Rockist Historians

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'I am not part of the era of history as entertainment or as a section of the tourist industry, of celebrity dons presenting TV series of colourful visuals held together by a thin thread of argument. For me the medium is not yet the message.'

Eric Hobsbawm

Is this rockist? Or is it in fact more patronizing to argue, with commissioning editors, that people are bored by historians and enjoy whizz-bang stuff? Are people, in fact, crying out for non-stupid TV history?

Work with me, I've already snootily excluded myself from the mass of viewers.

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 3 November 2003 16:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 3 November 2003 16:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Um, yes it is rockist, or no it isn't?

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 3 November 2003 16:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Quite right.

― Tim (Tim), Monday, 3 November 2003 16:41 (twenty-one years ago)

there's this thing called books

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 3 November 2003 16:47 (twenty-one years ago)

sho nuff. but tv history cd be different.

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 3 November 2003 16:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Less papery?

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 3 November 2003 16:48 (twenty-one years ago)

and divided into 13 minute segments

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 3 November 2003 16:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Eric Hobsbawm did a couple of wonderful history books on the industrial revolution. Those books themselves are not rockist.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Monday, 3 November 2003 16:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I mean diff from how it is now. Cd be more Peter Watkins-y.

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 3 November 2003 16:50 (twenty-one years ago)

hobsbawm is and always has been a dismal cultural hypocrite - key sentence: " Whenever Hobsbawm enters a politically sensitive zone, he retreats into hooded, wooden language, redolent of Party-speak."

EH even wrote about jazz, which he loved, under a pseudonym, so as not to fall into disrepute w.the party (jazz of course being a music where "message" and "medium" can't be cut adrift from one another, as per the standard-issue brainless idealism of the line enrique quotes)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 3 November 2003 17:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Sure -- isn't 'idealism'-as-perjorative-term qt CP, tho?!

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 3 November 2003 17:22 (twenty-one years ago)

A fascinating article. Mm. Hobsbawn sounds like he needs a brutal shout in the face before he dies.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 3 November 2003 17:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, he does a bit, but his books are good. Bataille, Althusser, they get more love than EJH on ILX, which I think is weird at any rate... I don't know if Hobsbawm's attachment to the Russian revolution harmed his thought as much as one might think normal...

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 3 November 2003 17:30 (twenty-one years ago)

it's a silly argument for hobsbawm to make anyway: he belongs to the belle lettrist generation of left historians, and " the medium is not yet the message" simply translates as "it doesn't matter whether i write well or badly", once you apply it to books as well as TV - what he actually means is, "I don't really understand how television works and am not properly competent to comment"

of this crew, christopher hill and e.p.thompson both write a *lot* better, i think (i;ve only read "decline of magic" by keith thomas, which i also think is better than any hobsbawm i ever tried: "captain swing" is a great story direly told and i actually greatly distrust EH's "age-of" grand sweep. i think the only thing wrong w,judt's "whig history with dialectics" is that hobsbawm - like most stalinists - is a tory moralist before he's a dialectician

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 3 November 2003 17:40 (twenty-one years ago)

enrique did you ever see the a.j.p.taylor TV lectures - just his talking head extempore on the origins of ww1 or whatever, the only camera action a slow pan in towards him

he spoke w/o notes or script and timed them in his head: that's a case of brilliant exploitation of the medium

the whizzbangery of time commanders teaches you stuff about battles and war that i've never seen conveyed by any other mode of discussion, bcz you actually see why and how the high command on a battlefield make bad decisions and lose something they should have won

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 3 November 2003 17:45 (twenty-one years ago)

[insert approval of AJPT-as-telly-personality and disapproval of AJPT-as-historian here]

― cis (cis), Monday, 3 November 2003 18:13 (twenty-one years ago)

he wore a bowtie = all bases covered

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 3 November 2003 18:14 (twenty-one years ago)

AJPT = Straubian minimalist -- no I never saw it.

of this crew, christopher hill and e.p.thompson both write a *lot* better, i think

I wuv EP THompson 4eva, so yeah burlatently. EJH is more of a stalinist, but i suppose the thing is none of that generation deal;t with modern (post1870?) history qt as much, didn't do 'definitieve works'.

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 3 November 2003 18:19 (twenty-one years ago)

i actually have a book by hill on lenin but i wouldn't recommend it

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 3 November 2003 18:21 (twenty-one years ago)

I think that wuz from b4 56 epistemological break? EP did something about trains in USSR being roXor -- i wdn't wi' yourn. I wd recommend any Hill book with word 'puritanism' in title aka all of em.

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 3 November 2003 18:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Hill's at his best in the seventeenth century, IMO. But then I have a soft spot for ranters and diggers and suchlike.

― cis (cis), Monday, 3 November 2003 18:23 (twenty-one years ago)

yes it's from the "teach-yrself-history" series, 1947, reprinted by pelican in 1971 (why?)

the book on pirate and highwaymen = mainly 18th century but still grebt

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 3 November 2003 18:28 (twenty-one years ago)

highwaymen!

must. read.

― cis (cis), Monday, 3 November 2003 18:33 (twenty-one years ago)

"liberty against the law: some 17th-century controversies" (controversies inc.fact that several of them are 18th-century controversies!!)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 3 November 2003 18:39 (twenty-one years ago)

also: LEAST SEXY TITLE EVER CHRIS!! IT'S ABT PIRATES!!

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 3 November 2003 18:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Neil Postman to thread!! oh wait, he's dead.

― scott seward, Monday, 3 November 2003 20:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Damn, and here I thought this was going to be a Nigel Spivey thread. :-(

― kate (kate), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 08:59 (twenty-one years ago)

my own view of historians - there are two types who count, narrative historians (the ones who tell you what happened) and analytical historians (the ones who tell you why it happened). I think the second type are more rockist, because analytical history is seen as more worthy while narrative history is all populist and entertaining, and also more inherently interesting if you don't already know everything about the period in question.

TV history I am not qualified to judge on. I remember liking Timewatch.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 10:06 (twenty-one years ago)

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