Left History

doesn't Winston Churchill have a book on the History of the English Speaking Peoples? that's probably very plummy.

The first problem with any politically-slanted history is when the political slant outweighs the historian's desire to be fair to his/her sources. At its extremes you get someone like David Irving, given access to an incredible range of valuable material which he then chopped up and misquoted like a particularly twisted movie poster publicist.

This problem affects historians of any political stripe. The problem peculiar to right-wing historians is that they tend to be traditionalists in a formal sense as well as conservative in opinion: rightist history is best understood as a series of political events shaped by Great Men. Economic trends get a look in but are treated teleologically, i.e. are given weight inasmuch as they mark progression towards or deviation from the glorious free-market present/future. Social and cultural history is viewed with suspicion.

These aren't recommendations, because it's been too long since I read history except for pleasure for me to remember any names - but it's some (vague) guidelines as to what to watch out for on jacket summaries etc.

paul johnson: v. rightwing not however recommended
niall ferguson (is that name right or have i confused himn w.someone else?): gets props from the posh left (eg benedict/ perry anderson) for the range of his imagination, he is a Disenchanted Thatcherite
arthur bryant: churchill-ish mode (england = this sanctified island) but a professional historian not a dilettante like WSC — of course WSC is a bettah writer
simon schama: surely he is not "left" => he bugs me, i have to say, though his book on nature and the sublime, LANDSCAPE AND MEMORY, has some good stuff in it (like pioneer goth H.Walpole trekking in the alps to Appreciate Scary Mountains: on the very first day his poodle was eaten by a wolf!!)
larkin's buddy-in-porn robert conquest? uber-reaganite scourge-of-the-bolsheviks richard pipes? gertrude himmelfarb? i am not a fan of any of these but they fit anthony's request

paul johnson: v. rightwing not however recommended

Good writer, though -- his ideas may stir outrage, but you can't knock him for lack of command of the language. My high school history teacher in 12th grade was left of center and specifically assigned the opening chapter of _Modern Times_ for us to read so we could see how 'history' itself is up for grabs and interpretation -- a useful approach.

Niall Ferguson is korrect - he wrote 'The Cash Nexus', a sort of post- Thatcherite history of capital/money. A name not already mentioned - Andrew Roberts, ultimate Tory boy who wrote the 'revisionist' 'Eminent Churchillians'. I have never read anything by AJP Taylor - wot were his politics (I know he wrote a real OBN biog of Beaverbrook, who wasn't exactly a 'liberal'...)?

Paul Johnson used to come into the bkshop where Tom and I once worked. He would almost exclusively browse the art bk shelves, on top of which rested the shop's speaker system. Whenever the red-faced loon wld come in I'd try and play something truly horrible at v. loud volume - Merzbow etc. - just to try and get his goat, or send him off on another 'bah the kids of today' rant. Never seemed to work, sadly...