Have they not learnt?
Just caught a snippet of Hack, on Triple J. It was obviously about ANZAC Day, asking young people what they think of the day.
I don’t know what the actual question was, but the responses I heard were along the lines of ‘I don’t agree with it because it’s, like, glorifying war and stuff (?) (the ? is because of the upwards inflection at the end of the sentence…’.
I don’t much care what your opinion of ANZAC Day is – well, I do, but I respect your right to hold any opinion (with all the usual caveats of respectfulness), but truly – have you not learnt? Do you not understand? There are so many things wrong with that statement – how could commemorating ANZAC Day, initiated to mourn the dead, celebrate war? And I thought that the aftermath of the peace protests against the Vietnam War had taught people to divorce soldiers, doing their job, from war as a concept – it has become trite, listening to American protests, but it really is possible to support and sympathise with soldiers while still protesting the war they are fighting.
I was mad at the ignorance. Now I’m just sad.
BBC History March 2007
Good thing I finished this recently, since April just arrived!
Just a quick review of this issue, looking at some of the articles that I really enjoyed:
“Bomber Boys,” by Patrick Bishop, was fascinating – I had no idea that the bomber crews had got a rough ride after the war, but it does make sense (not that they should have, I mean, but the way it was done, or not done… does that itself make sense??). The sheer statistics of artillery and casualties and damage done, by and to both sides, was staggering. And the picture of Cologne in 1945 is … well. Devestating.
David Okuefuna looking at Albert Kahn and the photographers he patronised, in “Bringing Colour to a Pre-War World,” was brilliant. The pictures themselves are amazing, and the stories of the photographers just added poignancy to the stories of the subjects. I am a firm believer in the idea that knowing about the producer/author/artist can, indeed, add to your understanding of a piece of art – at least give it context, if not enrich it greatly.
I didn’t reliase that there was some ‘cash for peerages’ scandal surrounding Tony Blair. How interesting. The double-page spread looking at the precedents for that sort of thing was illuminating (bad, bad James I and Bill Gladstone!).
I loved the article about Mr Stanley. All I really knew about the man was his “Mr Livingstone, I presume?” – which he probably never actually said, surprise surprise. I had no idea he had been reviled as cruel and so on, although I am terribly surprised by that, either. And sometimes, I just love revisionist history.
Cannibals! And medicine! And Europeans! Never knew that powdered corpse had been used for medicinal purposes, But, with the idea of sympathetic magic – I mean, medicine – it’s no huge leap, I suppose.
I had never heard of the Hottentot Venus. Truly people did (do) weird and bizarre things when they thought (think) they were (are) superiod racially etc… I wonder if there is antything that ‘rational’, ‘moral’ beings do today that will be reviled in 200 years?
The booklet about the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade was brilliant – worth getting this issue just for it. The background to the law being passed, the stress of getting it passed, and the consequences… plus people reflecting on its ramifications, or lack thereof, and the legacy of slavery today, was riveting. I have to admit – and I apologise to Toyin Agbetu for this, and thank him for pointing it out – that I had been thoughtless of my terminology up to this point: it is very easy to keep referring to Africans who were enslaved as ‘slaves’, rather than ‘enslaved Africans’ – a small but, I think, vital difference.
And then there’s “‘I Defy Them All!'” – about 17th century women; particularly the Verney women. Illegit pregnancies, fiance-stealing, blackmail… they did the lot. I appreciated that at the end Adrian Tinniswood concedes that this may not have been the norm, since up to that point I wondered if that was what he was driving at… it is interesting to think about just how many, and how much, women at the time ‘broke the rules.’
Lots of reviews. Places to go, but too late since I won’t be going back for ever such a long time.
Good issue.
History of Writing
Finally finished this today – you know how it is when you’re nearly finished a book, but the last half a chapter just seems like such a slog… yes. Well, that’s exactly how I’ve felt with this book, much as I have enjoyed it.
Let me get the gripes out of the way to start with. Lack of definitions irked me. Maybe Steven Roger Fischer is only writing for experts – although it doesn’t really seem like it – but he talks about graphemes and logography and other such words and doesn’t give a definition for any of them until about chapter 5, and then only defines a couple! So that was a bit annoying. I also should say that I didn’t entirely understand all of it; part of that is me – I am definitely not an expert in the area, and some of it just went over my head, as I knew it would – but some of it is Fischer: while he mostly writes plainly, every now and then he got a bit carried away with fancy-pantsed academic language that may not have been necessary.
Anyway… the first chapter is “From Notches to Tablets” and the second “Talking Art” – fairly obvious what they’re about. Mostly concentrating on the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian area (Fischer is a proponent of the idea that ‘complete writing’ started in just one place, Sumer, and developed everywhere else because of foreign influence), it looks at why complete writing developed, and how, and the advantages that came because of it. Knots, notches, pictography… humans really are quite creative. In the development of writing I particularly like the idea of the rebus – smart cookie, whoever realised that you can substitute a picture of one thing for something else that sounds the same but means something else (eg a bird’s bill for Bill).
Chapter 3 is “Speaking Systems,” It looks at the dissemination of writing throughout the Mediterranean and into India, Phoenicians and the Middle East and all. Basically tracing how syllabaries (where a sign represents a syllable) developed and influenced one another.
“From Alpha to Omega” is the fourth chapter, and there are no prizes for guessing its emphasis: the Greek alphabet. From Greece to the Etruscans to the Romans, and then on into all areas conquered by them, is the story told here. Mention is made of Ogham, Slavonic scripts, and Gothic script too. Very interesting, and lots of pretty pictures showing different writing styles.
Fifth is “The East Asian ‘Regenesis'”, which mostly looks at Chinese writing – its development, changes, and how it has influences cultures within its orbit, such as Vietnam, Korea, Japan and Mongolia. I had already read about the Korean script somewhere else, but the story of it being developed in the 1400s by the king (or at least under his aegis) is a brilliant one. And I had no idea just how complicated Japanese is… crazy, the amount of stuff Japanese kids have to learn just to be literate! And my students complain!
“The Americas,” the sixth chapter, is not one I had expected to be very long, but it was actually quite involved. It looked at who might have had writing when, who influenced who, and what role writing might have played in the different Mesoamerican (primarily) societies. The Spanish have a lot to answer for, with regard to destroying Aztec records, but then I guess we knew that.
Penultimately, “The Parchment Keyboard” looks at the development of handwriting styles in Europe basically from Charlemagne on, the dissemination of them and literacy more generally, and then the development and impact of printing. It always amuses me that we place so much emphasis on Gutenber, in the West, when the Chinese had been using paper and block printing for centuries before him. The joys of Eurocentrism…
Finally comes “Scripting the Future,” which is Fischer’s attempts at prognostication, for the most part. What the impact of computers will be, the likely success of trying create a ‘visual language,’ and the scripts that will still be around in 400 years.
This is a very, very brief overview of the book. I really liked that, in general, Fischer was not triumphalist, smug or assured about the overwhelming use of the Latin-based alphabet. Indeed, he went out of his way to emphasise that this is not necessarily the ‘best’ alphabet – pointing out a lot of the problems with it, calling it deficient, which I liked – and holding up the longevity and usesfulness of Japanese writing systems (three of them!) in contrast. It is mostly readable, and reveals things about writing that I had never thought about. Good for nerds who like thinking about the way things are done, and why, and the history of things we take for granted.
Spicy history
I finished Jack Turner’s Spice: The History of a Temptation yesterday. Overall, I really enjoyed it. It’s quite an idiosyncratic history, and deliberately so – writing about absolutely everything to do with spice, even just in western Europe and/or just in the Middle Ages would be an incomprehensibly huge project, I would imagine. So he hasn’t done that: although he does go into great detail in some things, in others he skips over stuff a bit. He does seem to have a fairly good bibliography at the back, so I guess if you were so inclined you could chase stuff up yourself.
The first part is about the spice race – Columbus, Magellan, and their cohort, who opened up the world for Europeans – at least the western ones – all, or at least partly, in the name of spice, I love the idea of Portugese or Spanish explorer getting to Malabar or other such places and finding Italian merchants already there; the look on their faces must have been priceless… much like the spice there were seeking.
The second part focusses on the palate – the thing that I was expecting most of the book to look at, to be honest, despite the fact that I know spices were used in incense etc. Anyway, this section was really interesting: it looked at recipes, it looked at how spice helped to create/maintain class distinction; discredits the idea that spice was used in the Middle Ages to hide the taste of rotting meat (it was rich people who used spice – do you think rich people would be eating rotting meat in the first place? It was at least partly to hide the taste of the salt used in curing the meat, probably).
The third part focussed on the body, in two ways: spice in medicine, and spice for love. Starting with cloves being shoved up Ramses II’s nose, as part of the mummification process, and then talking about the whole idea of pomanders and bad air (mal aria…) being respondible for disease. The section on spice as aphrodisiac was quite funny. And almost entirely male-centred – the remedies suggested, that is, not Turner’s treatment of it, since he himself points it out.
Part four is on the spirit: the use of spice in incense, for example. It mostly focussed, though, on the changing attitude of Christians towards spice in worship. The earliest Church fathers thought it was ok-ish – Christians were often anointed with spices for burial, since Christ was. Then people went a bit off it, because after all if God is incorporeal then presumably he doesn’t enjoy pleasant smells (personally I think this is a daft argument: so you’re limiting what God is able to do, then?). This is a very, very brief overview, of course.
The last chapter is called “Some Like it Bland,” which is a great heading. It talks about the movement – slowly – against spices, for a range of reasons, including that it was a drain of resources away from Europe towards those nasty, decadent Easterners; plus, interestingly, he links the development of the nation-state and national sentiment to the development of a national cuisine, which makes sense, and in England at least this led to a bland cuisine they were proud of, contrasting it with those very spices their forebears used to love.
As I said, this is a ridiculously brief overview, but it gives an idea what the book was about. It’s really well written, and a lot of fun to read; Turner’s not afraid of pointing out the humorous and ridiculous nature of some of the things he discusses.
Hell, and the history thereof
As I cook an enormous lasagne to feed a 5 year old and 4 year old tonight (and their parents), I’m catching up on my “In our Time” podcasts. At the moment it’s “The history of hell,” which is interesting for a whole load of reasons. But something that just struck me: Bosch and Luther were contemporaries! Fascinating.
Now they’re talking about the fact that in many early traditions, hell was freezing, rather than being, with the speculation that this is some sort of folk memory of the change, 10,000 years ago, from the last Ice Age. Apparently – and I don’t know who thinks this – there is an idea that the Ice Age changed over just 10 years or so, such that people would experience it very obviously.
And now they’re talking about Heart of Darkness The Waste Land. The idea of the journey down the Congo, to the supervisor at the inner station, who might be described as a modern Tiresias. Now that is a really, really interesting idea.
Spice, and Spice Girls
I’ve been hearing the Spice Girls song, “Stop”, a lot recently, at school. This has a weird effect on me. A group of girls at college used to do the moves to this song all the time, and consequently when I hear it I have a vision of them doing so – and an urge to join in. Mainly to upset the kiddies.
What made me think of this is the book I am reading: Spice: The History of a Temptation, by Jack Turner. It’s very enjoyable – although I am dubious of his repeated use of the term ‘Dark Ages’ in referring to the time after the (now) official end of the Western Roman Empire. Nonetheless. He has a whole chapter, of course on spice and sex: looking at all the different ways it was recommended to use spice to improve sex in a variety of ways, as well as the problems the more prudish (and supposedly celibate) members of the community had with it. Throughout, he makes comments on some of the things that have lasted to the modern day, and towards the end he comments on the Spice Girls, saying they “shot like a gaudy, squawking comet through the outer orbits of pop stardom before, in obedience to the Newtonian physics of celebrity, the acrimonious plummet back to earth and bust-up.” Beautiful. No wonder he writes about spice; he certainly has the language for it.
Reading at the moment
1. Just finished Lady Friday, by Garth Nix.
2. History of Spice, by … someone…
3. the Theory and Practice of Communism, by RN Carew Hunt
Pretty much sums up my reading habits, really… fantasy, history, food, and technology.
That’s me.
BBC History: Feb 2007
Since the March edition arrived today, I thought I should finally finish the Feb edition. Some of the highlights:
An overview of the Basque issue – I’ve been fascinated by Basques since I was at school; I loved Mark thingo’s book about how Basques changed the world.
Two contrasting articles about the Suffragettes – one that essentially argued that they were essentially terrorists, and they didn’t have much popular support; the other saying that view is a load of bollocks. As a chick, I found it troubling to have the women who I thought had gained me my right to vote might be terrorists. One woman’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter… I’m not sure where I stand on this issue now. I definitely don’t hold with violence at any time, and never have, but the question of whether violence was necessary to gain suffrage… we’ll never know, I do certainly approve of exploding (tee hee) too-rosy mythology about historical events, especially ones so recent and still so pertinent.
The article on ‘the ghost that convicted the bishop’ was a bizarre look into the mindset of at some people in the seventeenth century… and a rather dismal look at the state of the church.
One of the big article is about Little Bighorn, and the possibility that one main reason why Custer was defeated was because his deputy Capt Benteen hated his guts. I am a military history baby, and the detailed stuff about directions etc really don’t work for me (the map helped a bit), but the stuff about how the two men interacted was quite interesting.
Another big article was about Klaus Fuchs, who passed nuclear secrets from the Anglo-American research he was involved in onto the USSR. Complements a BBC series, which hopefully the ABC will pick up sometime; very interesting because it mostly looked at his motivations and attitudes.
Two articles about Tudors – 1534, when Henry VIII officially decalred his ’empire’, and the consequences of this for the entire British Isles and Ireland… and a quick look at how Elizabeth I treated Dudley, and how she was regarded because of it, compared with Catherine of Russia and Potemkin, and Anne Stuart and the Churchills.
Much fun!
Ivanhoe
If the 1997 (?) adaptation of Ivanhoe is accurate, then I know a few things about Walter Scott:
1. He didn’t like the Templars.
2. He didn’t much like most of his characters.
3. He was a vicious old bugger who liked inflicting, or at least imagining, pain on other people.
I really enjoyed the portrayal of John. Young, childish, scared, weak – with a streak of ruthless cruelty. The scene with Richard, John and Eleanor is hilarious, with her treating her sons like children and ordering them around… just a pity that it was so ahistorical, since Richard was her favourite and she would have had problems with Richard spending little time in England in favour of Aquitaine, as he did. Which brings in the other ahistorical bit, with Richard and John both being abe to communicate with the Saxons very easily… unlikely, since neither of them spoke English, and I doubt that many of the Saxons – the peasants, anyway – spoke Norman. But, tut; so many people make these assumptions.
I really enjoyed Blois Guibert’s character – he was so very bad, and then to twist his heart in such a way as to make him fall for Rebecca was a terrible, tragic thing. And Christopher Lee as the Grand Master – superb!
I bought a second-hand copy of the book a while ago… not sure I can read it any time soon, now.
Nicholas and Alexandra
As I mentioned a while ago, we put on a showing on this film at school for the kids doing Revolutions (we’re doing Russia, of course, and eventually China, which is a bit scary for me…). Very few turned up, which was a bit disappointing, but since I hadn’t seen it it was at least a good chance for me to watch it.
It was made in 1982, and it moves very slowly. Very slowly. If it wasn’t for the historical aspect, I would go so far as to say that it was very boring. Except for the point at which I realised that Ra-Ra-Rasputin was played by Tom Baker; that was a very funny moment, almost brain-messingly so.
The most interesting part was how the relationship between Nicky and ‘Sunny’ (I think that was her nickname) was shown… which makes sense, given the title. Most of the time, she is shown as completely domineering, which I think does indeed have some historical evidence to back it up. There are a few occasions where Nicky stands up to her, but very few. And Nicky’s reaction when he has to admit his abdication to Alexandra – it was amazing, and heartbreaking, and horrifying as well – that he broke down, and seemed almost to have a nervous breakdown, I think from the sheer shame of the event. I wonder how much evidence there is to support that idea.
We didn’t get to the end – it was hometime right when Lenin started doing his April Theses thing. Related to this is one of my biggest beefs with the film: I don’t think Trotsky had anything to do with Lenin and the Bolsheviks in 1905 – in fact, not even by 1917, really – and yet in the film they are shown together right back as far as Bloody Sunday, almost. Pft.
Kerensky was probably my favourite bit-part. Possibly because I think he is in ‘real life’, too.
Randomly Yours, Alex 