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Peter
Mandler.
History and National Life.
London: Profile Books,
2002.
vii, 184pp.
Hardback ISBN
1861974698.
Publisher's
recommended price £12.99
At a time
when everyone
is talking of the new popularity of history, this book takes a
longer-term
view of the question, why do we care about it? Peter Mandler starts by
reminding us of the nationalist origins of a truly popular interest in
history in the nineteenth century. In Britain, history reached out for
the first time to a larger constituency by putting the 'Anglo-Saxon'
people
at the centre of their own national history. This legacy casts a long
shadow.
In practice, people have been drawn to history for many other reasons,
but it is still too casually assumed that its 'point' is to tell us
'who
we are' and 'where we come from'.
Peter
Mandler
is one of the most original historians at work today. Here in a
wide-ranging
and elegant text he argues that history is not directly 'useful' - it
doesn't
teach lessons or tell us 'where we're going' - but makes a much richer
contribution to civilization. We are today turning to history in ever
growing
numbers for our entertainment and self-development, and for learning
about
what it has meant to be human - in all our colour and variety - around
the world and over the past thousands of years. Because historical
knowledge
is rather more arcane than some other knowledges rooted in the present,
historians are the necessary gatekeepers between the public and these
boundless
worlds of human possibility. Consequently they still have a central
contribution
to make to 'national life', long after 'national life' has ceased to be
organised centrally around the idea of the 'nation'.
Contains
no specifically
medieval emphasis.
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