02-01-2010, 02:06 PM
I am in disagreement where Tom Holland and his so called danger is positioned by Jona.
History needs its narrative authors, if only to make the subject more interesting for future generations.
Same with Adrian Goldsworthy, Fik Meijer and other authors who use a mixture of narrative history, proper research combined with the joy of painting an image of what it might have been like back then.
Of course Gibbon is still read, because he wrote superbly, and really makes the reader feel the undertone of his work.
So 19th century ideas are not all bad, and overspecialisation in a subject is, as jona also put correctly, devastating to the grander view, the larger inter and intraregional aspects of history, especially classical history.
I for one think it is a good thing that people still write popular history for the masses.
Let the narrow viewed scholar write for his peers, and the open minded broader scholar write for everyone remotely interested in history itself.
Historical research will not get worse by university standards, since enough people are trained still in the techniques.
I personaly would like a new view on history alltogether, a historian who is not only historian, but also uses multidisciplinary tricks and trades...
Someone who is broad minded, knows how to interpret archaeological, social, philosophical and other disciplines and is able to use those disciplines
combined to get to a point in his or her research.
The more you narrow your view, the less space there is for originality, new theories, and breakthrough science.
If as a teacher on a secondary school i dont spice up the historical facts with anekdotes, stories, try to paint a picture for and with my
pupils of a certain era, how in the hell can i make history interesting at all ?
That is why we need narrators, re-enactors, archaologists, scientists, scholars, and people from lots of other disciplines to come together and
renew history and the way we view it.
The reason we all laugh about Dando Collins is his clame on definitiveness... The definitive history of the Roman legions, and other such claims, and maybe also some of his strange conclusions based on bad research...
The difference with von Daniken and other pseudo scholars who wrote massively entertaining nonsense is that some of the newer authors write nonsense with a claim on thorough research, as if they are scholars (cf Dan Brown and his bullsh*t)
The reason Universities do not seem to adhere to trouble in the scientific world is not only one of money, but also the fact that most institutions are back-logged massive mastodonts which move in slower ways than a snail on the tracks of Circus Maximus...
Scholars often overstate their own self-importance and knowledge of a certain subject, and by this unbending attitude, scare away students and others who might indeed have grown into world class scholars. Its a self fulfilling prophecy to say the least.
We need new blood, radical new ideas, and people who bring the fun back in scholarship and research, and above all, in history.
M.VIB.M.
History needs its narrative authors, if only to make the subject more interesting for future generations.
Same with Adrian Goldsworthy, Fik Meijer and other authors who use a mixture of narrative history, proper research combined with the joy of painting an image of what it might have been like back then.
Of course Gibbon is still read, because he wrote superbly, and really makes the reader feel the undertone of his work.
So 19th century ideas are not all bad, and overspecialisation in a subject is, as jona also put correctly, devastating to the grander view, the larger inter and intraregional aspects of history, especially classical history.
I for one think it is a good thing that people still write popular history for the masses.
Let the narrow viewed scholar write for his peers, and the open minded broader scholar write for everyone remotely interested in history itself.
Historical research will not get worse by university standards, since enough people are trained still in the techniques.
I personaly would like a new view on history alltogether, a historian who is not only historian, but also uses multidisciplinary tricks and trades...
Someone who is broad minded, knows how to interpret archaeological, social, philosophical and other disciplines and is able to use those disciplines
combined to get to a point in his or her research.
The more you narrow your view, the less space there is for originality, new theories, and breakthrough science.
If as a teacher on a secondary school i dont spice up the historical facts with anekdotes, stories, try to paint a picture for and with my
pupils of a certain era, how in the hell can i make history interesting at all ?
That is why we need narrators, re-enactors, archaologists, scientists, scholars, and people from lots of other disciplines to come together and
renew history and the way we view it.
The reason we all laugh about Dando Collins is his clame on definitiveness... The definitive history of the Roman legions, and other such claims, and maybe also some of his strange conclusions based on bad research...
The difference with von Daniken and other pseudo scholars who wrote massively entertaining nonsense is that some of the newer authors write nonsense with a claim on thorough research, as if they are scholars (cf Dan Brown and his bullsh*t)
The reason Universities do not seem to adhere to trouble in the scientific world is not only one of money, but also the fact that most institutions are back-logged massive mastodonts which move in slower ways than a snail on the tracks of Circus Maximus...
Scholars often overstate their own self-importance and knowledge of a certain subject, and by this unbending attitude, scare away students and others who might indeed have grown into world class scholars. Its a self fulfilling prophecy to say the least.
We need new blood, radical new ideas, and people who bring the fun back in scholarship and research, and above all, in history.
M.VIB.M.
Bushido wa watashi no shuukyou de gozaru.
Katte Kabuto no O wo shimeyo!
H.J.Vrielink.
Katte Kabuto no O wo shimeyo!
H.J.Vrielink.
