

Returning to the study of history after a gap of 30 years, I am delighted to find that the Postmodern movement passed me by.

Asked to read and comment on Keith Jenkins, Rethinking History, (Routledge 1991) and Refiguring History (Routledge 2003), I was amazed that his re-hashes of ideas from the 1960s and 1970s have been taken seriously and are apparently so influential.

If anyone reading this blog likes or agrees with what Keith Jenkins has written, please add a comment or email me. I’d be delighted to hear from you.

I remember discovering works such as Borges’ Labyrinths, Albert Camus’ The Rebel and  George Steiner’s Language and Silence. These are all good or great writers, who said it all much better many years ago.

You can’t translate ideas taken from literature, let alone literary criticism, and use these as criticisms of historical writing, or the study of history itself.

History is different from literature. History is not the same thing as an historical novel, any more than science fiction is same thing as science.

It’s fine to say that a work of literature can be interpreted in many different ways, and that all interpretations are equally valid. This is true, for literature, as a work that draws its strength from the author’s imagination and the reader’s response to the author’s ideas and how these are expressed in the work.

It’s also fine to say that there is no certainty in history and we can never know, for sure, what really happened.

Life is just the same, as Bishop Berkeley and the idealist philosophers showed centuries ago. How can I know that the table in front of me is real? I can see it and touch it, but as the only way I can experience it is through my own senses, how can I know that it really exists and is not just a figment of my imagination. But so what?

This does not mean that all historical interpretations are equally valid, or that students of history should spend their time studying texts comprising what people have written about the past, rather than attempting to discover for themselves "how it really was."

When we study history, it does matter if the events we describe really happened, even though we can never know for certain if they did, or not.

The power of history lies in the shared belief between the writer and reader that the events described really happened.

The novelist Graham Smith expressed this better than anyone when he said (in Waterland, quoted by David Cannadine in British History, Past Present and Future, 1987):

"… what history teaches us is to avoid illusion and make believe, to lay aside dreams, moonshine, cure-alls, wonder workings, pie-in-the-sky – to be realistic."

Victor Gollancz, Peggy Duff, and “Save Europe Now”

5th November 2005

In late 1945, Victor Gollancz organised “Save Europe Now” – a campaign to persuade the British Government to allow British people to send food parcels to Germany. At the time this was forbidden.

Peggy Duff, later to become well known as Secretary of CND, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, worked for Save Europe Now from September 1945 to December 1948.

In her book “Left, Left, Left” (Alison and Busby 1971), she describes her experiences as the main organiser of six campaigns over the period from 1945 – 1965. In addition to Save Europe Now and CND, Peggy Duff worked for Common Wealth, the independent socialist party formed by Richard Acland, Tribune, the left-wing newspaper, as a councillor for the London boroughs of St Pancras and Camden, and the Campaign for the Abolition of Capital Punishment.

In the book, she describes how the sponsors and executive of Save Europe Now included well known public figures such as Eleanor Rathbone, Bertrand Russsell, Lord Lindsay of Birker (Master of Balliol), Dr Gilbert Murray (Bishop of Chichester) and Michael Foot, MP and later to become leader of the Labour Party.

I’ve quoted below some extracts from the book. It seems to me they show that there was an active desire among large numbers of people in Britain for reconciliation after the war, and a willingness to help other people worse off than themselves.

“People were asked to send postcards to the office of Save Europe Now indicating their willingness to spare food or (food rationing) points from time to time.”

“By early 1946 sixty thousand people had sent in their postcards. Before long the total reached a hundred thousand.”

Save Europe Now sent a deputation to see Ben Smith (the Minister of Food at the time), but all proposals to allow people to make voluntary contributions were turned down.

John Strachey replaced Ben Smith as Minister of Food in June 1946. “He was willing to give way to Save Europe Now’s demand that people should be allowed to send food parcels abroad either to individuals or for general relief. However when bread rationing was introduced (in the UK) in July, the Cabinet refused to endorse his decision.”

Save Europe Now launched its own relief fund. “By August 1947 we had collected £76,550.”

“In the autumn of 1946 we had our first success on the parcel front. The parcel post for most European countries had re-opened but not for Germany. Save Europe Now was permitted to collect and ship parcels of clothing, shoes, linen and some medicines from individuals in Britain to individuals in Germany.”

“As winter set in and conditions deteriorated…we wrote to our hundred thousand (supporters) and asked them all, during the same week to write to the Prime Minister.”

This met with some success:

“People were to be allowed to send a parcel a month. They had to get a permit from a Food Office and the post the parcel off.”

“There was no parcel post to Germany. It was not scheduled to open until 15th January, abut 6 weeks ahead.”

So for 6 weeks Save Europe Now organised the parcel post themselves, from a tiny office in Victor Gollancz’s publishing offices in Covent Garden.

“I still have nightmares about parcels. It was, as the Post Office said, a complicated scheme. You had to write for, or collect, a four shilling label from Save Europe Now. Then you had to get your permit from the Food Office. Then you posted your parcel to the shipping agent who packed them and shipped them to Germany.”

“For six weeks we coped, sending out thousands of labels and thousand of leaflets explaining the scheme. Customers queued downstairs for labels.”

“On 15 January the parcel post to Germany re-opened and we heaved sighs of relief.”

“Gradually Europe became less hungry. Devaluation in Germany got rid of the black market. Slowly life returned to normal and Victor (Gollancz) began to lose interest in Save Europe Now.”

Victor Gollancz – In Darkest Germany

28th October 2005

I came across this book, first published in January 1947, some years ago, in the 10p box at my children’s school Christmas fair.

Victor Gollancz, the publisher and creator of the Left Book Club, had decided to visit the British Zone in occupied Germany for six weeks from October 2nd to November 15th 1946, to see for himself what conditions were like.

The book comprises various letters and articles he wrote when he returned to England, and which were published in the press – The Times, The Manchester Guardian, The Observer, The Daily Herald and the New Statesman, among others – describing the condition of the German people under British occupation – the famine, disease, lack of clothing and places to live and the overcrowded, ruined cities.

Of course, this was not entirely unexpected after the war. But what impressed me was the tremendous humanity shown by someone who could write, in the foreword to the book, about why he had decided to “help suffering Germans” instead of other people and nations, whom many people, especially in Britain immediately after the war, would consider more deserving.

To me three propositions seem self-evident. The first is that nothing can save the world but a general act of repentance in place of the present self-righteous insistence on the wickedness of others; for we have all sinned, and continue to sin most horribly. The second is that good treatment and not bad treatment makes men good. And the third is – to drop into the hideous collective language which is now the mode – that unless you treat a man well when he has treated you ill you just get nowhere, or rather you give further impetus to evil and head straight for human annihilation.

Peggy Duff, later to be well known as Secretary of the CND, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, worked for Victor Gollancz on “Save Europe Now” – the campaign he organised in late 1945 to try to persuade the British Government to permit British people to send food parcels to Germany. At the time this was forbidden.

Save Europe Now finally won the argument twelve months later, when the government relaxed the rules. “People were to be allowed to send a parcel a month. They had to get a permit from a Food Office and the post the parcel off.”

In her book Left, Left Left, Peggy Duff wrote of Victor Gollancz:

He was not in my view a great thinker, nor yet a great writer. His books suffered from the fact than he was a publisher and nobody ever dared to edit them. But he had his instincts which made him react to situations passionately, often violently, but always positively. That is why so many were prepared to work with him and why so many loved him He was aggressively good. And he knew it.

Clement Attlee – The Labour Party in Perspective

23 October 2005

My special interest is the period from 1945-1951.

As an introduction to the period, I recently read my father’s Left Book Club edition of Clement Attlee’s “The Labour Party in Perspective” published in 1937, when Attlee was leader of the Party, well before he became prime minister in 1945.

It contains a superbly clear expression of his political aims and ideals at the time.

Two themes stand out in the book:

  • Attlee’s view of the Labour Party, its policies and methods. The policies of the Labour Party at the time were fully socialist. The differences between Labour and the Communist Party lay in their methods, not their aims.

  • The distinctiveness of the British road to socialism. In Britain, so Attlee believed, socialism could be achieved by democratic means, not violent revolution.

Here are a few extracts from the book. How different the Labour Party then was from “New Labour” of today!

On Socialism:

The dominant issue of the twentieth century is Socialism. The Labour Party is the expression in Great Britain of a world-wide movement. In every country in the world where modern Capitalism has developed, there is to be found in some form or another a revolt of those who suffer from its conditions and reject its assumptions. Wherever the economic system has developed in such a way that the instruments of production are in the hands of a possessing class, while the workers own little or nothing but their labour, a Socialist movement will be found. The form of the revolt will differ in every country. There is no sealed pattern for the social revolution.

Socialism is not the invention of an individual. It is essentially the outcome of economic and social conditions. The evils that Capitalism brings differ in intensity in different countries, but, the root cause of the trouble once discerned, the remedy is seen to be the same by thoughtful men and women. The cause is the private ownership of the means of life; the remedy is public ownership. The essentials of Socialism have been well stated by Bertrand Russell:

‘Socialism means the common ownership of land and capital together with a democratic form of government. It involves production for use not profit, and distribution of the product whether equally to all or, at any rate, with only such inequalities as are definitely in the public interest. It involves the abolition of all unearned wealth and of all private control over the means of livelihood of the workers, To be fully realised it must be international.’

On the Labour Party as the inheritors of the British Liberal tradition:

The immediate predecessors of the Labour Party were the Liberals. They sought to free the individual from the power of the State. They believed that economic liberty meant political freedom. Realising that British liberty was essentially the liberty of the man of property, they thought that under free competition, and with a wide distribution of individual property, this could be achieved.

The dominant issue throughout the nineteenth century, as it seemed to most thinking men and women, was political liberty. The issue of the twentieth century is economic freedom and social equality.

On the influence of religion and Christianity on the development of Socialism:

Leaving aside Owen and the early pioneers, I think that the first place in the influences that built up the Socialist movement must be given to religion. England in the nineteenth century was still a nation of Bible readers. To put the Bible into the hands of an Englishman is to do a very dangerous thing. He will find the material there which may send him out as a preacher of some religious, social or economic doctrine. The large number of religious sects in this country, and the various tenets that many of them hold, illustrate this.

The Bible is full of revolutionary teachings, and it is not surprising that, in a country where thought is free, many men and women have drawn from it the support which they needed for their instinctive revolt against the inhuman conditions which Capitalism brings.

On the distinctive characteristics of British socialism:

It naturally follows, however, from the heterogeneity of the sources from which the movement drew its inspiration, that the Labour Party has always comprised people of very various outlooks, and that its note has always been one of comprehensiveness. The natural British tendency to heresy and dissent has prevented the formation of a code of rigid Socialist orthodoxy. Those who have sought to impose one have always failed to make real headway and have remained sects rather than political parties. As in religion, so in politics, the Briton claims the right to think for himself.

A further characteristic of the British movement has been its practicality. It has never consisted of a body of theorists or of revolutionaries who were so absorbed in utopian dreams that they were unwilling to deal with the actualities of everyday life. From the first, British Socialists have taken their share wherever possible in the responsibility of government.

The last few years have seen the overthrow of democracy in many countries and the development of Fascism, which is only a cloak for Capitalism. It is, however, unwise to argue from the experience of one country to that of another. There is nothing more misleading than to try to apply to all countries a cast-iron theory of historical necessity and to argue that Britain must go the Moscow road unless she follows the example of Berlin or Rome.

His view of the British national temperament:

In this country there have always been small sections who advocated a forcible revolution, but they have found little favour with the majority of the people because such methods are alien to our national temperament.

I believe the people of this country are as unlikely to accept Communism and Fascism. Both systems appear to the politically immature. Both are distasteful to peoples like the British and French, who have had years of experience of personal freedom and political democracy.

On the Labour Party:

The Labour Party has deliberately adopted the methods of constitutional action and has rejected the tactics of revolution.

The Labour Party believes that, when it has obtained the support of a majority of the electors for its policy, it will secure the acquiescence of the greater number of its opponents in the changes which will be brought about.

[The Labour Party] accepts the will of the majority, which has decided that the country shall be governed by a Capitalist Government, and it expects its opponents to do the same when it is returned to power.

On Nationalism and Imperialism:

National Socialism  is a contradiction in terms. A true Socialist cannot allow his sympathies to be bounded by anything so narrow as a nation, for nationalism is only egotism writ large.

While, on the one hand, [the Labour Party] is the protagonist at home of the struggle of the workers against the Capitalists, it is, in relation to the less developed peoples of the world, part of a dominant race which collectively exploits them.

The great difficulty in consolidating the British Commonwealth is that it is essentially a moneylenders’ empire.

The history of colonial expansion is a terrible record of cruelty to, and exploitation of, backward peoples by the advanced races. Great Britain must take her full share of blame.

On Ramsey MacDonald, his predecessor as leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister from 1929 – 1931, and on the formation of the National Government, with MacDonald remaining a Prime Minster, in a government led by the Conservatives.

[MacDonald] had for some time been more and more attracted by the social environment of the well-to-do classes. He had got more and more out of touch with the rank and file of the Party, while the adulation which is almost inseparable from the necessary publicity given to the leader of a great movement had gone to his head and increased his natural vanity. The philosophy of gradualness which he had always maintained became almost indistinguishable from Conservatism, while his innate disinclination to take the necessary executive decision made him readily accept the impossibility of any serious challenge to the powers that be.

One feature of MacDonaldism needs to be specially emphasised. The attempt was made to make people believe that there was really no need for the existence of separate parties, as all good men were working for a common end. MacDonaldism is, in fact, in its philosophy essentially Fascist. MacDonald himself uses the same phrases that may be found in the mouth of Hitler and Mussolini. He constantly draws a distinction between party and national interests, the theory being that there is really some ideal course to be followed for the good of the country and that party policies are deflections caused by mere factiousness. If MacDonald had succeeded in seducing any large proportion of the Labour Party, it is quite possible that the country might have swallowed this doctrine. The steadfastness of the rank and file of the Labour Party, in fact, saved British democracy.

The Fascist danger in this country does not come from the crude activities of Sir Oswald Mosley, but from the clever propaganda which has been actively disseminated ever since the formation or the National Government in favour of what is called national unity. There has been a deliberate attempt made to suggest that after all there are no real political differences in this country, and everybody is really in agreement. The increasing danger of the international situation affords an opportunity for pressing this point. The speeches of Mr Ramsey MacDonald are full of Fascist ideas and even fascist phraseology. The essentials of the Corporate State without any coloured shirts might be introduced in this country in a period of international tension.

And finally, on his personal character and ideals:

Socialism to me is not just a piece of machinery or an economic system, but a living faith translated into action.

I am not prepared to arrogate to myself a superiority to the rest of the movement. I am prepared to submit to their will, even if I disagree. I shall do all I can to get my views accepted, but, unless acquiescence in the views of the majority conflicts with my conscience, I shall fall into line, for I have faith in the wisdom of the rank and file.

But the future of the Labour Party depends, first and foremost on the idealism, the devotion, and the intelligence of the rank and file of its adherents.

It is this army of active Socialists which will in due time achieve power and create the Britain which they desire. The deciding factor, to my mind, will not be leadership or the exact theories which are held to be orthodox Socialism. It will not be the brilliance of particular individuals. The thing which will secure the triumph of Labour will be the demonstration by Socialists in their lives that they have a high ideal and live up to it. People are converted more by what they see Socialists are than by what they hear them say.

Fragmentation and over-specialization

15th October 2005

Studying history again after a gap of 30 years, I wondered how it had changed, so I re-read “What is History?” written by E H Carr in 1961 and “What is History Now?” edited by David Cannadine, (Palgrave Macmillan 2002), in which nine historians present their view of the subject forty years on. These views were originally delivered as lectures at a two day symposium sponsored by the Institute of Historical Research in London on 14 and 15 November 2000.

The theme that leaped out of the page for me was how the study of history seemed to have fragmented.

Seven lectures at the symposium, topped and tailed by a Prologue and an Epilogue, covered:

“What is Social History Now?”

“What is Political History Now?”

“What is Religious History Now?”

“What is Cultural History Now?”

“What is Gender History Now?”

“What is Intellectual History Now?”

“What is Imperial History Now?”

And as David Cannadine said in his Preface, why stop at these seven branches of history? He could also have included:

“economic historians, military historians, business historians, local historians, maritime historians, historians of art, of science, or population, of the family, and of diplomacy (to name the most immediately obvious examples).”

Quite so, I thought, and why stop there? Why not include garden historians, food historians, ancient historians, historians of medicine, historians of crime, historians of childhood, historians of sex, drugs and rock and roll. The list is endless.

It seemed to me that this is an approach which fragments and compartmentalises the subject.

In their lectures, instead of addressing the question “What is History Now?” many of the contributors were asserting the merits of their own branch; how it “expands our vision” in the case of Gender History; how Cultural History “contributes to the explanation and understanding of work, economics and politics;” or how: “the ultimate answer to the question ‘What is Imperial History?’ is really very simple. It is indispensable.”

One contributor went further to praise the universality of her own specialism: “The very notion of ‘intellectual history’ betrays the figure of sophia and the erotics of knowledge as the thirst after the eternally true, the eternally desirable.”

Surely History is more than the sum of its parts. Divide anything into too many fragments and the whole becomes meaningless. No complex structural or comparative analysis, let alone jargon and neologisms, intelligible only to the specialists in one narrow discipline, can put it together again.

As I read further, working my way through the reading list for my course, I found this view seemed to be shared by others. In the Epilogue to “What is History Now?”, Felipe Fernandez-Arnesto said that fragmentation leads to the “curse of over-specialisation: historians dig ever deeper, narrower furrows, in ever more desiccated soil, until the furrows collapse and they are buried under their own aridity.”

And David Cannadine himself, had written in a much quoted article in Past and Present (British History: Past present and future? Number 116, August 1987) of:

“…the triumph among British historians of the cult of professionalism…”

“…over specialised, over fragmented courses…"

“…the role of the historian as public teacher was effectively destroyed.”

“…more and more academic historians were writing more and more academic history which fewer and fewer people were actually reading.”

I am told that the pendulum has now swung back. My reaction to the problem of over-specialisation was to think: “Let’s go back to basics” and look again at History as the Study of the Past – how it really was – which brings us back again to the name of this blog…

Hidden Lives

8th October 2005

Letting the sources speak for themselves (with selection and guidance from the historian) can be a powerful form of historical writing.

A recent work where, to my mind, this has been done with great success is Simon Garfield’s “Hidden Lives, the remarkable diaries of post-war Britain.”

Rather than state his own views or interpretation, Simon Garfield interweaves extracts from the post-war diaries of five individuals who contributed to the Mass Observation project from 1 May 1945, immediately before VE day, to 7 July 1948. Apart from a brief prologue and epilogue there is no commentary and no explicit interpretation. He lets the diarists tell their own story, with careful selection and juxtaposition of entries to bring out common themes.

Anthony Aldgate in his survey of British Cinema in the Second World War (Britain Can Take It, Basil Blackwell 1986) says of the Mass Observation studies:

“The information they provided was often born of random sampling and unsystematic techniques. But for all their limitations these reports are indispensable. They are, as Paul Addison comments ‘a source for which there is no parallel or substitute in understanding wartime Britain,’ and as Angus Calder concurs, ‘probably the richest source of material available to the social historian of the period.’” (Paul Addison The British People and World War II: Home Intelligence Reports on Opinion and Morale, 1940 – 1944 Brighton Sussex, 1983 and Angus Calder The Peoples’ War)

“Hidden Lives”, is history “as it really was” told by five very different people. None of them could be said to be typical of society of the times, and collectively they can not be said to be representative. But they all tell a very human, and very moving, story of what they did, what they thought, and their observations of other people around them.

Leopold von Ranke said: “the role, commonly attributed to History, is to judge the Past, to instruct the Present, for the benefit of the Future; such a high and noble role is not claimed for this essay: it aims simply to show how it really was.”

Education lies not in telling people what to think, but in helping them to think for themselves.

Perhaps history is not the historian’s interpretation; its role is simply, insofar as we can, to help the reader see for themselves, how it really was.

The reader (or listener, or TV watcher) living in the present, and not the historian, can interpret and judge the past, if they wish. Maybe some readers will even learn something, for the benefit of the future.

Wie es eigentlich gewesen (more)

8th October 2005

In his classic work “What is History” E H Carr dismissed “wie es eigentlich gewesen” as a “not very profound aphorism….. designed, like most incantations, to save (historians) from the tiresome obligation to think for themselves.”

The full quotation is as follows: 

“When Ranke in the 1830s, in legitimate protest against moralizing history, remarked that the task of the historian was “simply to show how it really was” (wie es eigentlich gewesen), this not very profound aphorism had an astonishing success. Three generations of German, British, and even French historians marched into battle intoning the magic words “Wie es eigentlich gewesen” like an incantation – designed, like most incantations, to save them from the tiresome obligation to think for themselves.” (E H Carr, What is History, Macmillan 1961).

E H Carr went on to argue that:

“The historian is necessarily selective. The belief in a hard core of historical facts existing objectively and independently of the historian is a preposterous fallacy, but one which it is very hard to eradicate.”

“It used to be said that the facts speak for themselves. This is, of course, untrue. The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order of context.”

This may well be true, but “wie es eigentlich gewesen” is not as simple as it sounds.

The power of history lies in the shared belief between the writer and reader that the events described really happened.

The impossibility of ever knowing “what really was” does not mean that we should not try to get as close to this elusive goal as we can.

It seems to me that the role of the historian in cutting through the fog created by innumerable interpretations, should not be underestimated. If a modern historian can show their reader the past “how it really was,” this may well be more valuable, to the reader, than a critical appraisal of yet another secondary interpretation or contribution to a sterile historical debate.

Wie es eigentlich gewesen

I am a 52 year old mature student who has just started studying for an MA in Contemporary British History at the Institute for Historical Research at London University.

History is a process of discovery, and in this weblog I intend to record my thoughts, ideas and, I hope, some insights and discoveries, as I work my way through the course.

The name of the blog comes from the famous nineteenth century German historian, Leopold von Ranke, who wrote, as a young man, in his first historical work, that the role of history is simply to show how it really was – “Wie es eigentlich gewesen.”

I had been trying to track down the full original quotation for some weeks, and eventually found it in the Crooked Timber posting by Henry Farrell and others on 7 Sept 2005 Wie es eigentlich gewesen (in comment 28).

“Man hat der Historie das Amt, die Vergangenheit zu richten, die Mitwelt zum Nutzen zukuenftiger Jahre zu belehren, beigemessen: so hoher Aemter unterwindet sich gegenwaertiger Versuch nicht: er will blos zeigen, wie es eigentlich gewesen.”

For those who are interested, my own translation of the original German is:

The role, commonly attributed to History, is to judge the Past, to instruct the Present, for the benefit of the Future: such a high (noble) role is not claimed for this essay: it aims simply to show how it really was.

It seems to me that too many historians have criticised or attempted to judge the past – a fruitless task if ever there was one, as the past has been and gone and cannot now be changed. On the other hand, if we attempt to see the past as it really was and to interpret it in its own terms, it can still instruct the Present for the benefit of the Future.