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The Interest in History
The pages of the TES give stark warnings that History is in danger.
So imperiled is it that 3 in 10 schools are dropping it from their
curriculum. This is at odds with the fact that the general public
seems to be gripped by history fever: a wealth of well-researched
historical novels, not least Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, fly
off the shelves of bookshops. A new generation of Telly Dons:
Starkey, Schama and Hunt have never had it so good. A.J.P. Taylor
and Lord Dacre would no doubt be envious of the air time given over
to History these days. The television schedules are crammed with
saucy renditions of Tudor escapades and more earnest explorations of
this nation’s past by the likes of Dimbleby and Marr. Indeed, such
is the demand for all things historical that education journalist
Tim Adams observes: ‘our culture (is) escaping into the past. In all
fields of the arts, we now feel more comfortable when our backs are
turned to the present’. Perhaps when the future seems uncertain and
the present appears bleak, the spectre of recession still looming,
the past can give a sense of rootedness, a self-assurance in one’s
identity. E.H. Carr said that the past is, the ‘key for the
understanding of the present’. Indeed, it provides a context for our
world, a frame of reference for the present and a guiding light for
the future. The journalist, Tim Radford writing in the Guardian
commented: ‘Who says the past is not relevant? The present is all
too fleeting. The future is anybody’s guess. The past is all we
have, and we should profit from it.’
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