Thoughts from the South

There comes along, every now and then, a documentary series which stands out as the best in its field. For Art History there is Kenneth Clark's Civilization. For anthropology there is Jacob Bronowski's Ascent of Man. For astronomy there is Carl Sagan's Cosmos. Others such as Alistair Cooke's America and James Burke's Connections also stand out - experts in their fields taking us down beautiful, well-paved paths. All leave us feeling better informed and sometimes slightly humbled. They are the great documentaries.

Simon Schama's History of Britain is not one of them.

Though Simon Schama's academic credentials are beyond dispute (as is the case with most television historians, they are all distinguished professors) there is something missing in this series.

Let me put it like this - a lot of the charm of the 'great documentaries' I have listed above is as much to do with the host as it has to do with the subject matter. In a way that's part of the idea - you need an expert who is able to spark an interest in the subject and inspire the viewers to study further. Or at least to think about things they hadn't really thought of before. The ideal aim is to educate and inform as broad a group as possible without having to resort to over-simplification and patronisation.

But this is precisely what Simon Schama does. The personality required to tell a story as great as the entire history of a nation ends up giving way to underwhelming, topical subjects. This is less true in the earlier episodes, in which Simon seems quite happy discussing the Kings and Queens. But when we get to what might be called the age of parliamentary democracy, the world he is describing is suddenly much more real - much closer to our own. Unfortunately, he uses this to make rather irresponsible cultural inferences, as I shall explain presently.

(It is worth noting that the series was made in three parts, from 2000 to 2002)

One need only look at some of the episode titles to see that there is a clear agenda. This does not mean to say there is anything wrong with the presenter having an opinion. James Burke's Connections was an "alternative view of change".  Kenneth Clark's Civilisation was "A Personal View". These views run through the programme.

But Schama's views seem to jump around from episode to episode, so much so that it is hard to really know whether they are his own. Take some episode titles. "The wrong empire.", "Victoria and her sisters." The latter of these two episodes is the worst of the series, not because simply because it apes to a particular theme but because the narrative is sacrificed a little in the process. The reign of Victoria was presented almost entirely through the eyes and lives of 'her sisters'. Not biological sisters, but her female contemporaries. The Victorian narrative was not ignored, but there was no real effort to show any sort of change and continuity - Victoria's 64 year reign is presented in an almost static manner. If you are making a programme about gender identity in late-nineteenth century England, fair enough. But if you're making a series about the history of Britain, it seems a little self-indulgent (or perhaps, indulging someone else) to structure an episode in this way.

Though this is one way of looking at history, I feel there is something rather lame and short-termist about it. Anyone politically aware at the turn of the millennium will remember that these were still the golden age of 'political correctness' - it was fashionable to be open-minded about other cultures, races, and alternative lifestyles generally. Whether this was a genuine fascination or not or just an institutionalised form of overbearing politeness, it is hard to be certain of. What is perhaps more certain is that it has gone out of fashion in the last year and a bit, Marcus du Sautoy's Story of Maths (which I reviewed here) being one of the later examples.

My complaint isn't that they are coming from a viewpoint I disagree with, but rather they are giving too much credence to any current viewpoint. Whatever your own opinions of how history should be presented and what aspects should be emphasised, I think we might agree that for a subject as long and weighty as A History of Britain we must try and tell as much of the story as we can without pandering too much to modern sensibilities, or trying to draw excessive parallels with the present, as Schama does rather glibly in a few of the later episodes. How can the viewer get lost in a sense of timelessness when the burden of the present is continually lumped on their backs? Hearkenings to the present day should be subtle - they should certainly not govern the content of episodes.

There were some good points too. Between cringeworthy platitudes there was quite a lot of material covered, particularly in the earlier episodes. But the greatest danger in giving various episodes 'themes' is that you omit some of the key processes which underpinned the nation's development. For instance, Industrialisation is only mentioned in the context of the squalor it produced and the romantics who opposed it. The growth of the middle class and the birth of a consumer society isn't really tapped upon. We hear hardly anything about the spectacular Georgians. Though the last episode, which covers the lives of Winston Churchill and George Orwell, is one of the best, it does not go past their lives, and so the one chance Schama has to make a real commentary about the present age he ignores: 1948-2002 is not documented.



So in the end what we get is little croutons of interest pulled out from the great historical soup. However, both with soup and with documentaries, I would rather have the whole bowlful. This, would of course, means that the texture and flavour of these croutons becomes drowned out in the rest of the dish. But at least you are left satisfied.


VERDICT: Ambitious, but ultimately patchy and uncompelling.

Well, I've decided that the best way to approach this most special of blogs is to discipline myself to weekly posts. These will be published every Thursday, usually at around 3pm in the afternoon.

The collective name for this series of posts will be 'Thoughts from the South', as that is what they are and that is where I am, although sometimes assuredly I shall be in other parts of the country, or even other parts of the world.

Those who want more frequent, miscellaneous updates should still check out my old blog. But my presence on this blog will be limited to these weekly letters.

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Thoughts from the South
Thought No. 1
Chronic Anachronism

During my final year at university, I took a course called 'Radicalism in the English Revolution' or 'RITER' as some of us called it. We learned about a veritable Babylon of fringe groups, who suddenly found themselves with a voice following the breakdown of censorship and social order during the 1640s.

Some called for relatively moderate things, like the abolition of the bishopry or the extension of franchise. Some were rather more absurd.

Amongst this absurd category were the Ranters, who can essentially be called 'spiritual-anarchists'. They believed that God was present in all things, and that there was no more holiness in the scriptures than there was in, for instance, a dog, or an apple. They argued that 'sin' was essentially the product of the imagination, and that no single authority had the right to define or defend against it.

Furthermore, these notions of sinlessness and freedom from higher authorities extended into their personal lives. The gutter press of the period (which had been fairly active since the 1620s) widely reported the depraved, sexually immoral behaviour of the Ranters, amongst whose accused crimes were adultery, fornication and bigamy.

It's no surprise that these Ranters were ritually portrayed as a threat to the established order. Of course they were by no means the only radical group of the time, but they were perhaps the most singularly anti-establishment of any of the radical groups of the time - they didn't just question the establishment, they questioned the very idea of 'establishment' itself.

All very modern. Refreshing, even! No surprise, then, that when asked whether they would "have been a Ranter", many, yea, the vast majority of my classmates put their hand up. Because hey, we're students aren't we! We're modern and hip and open minded. And we certainly would have been 360 years ago too!


It wasn't so much because I was against the Ranters, of course, but rather that I had actually considered the conditional aspect of the question. "would you have been a Ranter?". Naturally, I didn't know the answer to such a question.

Why the uncertainty?

For a start, let's assume I was kicked back 360 years into the past. The year is 1649 and the world has been turned upside down. England's throne is vacant, while Cromwell's armies tread over the countryside, rooting out the remaining rebels.

Once I get used to the fascination of being historically transplanted into this weird and colourful age, my mind turns to the more essential things. Where am I going to sleep? When am I going to eat? What am I going to do?

Assuming I was dropped off in some rural area (as most of England was at the time) I would probably search for a farm or an inn which could accommodate me. I would hope my hosts would believe my story about 'being from the future' without having to report me to the church authorities as a heretic. In any case, I would have to eventually make myself useful, as I doubt they would have looked too kindly on a foppish, vain 21st century layabout laying about without lifting an early-modern finger. Accordingly, I would be found some sort of function, employment or purpose with which I might assist myself and my hosts. I join them at church, I have meals with them, I contribute to the welfare of the house. If all things went to plan, within a few months I would become a productive member of the household and family and my distinct disability of being a time-tourist will become only a footnote on the parchment of my life.

Suddenly I come across some literature. Fortunately it is in printed form and so I do not have to come to terms with 17th-century script - credit the boom and democratization of the press during the 1640s. The material I see before me is not a book or a bible but a pamphlet. It tells me that the family that I am part of is an artificial and arbitrary sort of institution, based on the myth of Adam and Eve, and that there is no need for me to be enslaved to one. It tells me that the church I have been going to is corrupt and self-serving, the sermons I have listened to are meaningless and devoid of faith, and that there is as much holiness as the chair I am sitting on than there is holiness in the scriptures. They tell me that the Mosaic Law, the observance of the Ten Commandments is unnecessary, and that ignoring these laws will not have an adverse effect on our chances of achieving salvation - for only in ourselves can we find salvation. There is nothing intrinsically 'wrong' in murder or theft or adultery or in disregarding your parents, the Sabbath and even the privacy of your neighbour's wife.

I sit back and digest this recipe for anarchy, and contemplate on the fact that all their suggestions, while playful enough in themselves, were no longer simply a historical curiosity to me. They directly referred to my own world and to my own reality - my family, my church and my social order.

Suddenly I feel a strange sensation in my chest. The world around me starts spinning violently and all becomes a blur. All the while I remain sat on my chair, my hands gripped to the wooden armrests.

Things start to come to a rest. I find myself once again in that classroom in the year 2009. Suddenly the Interregnum world I had grown accustomed to has vanished, and here I am once again, a 21st-century man in a 21st-century world. I am pretty dazed at my new/old surroundings, but somewhat relieved.

"So," asks the professor, shuffling his glasses with his thumb and forefinger "how many of you would have been a Ranter?"

A host of hands are raised to the air.

My hand remains firmly on the armrest.