History will always be controversial – Trump supporters still claim he was robbed of the election despite all the facts. But society also creates its own narrative for the times. I was taught that Robert Clive was one of our heroes, along with many others, whilst now we are aware that many aspects of our ‘glorious’ history need a more nuanced consideration. Churchill was undoubtably a war hero, but my Polish neighbour back in 1970’s told me how she rejoiced at his death (along with Stalin and Hitler) as he had sacrificed her country. He was undoubtably a bastard in his attitude to unions and used lethal force against them. No one is perfect and different times need different attitudes. Perhaps this is what is missing from the education which extols the historic famous without a critique.
Perhaps Paul yesterday was correct in saying that History, and Geography are more important than ever because it enables children to enrich their horizons. But the history and geography are unfortunately being dictated by national curriculums and private interest groups. To this extent it would be fun to have a web site which put up different versions of history – how would people react? Would they chose the one they liked, or realise that nothing is simple?
Who said that the voyages of discovery in the Middle Ages and later, did not increase the percentage of knowledge we knew, but the opposite. The more you know, the more you realise you do not know. It seems that many consleazatives know very little apart from their wallets.