Issue No. 613
Culture
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21 - 27 November 2002 Issue No. 613 Culture |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | |||
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Plain Talk
"Has History Got a Future?" This was the title of an article in this week's Independent Education Review reporting on a recent conference attended by historians and school teachers and chaired by Prince Charles to discuss the state of history today.
Criticism was directed at the way history is taught -- or in some cases not taught at all -- in British schools. History is no longer a compulsory subject in British curricula; participants deplored "the increasing marginalisation of history and other humanities".
This deep worry about the teaching of history comes at a time when history books have become best sellers and when four million viewers regularly tune in to watch Simon Schama's History of Britain. Schama's book, on which the series is based, has already run into several editions. According to Schama, the theme of history is change "sometimes gentle and subtle, sometimes shocking and violent". At the heart of his history lie questions which have a universal and timeless resonance. What, we must ask, makes or breaks a nation? To whom do we give our alliance, and for what reasons? Where do the roots of our community lie? And, last, though by no means least: "What is Britain -- one country or many, one culture or several?"
It is Schama's new approach to history which makes his book a bestseller. And herein lies the problem of teaching history, not only in Britain but in Egypt. History is more than just a chronological account of kings and battles; it is the day to day life of people.
I am reminded of a lecture I attended many years ago in London. It was, I remember, towards the end of the 1950s, and was given by the eminent philosopher Bertrand Russell.
Under the title "History as an Art" Russell presented his views on the discipline. Russell believed that history is "a desirable part of everybody's mental furniture in the same kind of way as is generally recognised in the case of poetry".
Russell then went on to discuss what history can, or should, do for the general reader, emphasising the fact that history is not written only for historians. "We do not think that poetry should only be read by poets, or that music should only be heard by composers." Likewise history is not only intended for a narrow band of specialists.
But "clearly the kind of history which is to contribute to the mental life of those who are not historians must have certain qualities that more professional work need not have."
What can the lay reader derive from history? According to Russell, first and foremost must be "something like a new dimension in the individual life, a sense of being a drop in a great river rather than a tightly bounded separate entity. The man whose interests are bounded by the short span between his birth and death has a myopic vision and a limitation of outlook which can hardly fail to narrow the scope of his hopes and desires."
What applies to an individual applies also to a community. Those communities that have but little history produce a curious impression of thinness and isolation. They do not feel themselves the inheritors of the ages. History makes one aware that there is no finality in human affairs.
History must, according to Russell, be interesting to those who are reading in the same spirit in which the readers of poetry or else of good novels find them interesting. The historian should have feelings about the events that he is relating and the characters that he is portraying. A historian should not be impartial; in fact he should take sides. Likewise, if the reader is to be interested, he too must take sides in the drama.
Russell was of the opinion that the decay in the writing of great histories is only part of a greater decay, a widespread attrition in the writing of great books.
He concluded that what history can and should do -- not only for historians but for all those to whom education has given a breadth of outlook -- "is to produce a certain temper of mind, a certain way of thinking and feeling about contemporary events and their relation to the past and the future".
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