Over on The History Blog, Oldest pottery in the world found in China records that pottery fragments discovered in Xianrendong Cave in south China’s Jiangxi Province have been radiocarbon dated to 19,000-20,000 years ago making them the oldest pottery ever discovered. Livius reports that over the past 10 years, ancient pottery finds in East Asia have upended the notion that ceramics were invented around the time humans transitioned from hunting and gathering to agriculture, 10,000 or so years ago. This discovery is fully 2,000 to 3,000 years older than previous examples.
In another story, Celebrate Canada Day with colonial-era picture, Livius records that the UK National Archives have uploaded hundreds of pictures of colonial-era Canada just in time for Canada Day. The photos are worth a browse.
In ‘Bogle Corbet’ by John Galt, The Resident Judge of Port Phillip begins: "You may not have heard of Bogle Corbet, or of its author the Scottish writer John Galt but he was an incredibly prolific author, celebrated in both Scotland and Canada as an important Romantic-era author who based his narratives on “theoretical history” drawn from his observations and empirical facts."
I had indeed not heard of John Galt. The only John Galt I knew was the character In Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Janine was not impressed by the book, "It is a product of its time and taste, and rather forgettable." From the sound of it, it appears to be something of a thinly disguised immigration book. These, along with stories of life in the various colonies, were popular with readers in the home countries and the dominions.
I have been conscious of them for a long time, largely because they still lay around family homes and I read anything and everything that was around. Ralph Connor's Corporal Cameron of the North West Mounted Police; a tale of the Macleod trail is an example. I found this a great yarn, even if even then I found it moralistic and somewhat quaint. This is just a sample:
The rays of the sun setting far down the Pass shone through the walls and filled the tent with a soft radiance. Into this radiance she came, her face pale as of one who has come through conflict, and serene as of one who has conquered, pale and strong and alight, not with the radiance of the setting sun, but with light of a soul that has made the ancient sacrifice of self-effacing love.
"You want me?" she said, her voice low and sweet, but for all her brave serenity tremulous.
"Yes," said Cameron, holding out his arms. "I want you; I want YOU, Mandy."
"Oh," cried the girl, while her hands fluttered to her heart, "don't ask me to go through it again. I am so weak." She stood like a frightened bird poised for flight.
"Come," he said, "I want you."
"You want me? You said you wanted to take care of me," she breathed.
"I was a fool, Mandy; a conceited fool! Now I know what I want--I want--just YOU. Come." Again he lifted his arms.
"Oh, it cannot be," she breathed as if to herself. "Are you sure--sure? I could not bear it if you were not sure."
"Come, dear love," he cried, "with all my heart and soul and body I want you--I want only YOU."
And so Cameron having been saved through the Canadian experience finds final redemption.
The Idle Historian's Churchill Style: Not so Much the Accoutrements as the Attitude is a fun piece reviewing Churchill Style: The Art of Being Winston Churchill by Barry Singer (foreword by Michael Korda).
IH's own regard for Churchill is clear: "To me, Churchill is simply a very human character. As Michael Korda writes (detailing his domestic eccentricities), "it is hard to dislike such a man." Larger-than-life, and yet a bundle of faults, inconsistencies, and divided motives." Whatever Winston Churchill was, he wasn't dull! Mind you, he probably wouldn't have electable either in modern Australia.
Carol Baxter's blog continues to be very useful for all those interested in family research. Have a look at Beware the ignorant genealogist. That's experience talking.
The Dictionary of Sydney blog moved to a new location. Thanks to this blog, I have now found Signposts, the blog of the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. There is some good material here for those interested in New Zealand's history. I go further: this is a fantastic blog for a fascinating organisation! Expect more.
I am out of time for today. Talk to you later.
It is almost six months since I did my last history blog round-up! That's too long. For the moment, just a taste.
Over on History Today, The Best of History Today in 2011 provides free access to some of the best articles published over 2011. It's worth a browse.
They synopsis to The English Diet: Roast Beef and.... Salad? reads:
The English diet has been mythologised as one of roasted meats and few vegetables but, as Anita Guerrini concludes from a survey of early modern writings on the subject, the nation’s approach to food has been rather more complicated than that.
My first reaction was simply that theology had something to answer for. Then I thought, what's changed? Just substitute health for religion!
In Canada as in Australia, there is debate about the question when Canada became truly independent. In Constitutional meat in the blogs, Christopher Moore reports that:
Andrew Smith... is shocked and saddened by the lack of attention given in Canada to the 80th anniversary of the passage of the Statute of Westminster in 1931 as it "marked the effective end of Canada's subordination to Britain."
... But Janet Ajzenstat, almost simultaneously, puts forth 1848 as the significant moment that "sever[ed] the colonies' formal connection with the mother country." By that reading, the 1931 Statute would dwindle to a formality -- the Empire's belated recognition of what had transpired a century earlier.
I wonder how many Australians have even heard of the Statute of Westminster? I suspect that it - the question of independence - doesn't matter a great deal. It just evolved!
Over on the Resident Judge of Port Philip, Janine remembers Christmas' past in An Australian Christmas c.1963. I have written a little on this topic myself, for most Australians have similar types of memories. From an historians viewpoint, these types of memories are actually valuable raw material. I talked a little about this in Personal memories & the writing of history.
Over on my personal blog I have begun the process of digitising and publishing personal and family photos.This is partly self-indulgence, but history is never far from my writing. For those that are interested, I have created a new label, musings on photos past.
Belle's Casus Belle Époque is arguably not a history blog, but then again it is, at least in the way that I broadly define them. If you haven't yet come across Belle's blog, do have a browse. To my mind, this is a remarkably good blog.
Belle's most recent posts (here one, here two) review Brideshead Revisited. I watched the original series while I was back studying in Armidale in 1982 and became addicted, although it started to lose me towards the end.
From my own perspective as a sometimes historian, I am interested in the relationships between novels, novelists and history. I have never really liked Evelyn Waugh, but to my mind his life does reflect changing aspects of English life.
Livius' The History Blog continues to provide interesting material. From a purely local viewpoint, the most recent post Australian museum buys 1 holey dollar for $130,000 provides a useful summary of an early element in Australia's economic history.
I have barely scratched the surface today, yet I am already out of time! Maybe another dose tomorrow.
With my computer back, I have taken the pleasure of doing another history blog browse. Looking at the various blogs after a gap, dear it's hard for people to keep up regular posting!
On A Corner of tenth-Century Europe, Jonathon Jarrett's Iberia: your genes are riding up on one side looks at the evidence for genetic mixing in what is now modern Spain.
Does anybody know of a proper survey of DNA analysis carried out on Australia's Aboriginal peoples? I have tried web searches, but the on-line material is very fragmentary and hard to interpret for a total ignoramus like me. It's important from my viewpoint in setting a broader context for my writing on New England's Aboriginal peoples.
This rather wonderful photo from Mark's Clarence River Today photo blog is entitled Guru Nanak Gurdwara: Woolgoolga and shows the second Sikh temple at Woolgoolga, the temple on the hill.
I made passing reference to the history of the Sikh community at Woolgoolga in Sunday Essay - for Ramana: India and Australia. This is yet another thing that I have to follow up!
Turning to another ethnic group with New England connections, Sharon Brennan's The Tree of Me is a family history blog with many New England connections. I am going to do a proper review of Sharon's blog; for the moment I just wanted to note the German connection via the Scheef family.
While New England's population in European times was relatively homogeneous (British Isles) at a macro level, it becomes much more varied as you drop below this. I have a part completed note on the important German influences that I have to follow up.
Staying at the micro level, a post on my general New England blog, Memories from a Glenreagh past, contains a video providing a fascinating insight into the past life of that community.
Looking more broadly now, Archives Outside has had some interesting posts. I have already dealt with one in 23 things for archivists - a great intro to internet & tools. Another post, Uncovering Hidden Treasures – NRS4481 The Government Printing Office Collection, provides some fascinating insights into one collection of NSW Government photos. I spent several hours happily digging through some photos in the broader collection.
This photo carries the inscription "The ferry 'Helen' built c.1908. Used by the Sydney Harbour Trust as a cross-river ferry at Grafton."
Such an innocuous looking ferry. It was the withdrawal of this ferry from the Grafton run in 1915 that launched the first major twentieth century new state agitation in Northern NSW led by Earle Page.
Turning in a very different direction, I met Art Deco Buildings through another of my favourite blogs, Helen's ART and ARCHITECTURE, mainly. When I went to Albury a year or so back I noticed the art deco buildings. You will see what I mean if you look at Albury Delightfully Deco Exhibition, T&G Building, Albury and a A House in Albury.
Architecture remains a real gap in my historical knowledge base. I used architecture as an example in my short post Themes vs topics in history. There my focus was on squatting as a theme, the houses the squatters built a topic. I am not especially conscious of art deco in New England as compared to the Victorian period.
Changing countries, in A book so interesting Mary Stokes reviews a history of Hudson Bay Company map making. I haven't read the book, but it sounds interesting for the HBC was THE dominant map maker for one period of the history of what is now Canada. Maps, such simple things, but also symbols of ownership and indeed conquest. Further, the simple map with its firm lines has actually conditioned modern thinking in ways we don't always recognise.
That's just five blogs, but I am out of time for today.
I was in the process of preparing another round up of history blogs when I came across this one via Archives Outside. It seemed to warrant an entry in its own right.
23 Things for Archivists provides a structured and very useful intro to the web and associated 2.0 tools. Even if you know this stuff, I think that you will still find it an interesting refresher.
It's been over three months since my last history blog round-up! Today, I want to focus on Australian history blogs.
Springwood Historians is a new blog focusing on the local history of Springwood in the Blue Mountains. These local history blogs are very important because they give people like me a base to build from in writing broader histories.
Gordon Smith's Old News from Armidale & New England continues to provide sometimes random excerpts from old newspapers. I love the serendipity of it all. His Impersonation at Exam provides a 1943 example of alleged exam cheating that made the courts. His Death Of Mr. E. C. Sommerlad records the death of a New England pressman who had national reach.
ART and ARCHITECTURE, mainly continues to record details of the visual past. I remain of the view that this is one of Australia's best history blogs. It doesn't always deal just with Australia, and that's one of its strengths.
Looking up — Sydney's history from a new angle is a new blog from the Dictionary of Sydney. Its very good and well worth a visit. However, here I want to express a gripe.
On pure population ratio terms, the history of the area that I write about, Northern NSW or the broader New England, should get a third of the money going to support Sydney history. It doesn't. It would be lucky to get 5%. This actually distorts the writing of history.
I found the new Sydney blog through Archives Outside's April link roundup post. this, too, is worth a read.
In How I work with my material- Access, the Resident Judge of Port Phillip deals with the question of how to order research material. I must admit to feeling a sense of helplessness here. As an independent researcher, I neither know nor have access to the type of things she is talking about.
In The deployment of Allied land forces in 1942, Nigel Davies responds to criticisms about his analysis of the deployment of Allied Divisions in 1942.
I read this post quite carefully because I think that Nigel's argument is important. Essentially, he argues two things. First, you have to get your statistics right. Secondly, in making judgements you have to look at the overall flow of the war. What might happen is really more important than what did happen in considering deployments.
Why do I say that this post of Nigel's is important? Surely his arguments are self-evident? Not so.
Here in Australia we have a very strong tendency to focus just on Australia, not Australia's position in what was a global conflict. This actually distorts judgements.
Further, war is about what ifs. What if the Germans had deployed resources south and east instead of getting sucked into street fighting in Russia? If they had seized Middle East oil supplies then the outcome of the war could well have been different. British planning had to take this into account.
All for now.
I continue to enjoy Christopher Moore's History News. This time he led me to a new (new to me) history blog, Jonathan Jarrett's A Corner of Tenth-Century Europe, Early medievalist's thoughts and ponderings.
This is a really enjoyable blog whose posts come complete with footnotes. Those of us interested in history are very lucky indeed with the range and depth of history blogs. I learn new things all the time.
I have often mentioned Archives Outside on this blog. Archives Outside is the State Records NSW blog.
On 20 January in What can we do you for?, we were asked what we would like to see on the blog over 2011. I responded with a comment, leading to a follow-up. I decided instead of commenting further to do a full post free of the limitations imposed by the comment space.
The Comments Thread
In my first comment, I suggested:
I would like to see:
1. More information on particular records systems. For example, a description of cabinet records. I found them very fragmentary.
2. More Hunter Valley & North Coast material. That would help me in the writing I am now doing.I would be happy to do a guest post from time to time. I have a fair collection of material, some of which would be of broader interest.
Melissa was the next to comment:
Thanks for providing us with the opportunity to comment.
I have really enjoyed the ‘Can You Date’ series both on this site and the flickr account. I would like to see heaps more photos made available and, like Jim, I would be particularly interested in photos from the Hunter Valley & North Coast of NSW.
In terms of other items, I would be really interested in a couple of posts from Archives staff describing what they do (like a ‘day in the life of …’) and the techniques they use in accessing and storing records. Perhaps even an account of how changes in technology have impacted upon archival work.
Anyway, keep up the great work!
Fiona Sullivan then responded with two comments. First:
Thanks for the feedback Jim, it is much appreciated!
1. When you ask for more information about records systems do you mean information about how different types of systems worked (e.g. top file numbering systems) or information about the records of a particular agency and why there are gaps etc. ?
We would love to have you as a guest poster, if you would like to discuss this you can either use the “contact us” form on the blog or email us directly. Most staff members at State Records can be reached using the following formula for email addresses: firstname.lastname@records.nsw.gov.au
We will definitely take on board your request for more Hunter Valley/North coast material. It is such a rich area for NSW history it would be a shame not to feature it more.
And then:
Melissa, thanks so much for taking the time to let us know what you are interested in seeing on the blog.
Making more photographs available is definitely a long term goal for State Records. With the celebrations of State Records 50th Anniversary our crack digitisation team are much in demand at the moment. The good news is that this will give us the opportunity to feature some of the gems held in collections of the members of our Regional Repository network. A number of them been embarking on digitisation programs of their own and the results are stunning.
Your request for more posts from staff about their jobs and “A Day in the life of” is a great one and mirrors some of the offline feedback we received. This is something that we have been talking about amongst ourselves as well. We are lucky to have access to a lot of expertise here, however, one of our biggest challenges has been that the people with that expertise are very busy and don’t have the time to contribute. We think we’ve come up with a fun way to get around that so stay tuned!
Bill Oates finished the comments stream with this comment:
The UNE and Regional Archives does have a couple of good collections of North Coast photographs. Whatever we have is only a fraction of the wonderful glass plate collection held by Kempsey. We will provide State Records with a choice of our material as well as responding to any specific research requests.
I know that there will be more comments, NSW has been in the holiday period, but wanted to respond now with a much more detailed response than can be accommodated in a normal comment. Because this is a personal response, I am going to add some personal material that will explain some of the axes I am grinding away at.
NSW Cabinet (and other) records
I joined the Commonwealth Public Service all those years ago as an Administrative Trainee with the Public Service Board. At the end of my training year I went to Treasury. That department had a records system stretching back to Federation.
I used the older files quite often. For example, one of the things that I was working on was farm reconstruction. Another, the Department of Primary Industry estimates. I found myself accessing files back to 1933 to gather evidence.
In the 1970s I enrolled in a PhD. My thesis was a biography of my grandfather, a leading Country Party politician, the longest serving NSW Minister for Education and a key founder of the University of New England. I submitted in 1983. The thesis examination process dissolved into a fight among the examiners. The two senior examiners liked it, the third did a hatchet job. It then went to an adjudicator who came down against me on a completely different set of arguments. It was eighteen months before I got advice that simply said rewrite, taking everybody's views into account. I finally walked away from the whole thing.
Before going on, I have finally brought the thesis minus introduction on-line. You will find it here. If you read it, remember that it was submitted some 28 years ago. I think that it still stacks-up, but it contains elements that I now know to be wrong.
In criticising my thesis, the adjudicator said first that there was a danger of David Drummond being of insufficient importance to warrant a PhD thesis. Leaving aside problems with what used to be known as big men in history, this is an odd comment about a man who was both a leading political figure and, to quote a later writer, the leading Australian education minister of the first half of the twentieth century.
The adjudicator also criticised the thesis on the grounds of my failure to adequately consult NSW records. This criticism really stung. I had spent weeks in the State Archives. It is this element that I want to address.
The Drummond family papers in the UNE Archives contain his ministerial letter books. An activist minister, Drummond kept a copy of every memo and direction he sent to his Department over the twelve years he was minister. This is a real treasure trove of a period of key change, a trove that I suspect is still little known.
When I went into the State Archives I had read all this material, all of Drummond's personal papers, as well as a range of other primary and secondary material. I also went into the Archives knowing the Commonwealth records system.
The first thing that I looked at were the Cabinet records. I focused on Cabinet as a key decision making body. I struggled because the records were so fragmentary, so unlike the Commonwealth records I knew.
I then looked at the early Child Welfare and Public Instruction/Education Department records. I could find almost nothing on the State Children's Relief Board, while Education records were dominated by individual school boxes. I sampled a hundred or so to check issues, but learned very little.
At the time there were very few finding aids. More Importantly, there was nothing about the history of records. How did Cabinet work? How were records kept?
This is basic stuff. If you don't know how records were kept, what is there, it is very hard to access. A simple list of series, of what is there, is not enough. It is very hard to make a judgement of what to look at and where. I wanted to know how record keeping systems actually worked. Then I could make a judgement as to what I might find, where to look.
I know that NSW Records have changed over the last twenty years. Now there is a new variable.
Time constrained, working from home without access to the normal academic resources, I struggle to research and write. I know that I should go into the NSW Archives, I really must do so, but time is an issue.
To help me, what I would really like is history of the individual records systems. How did NSW Cabinet work? How were Cabinet records kept? Where do I find them? And so it goes for other records series. The material may now be there, but I need to be told.
New England Focus
Those who read this blog will know that I am writing a history of the broader New State New England. They may not realise how history affects records and the presentation of those records.
The University of New England was founded to be the Sydney University of the North. When it began, it collected material from the broader New England.
In 1967, the New State plebiscite was lost and the New State Movement collapsed. This affected both the way records were kept and presented. As a simple example, UNE''s local history collection, the best regional history collection in Australia, narrowed its focus to cut out some areas, focusing especially on inland New England. From my viewpoint as an historian, this was something of a disaster. Areas such as the North Coast diminished from view.
I must emphasise that this is not a criticism of UNE archivist Bill Oates who does a remarkable job. Rather, it is a simple statement that UNE's contracting focus meant that there was nothing left to bridge the gap between the narrowly local or regional and the state level.
The North Coast suffered most in this contraction. It actually vanished from the historical radar. This may sound extreme, but I do try to monitor this stuff quite closely.
There are so many broader New England and especially North Coast stories that are now just unknown. I cannot rebuild the broader New England memory of its past on my own, although I try. The Robinson family, New England Airways, steam navigation on the coast, Nimbin and counter culture, all are being lost. They remain as fragments, isolated memories diminishing on a sea of time, footnotes in the broader Australian story.
You see why I want more Hunter and North Coast photos?
With a photo, I can link a story, something that tells New Englanders a little about their past.
Conclusion
I accept that I mainly write about a slice of NSW. However, I think that the points are valid ones. I would like to see Archives Outside continue to develop as a living link between our present and past.
What do you think? What would you like to see covered?
Just over a month since my last round-up.
Mike Dash, the winner of the 2010 Cliopatria award for best history post with his "The Emperor's Electric Chair", has established a new blog, A Blast from the Past. Mike writes remarkably good well researched posts. A Russian prince on a Wichita road gang deals with a remarkable Hollywood figure, while The Shogun’s reluctant ambassadors provides interesting insights into the closed world of Shogunate Japan. Both posts are worth a read.
It is absolutely impossible to keep up with the full range of historical research and writing. I find that I can do no more than browse, noting things that interest me with the thought that some day I might check. In doing so, I find views from other countries helpful.
Much of my historical work necessarily centres on New England. Some balance to this is provided by my general writing since this often has an historical component that takes me in many directions. Even so, I find it easy to get trapped in a very Australianist position.
The US Legal History Blog continues to be a useful corrective because of the range of topics covered. I may never read the books referred too, but at least I get a feel for issues. In Nineteenth-Century International Law: Becker Lorca, Oszu, and Gozzi in the Harvard ILJ, for example, Clara Altman looks at a discussion on the evolution of international law. Did it become universal through a unilateral process of European expansion or, alternatively, did international law became universal during the nineteenth century as semi-peripheral jurists appropriated and reinterpreted international law to include non-Western sovereigns?
I do wonder, though, just what is meant by international law in this context.
There have been a couple of recent posts on Christopher Moore's History News that I wanted to mention in passing.
In Three things about Marcel Trudel (1917-2011), Christopher reports on the death of the leading historian on New France. He says in part:
Trudel responded to hagiographical history with an absolute commitment to data, to evidence-based statements. He had no elaborate theoretical or methodological technique; he just wanted to know every fact and to set them all down in endless encyclopedic detail. That is not the only way to practise history and probably not often the best, but it was almost revolutionary in its day and did lay down an enormous evidentiary foundation for the history of early Canada.
Quite a bit of my own historical writing attempts to define patterns and relationships. All this type of work has to build from and be checked by facts. The very, very, detailed analysis of the type apparently done by Marcel Trudel is actually quite critical.
Controversies real and invented provides an introduction to one current round in what appears to be the continuing North American history wars. There are Australian equivalents. Speaking personally, I just don't want to play in this sandpit. Life's too short!
Turning to Australia, I thought that The Resident Judge of Port Phillip's ‘Dublin Tenement Life: An Oral History’ by Kevin C. Kearns was a pretty good review. She summarises the book this way:
If I had to think up a pithy title for this book, I think I’d call it “Angela’s Ashes: The Documentary”. It’s all here: the feckless father, the bedraggled and burdened mother, the dead babies, the supercilious priests and nuns, the sheep’s head stew and the overflowing toilet. And the power of this book is that it’s here again, and again, and again, and again. In his lengthy introductory chapters, the author comments that the sainted-mother-who-held-the-family-together is a stereotype, and yet when you encounter her so often, it is insensitive to dismiss her as just a sentimental trope.
At a personal level, I am not a good observer of Irish history. I am simply not sympathetic enough, too conscious of the way that Irish history plays out in the Australian present. I avoid writing on Irish history unless absolutely necessary. Still, and as often happens when you have to address facts, I have a higher degree of sympathy than I did a few years ago.
I did laugh at the Angela's Ashes reference. Some years ago, I gave the book to an aunt as a present. I had looked at it, but not read it. In response, she insisted I read it. Bottom line: worst present ever!
Narrowing the focus again, I did love this photo from Archives Outside. Man and horse drinking!
I am looking forward to 2011 posts from this blog.
I am still bogged down writing the next piece in my social change series. In the meantime, another round-up from some of the history blogs I read,
Starting with two new blogs. Legal History Blog is a US group blog focusing on scholarship, news and new ideas in legal history. Vicky Woeste's post Deja vu all over again really caught my eye. Vicky is going through the trails and tribulations of checking footnoted before publication. I really shuddered on this one. Hat tip to Christopher Moore for the lead.
Adam Rubinstein is writing a book of poems about his hometown of Wellesley, Massachusetts. "I'm writing it", he wrote, "to explain my town's strange disinterest in its own history, mostly to myself. It's sort of becoming a novel." To do this, he centres his writing on slices of the town's past. His blog, the Dredge Cycle, describes the process, but also deals with different aspects of the history.
In Embrace the political, Christopher Moore reports on a controversy involving the still to be completed Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Here I quote from a column by Dan Lett in the Winnipeg Free Press.
Last week, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress expressed outrage that the Holodomor, the forced starvation of millions of Ukrainians by Russia in the early 1930s, will not be given permanent exhibition status in the museum. In a report delivered to Ottawa last week, the UCC demanded the Holodomor be given "coverage" equal to the Holocaust, the slaughter of six million Jews and millions of others by Nazi Germany, which will have a permanent exhibition.
Although it made news just last week, this is a fight Ukrainians have been waging for decades. Ukrainians all over the world have protested the fact the Holocaust has a higher profile than the Holodomor, that it is the subject of more memorials, museums, study centres, and even films. Many Ukrainians believe the aggrandizing of the Holocaust has marginalized the Holodomor and dishonoured its victims.
Christopher's post is worth reading in full. He concludes:
How do we, as historians, and as citizens, measure historical evil and victimhood? Is the perception of the holocaust as the ultimate historical evil in the mind of much of the Western World the product of inherited guilt and/or superior organization, commitment, historical consciousness on the part of the Jewish diaspora, or is there some additional degree of evil inherent in the intentionality of genocide by the Nazis which transcends any quantitative measurement of lives lost and terror and suffering undergone?
There is, of course no definitive answer. I tend to favour the latter explanation, but it is a question that cannot be dodged, and should not be dodged. Yes, this is presentism. Or maybe the reverse: pastism. Everything is present, and everything is political (in the largest sense of the word.) As William Faulkner put it, in my fave quotation about history :"The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past."
Communities exist in time. They are backward looking and forward looking. The debate is nasty, because people care. A lot. And if they didn't, there would be no debate to advance
Presentism is defined as an attitude toward the past dominated by present-day attitudes and experiences.
I find that I profoundly disagree with Christopher's conclusion, or at least the way I interpret that conclusion. The reasons why will have to wait for another post; after all, this is a blog round-up.
On rethinking history, Nigel Davies' has a remarkably good post, Uses and Abuses of Wikipedia.
I use Wikipedia all the time. I am well aware of the weaknesses. However to say to students, as schools and universities do, that they cannot use Wikipedia to write essays is, to my mind, corrupting censorship.
I say corrupting because students will in fact do so, and indeed I advised eldest to do so in one of her economics essays. Why? Well, on the topic she was working on, the best and quickest way to get an initial feel for the issues was a Wikipedia tour. This then gives rise to an intellectual dishonesty if you cannot acknowledge the source.
I especially liked Nigel's comments on the War of 1812 since I had written something similar. Remarkable how often we like things that we agree with!
A Fortean in the Archives continues to have some quite wonderful posts, posts that make me realise what a rank amateur I am. Here I will mention just two recent ones.
Tracking the trends via Google’s New Book Database introduces a new tool, one that I had not caught up with but now need to play with. The immediately preceding post, Truth, beauty and Pancho Villa, provides fascinating early picture of the role of what we now call the media in war. I quote:
So… Understanding the Mexican Revolution means realising that it was an unusually early example of a 20th century “media war”: a conflict in which the opposing generals duked it out not only on the battlefield, but also in the newspapers and in cinema scenarios. At stake, in this particular instance, were the hearts and minds of the government and people of the United States – who could, if they so wished, intervene decisively on behalf of one side or the other.
On The Resident Judge of Port Philip, Janine Rizzetti records the death of her mother. My thoughts are with her.
Helen Webberley's Art and Architecture mainly has introduced me to an entire new resource, Colonial Film: moving images of the British Empire. The coverage is still patchy, while you cannot access films directly. Still, the historical notes are interesting.
No matter how much history one knows, there is always more to know. My knowledge of the chaotic history of Northern Europe and Scandinavia during the First World War and the immediate period afterwards is very limited. I know very little of the history of Finland, for example.
To get a taste of the chaos, on History and Futility see Jussi Jalonen's story of the Finnish soldier of fortune Kaarlo Kurko. The latest post is Kaarlo Kurko; the victory, the downfall and the aftermath. You can follow the earlier posts back from there.
A bit over two months since my last round-up of history blogs.
Point and counter-point in history has already recorded my reaction to two of Janine Rizzeti's latest posts. This is a very good blog for those interested in Australian history, with references too to Canada,
Hat tip to North Coast Voices for identifying a new history blog for me, Yvonne Perkins' Stumbling Through the Past. There were always people here: a history of Yuraygir National Park reports on a new history of this park on the North Coast written by Johanna Kijas and published by the New South Wales Department of Environment and Climate Change. This is an area I have a particular interest in. Sadly, the link to the history itself is down as I write. Hopefully, it will be back up soon.
Archives Outside continues to provide access to a range of interesting material. Each month they have a link round up post, last month October 2010: Link roundup post, providing links to a range of historical and/or archival material. This includes New England material. Their tag system is not quite as good as it should be, but you can access New England material here and here. Note that their definition of New England is narrower than mine; I use the broader definition of new state New England.
On the new state, a post I wrote here, When was the New England rampant lion first raised?, led to a radio interview on New England North West ABC local radio. This led to a follow up post of mine on another blog, Is the New England lion Finnish?. This includes a link through to the page ABC New England North West created following the interview; an mp3 recording of the interview can be found there.
I suspect that very few, if any, of my history round-up posts have not contained a reference to Helen Webberley's ART and ARCHITECTURE mainly. Seriously, this is a very good blog indeed. Take, as an example, An extraordinary war heroine: Irena Sendler. This is a remarkably inspirational post about a woman I had never heard of.
A Fortean in the Archives is sub-titled Strange stories. But with sources. Strange they are. From Mike Dash's Erotic secrets of Lord Byron’s tomb I learned that embalming fluid expands the size of the penis! More seriously, the post draws out something of a man who continues to occupy a legendary place in history.
The 2010 Cliopatria awards are now open for nominations. There are a number of categories, with the winners to be announced at the American Historical Association Annual Meeting in early January 2011.
The global standard in history blogs in is very high. To see what I mean, have a look at Rachel Leow's Curating the Oceans: The Future of Singapore’s Past, the best individual blog post of 2009. This is very good writing indeed. I was already following Rachel's blog. Sadly, she has not updated it since February of this year. Rachel, I miss you!
I would like to think that some of the Australian blogs might feature in the future. However and speaking just for myself, I have got some distance to go before I would lodge a personal nomination.
Well, I am out of time. More later.
In the limited work I have done on New England's Aboriginal languages, I find that I have to continually and consciously avoid the trap of thinking of languages as though they were a single identity, English is English, German is German, Anaiwan is Anaiwan. This way of thinking is a modern construct.
A review in the Economist of Ruth H Sanders' German: Biography of a Language (Oxford University Press) is a good reminder. German as German is quite recent. The language was in fact something of a soup, a container of very different languages.
In Melbourne Day? 30 August, the Resident Judge of Port Philip looks at various attempts by Melbournians to establish a a day to celebrate the city. Now, apparently, they have settled on 30 August as Melbourne Day. Apparently Separation Day on 1 July to celebrate the separation of Victoria from New South Wales in 1851 was Victoria’s first day of commemoration, but it faded away quickly in the face of the gold rushes.
If and when New England gets self-government, I imagine that this day would be more popular as a state celebration. After all, we have been trying for so long. It is now over 150 years since the first attempt to carve out part of Northern NSW into a new colony, 95 years since the first twentieth century outbreak of separatist agitation at Grafton, 43 years since the defeat of the New England new state plebiscite. And here we are still trying!
I guess that this makes us the oldest political movement in Australia! Sure boundaries have changed, as has the concept of the North. The name New England to describe the whole area is quite recent, only 79 years! I am not sure what I make of all this, but it is interesting.
CLIOPATRIA: A Group Blog remains an useful and indeed entertaining source of information on things historical. It posts daily links to matters of interest. As one example, Brett Holman's Elsewhere: Post-blogging 1940 looks at various attempts to live blog aspects of the second world war.
On Gordon Smith's Old news from Armidale and New England, Horrible murder at Hillgrove Mines restarts the presses on a pretty gruesome 1888 murder case. It's interesting watching the trivia, and sometimes not so trivia, of past local news roll across the screen. It's actually not a bad way of getting a feel for the past. I quote:
While a party of men were out opossum shooting on Thursday night (26th January) they discovered the dead body of a man. The corpse was found in a very peculiar place. The man’s throat was cut from ear to ear, and his skull battered in. The sight was a most ghastly one. The body had on blucher boots, half worn out; colonial tweed trousers; regatta, or print, shirt; flannel drawers and under-shirt ; diagonal coat. He was apparently an aged man – over 50 years old.
I suppose the thing that struck me most here was the fact that he was an aged man - over 50! Made me feel ancient. Then, too, I wondered about the description of the clothing. I don't actually know what blucher boots are. I must look it up.
Finally, Australian Policy and History has some interesting new articles. I am not going to comment on them here, however, because I want to pick up several in another context.
Time for another history blog roundup. I always enjoy them.
I continue to enjoy Helen Webberley's ART and ARCHITECTURE, mainly. Her most recent post, Adolf Eichmann trial: 1960-2010, brought some personal memories flooding back.
All those years ago when when I became an Administrative Trainee with the Commonwealth Public Service Board, our year long training program included a substantial ethics component. Whereas modern ethics training really focuses on questions of rules and probity, our course looked at the relations between the individual public servant and the state. What should you do if you personal values clashed with your official duties?
Eichmann was taken as a case study. In many ways he was a quintessential public servant. His job was to exterminate Jews. As a loyal servant of the state, he did this as efficiently and effectively as possible. Yet what he did was clearly wrong.
It's interesting in a broader historical sense to look at at the way in which circumstances constrain and condition individual actions.
In her post Travel posters: Harwich to Hook 1930s-50s Helen looked at some European travel posters. You can find some Australian equivalents in the Australian National Library exhibition Follow The Sun: Australian Travel Posters 1930-1950s.
This graphic shows a Sydney tourism poster from the 1940s by painter Julian Ashton. You can see how concepts of geography continue to dominate pictures of Sydney.
As I did last year, Janine Rizzetti has discovered the history of Canada. See, for example, "Upper Canada: The Formative Years’ by Gerald M Craig and The Lion, the Eagle and Upper Canada’ by Jane Errington.
I explored my own reactions to my discovery of the history of Canada in a number of posts on my personal blog:
I found the history of Canada interesting not just because of its length and complexity as compared to Australia, but also because it is the history of another country set in the context of Empire and Commonwealth. That imperial connection worked itself out in different ways not just because Canada was different, but because things happened at different times. The Empire wasn't static, so Australia in some ways actually received the benefit of later experience.
In another of Janine's posts, ‘Inventing Australia’ by Richard White, she reviews White's 1981 book. This is quite an important book that I read with interest at the time it was first published. His point about the Imperial influence is important. However, my problem with books of this type is that, as a regional historian, I am interested in the way the various forces involved play out on the ground. I am more interested on what my own subjects thought and felt; attempts to create broader national synthesis are only interesting to the degree they are relevant at local or regional level.
On Australian Policy & History, Tony Joel from the School of History, Heritage and Society at Deakin University had a rather disturbing article, Australia's New National Curriculum and the Future of History. My own comments in this area have focused on what I see as the weaknesses in the curriculum. Joel's point is a broader one: no matter what the curriculum may say about history as a key learning area, it's going to fail if there no teachers to teach it.
So old am I that I actually went to school when history was a core part of the curriculum with specialist teachers in Ancient and Modern. I gained my love of history there. How have the mighty fallen!
In writing this post, I have been struggling with a very intermittent wireless connection. It's frustrating in the extreme spending many minutes waiting to see if my connection is going to work. I mean many minutes: in the last three hours the connection has been live for barely thirty minutes. For that reason, I am going to finish this post here and then upload in the brief connection windows I am presently being given.
Christopher Moore's History News pointed me to a new site, History of Canada On-line. I would love to have the time and money to do something equivalent for New England history.
Staying with Canadian history, Barbara Martin's My Town Monday - Samuel B Steele - Twenty Miles For A Drink continues the story of Samuel Steele. You can follow the full story through via the links at the bottom of this post. Now that I have become involved with Canadian history, I remain amazed at the differences from Australia.
The Heritage Futures Research Centre at the University of New England has kindly included my blogs including this one on it's membership page.
Over on the New England Australia blog I have continued to run a range of stories on New England issues, many of which have a history component. One thing that has been fun is that the new interest in New England self-government has also increased the interest in New England history.
Geoff Robinson's Labor, Communism and the Accord discusses (in part) the role of the Communist Party in Labor/left-wing politics. On a different topic and in another country, Backroads continues its irregular exploration of the history of New Zealand's Northland. Staying in New Zealand, Timespanner continues its journey through Avondale, Auckland and NZ history.
This month's History Carnival is hosted on Jonathon Dressner's World History. As you might expect, there is again a wide variety of posts. Of all the posts, I was especially struck by The Emperor’s electric chair. It really is worth a browse.
All for now.
Will Owen's Aboriginal Art & Culture: an American Eye focuses on art, but also provides a wealth of information from time to time on Australian Aboriginal history. Will's blog led me to an article in Insight by Dean Ashenden, The strange career of the Australian conscience. This traces the relationships between anthropologists Baldwin Spencer and Frank Gillen, with a special focus on the writing of the Native Tribes of Central Australia.
One of the things that I find difficult looking at the history of the Aborigines is the vast gap in comprehension in the European mind about things Aboriginal. To my mind, the reaction to that incomprehension and the things that flowed from it have further twisted our understanding of Aboriginal Australia. I am not immune to this. Instead of researching and writing what was, I find myself shaking my head and saying, you can't have believed that!
A new set of articles is out on Australian Policy and History, providing some good reading. APH is always looking for new articles. The guidelines read:
Guidelines to submitting an article
We are looking for two kinds of articles for Australian Policy & History: short opinion-style pieces; and longer, more traditional style academic papers. Both are to be written in clear, concise text appropriate for a non-academic audience. The emphasis should be on policy relevance, with a clear focus on what can be learned from history for policy makers.
1. For opinion pieces, these can be between 500-1000 words written in a newspaper-style that is short, sharp, engaging and to the point.
2. For APH papers, we would like the following:-
- Between 2,000 — 4,000 words
- Short succinct paragraphs with sub-headings if necessary
- No footnotes but a short reading list at the end
- An executive summary [or abstract] at the beginning of the article explaining the major points [using bullet points]
There is a content review process, but this is far simpler than the journals.
Archives Outside has consolidated all the tips it received on dating photos into a single table. This is a very valuable document. You will find it here.
Staying with Archives Outside, 2010 marks 200 hundred years since Lachlan Macquarie became Governor of the colony of NSW. This story on the celebrations actually ran some time ago, but I am including it because it contains links to evolving digital display created by NSW State Records.
My thanks to Christopher Moore's History News for this one. Historypin is a new site developed in conjunction with Google that aims to allow people to pin photos and stories. Say there is a modern scene: then people can attach past photos of that scene with stories. I'm not sure how this will work in practice,
Like most web 2.0 applications, time is required to see if it will work. So far, there is nothing posted from the areas that I am most interested in.
Staying with Christopher Moore, since my visit to Canada last year I have become very interested in Canadian history. As I usually do, I bought some histories and then wrote some posts. Without realising it, I wrote something drawing from Christopher's work and he responded with a positive comment. So I started following his blog.
Canada is just so different from Australia, yet also familiar because Empire and Commonwealth provided a common framework for both countries. For a number of reasons, Australia has truncated its past, putting Imperial linkages into a them and us class. Yet you cannot understand Australian history without understanding the British and Imperial past.
To see what I mean by differences, have a look at a site identified by Chris, Mike Green's history of the Canadian Confederation. The length and complexity of Canadian history is far greater than that of Australia. Yet the evolution of Canada played out, as it did in Australia, within a frame set by Imperial policy. I suspect that Australia as it is today actually depends in part upon the story of British North America. But who in Australia would know?
Finishing on a different note, a little while ago I went down to Bathurst to watch Clare (youngest) play hockey. Driving and walking around Bathurst, I was struck by the architecture. Does anybody know of blogs that deal with the history of Australian architecture beyond ART and ARCHITECTURE, mainly?
Another of my regular reports on the history sites I follow.
Janine Rizzetti had two interesting posts relevant to New England history.
The first is a review, 'Aborigines and Colonists’ of R H W Reece's 1974 book, Aborigines and Colonists: Aborigines and Colonial Society in New South Wales in the 1830s and 1840s. There Janine makes some comments on Aboriginal historiography. I dealt with this a little so far as New England is concerned in one part of Unrecognised and now almost unknown: explorations through the history of the broader New England[1.].
Research and writing on Aboriginal prehistory and history began quite early at the University of New England. One thing that I should do but haven't is the preparation of a simple chronological list of theses and publications on the Aborigines linked in some way to New England. My feeling is that this would draw out the pattern in the rise and to some degree fall in interest in this area. It would also better delineate the New England contribution.
Janine's second post, Hunters and Collectors’ by Tom Griffiths, deals with one thread in Australian thought, the tensions between two groups of people in relation to history: Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians, and amateurs and professionals. Similar issues arise in New England. Janine also makes an interesting observation on the past prevalence of history and nature themes in primary school.
Australian Policy and History Web Site, a post on my personal blog, discusses the creation of a new history we site part sponsored by the Heritage Futures Research Centre at the University of New England. I am an adjunct of the HFRC, and wish the new site well.
Culture Matters is an anthropology rather than history blog. However, not only do the two disciplines share some common methodological problems, but anthropology and the writing of anthropologists is an important source of information for historians.
Greg Downey's Academic professionalization workshop for grad students and more is not about anthropology as such, but provides useful hints for those applying for academic jobs.
On Archives Outside, Christine Shergold's Staff Picks [1870 Convict records disposal schedule] deals with the disposal of early convict records. I found it interesting, because this is an area I know very little about. I have never had to dig into the early convict records. Because of the nature of my interests, I generally rely on secondary sources.
The 88th History Carnival has a musical focus, but is also a reminder of the range of historical interests, as well as some of the quality of historical blogging. You can also listen to the music.
More next week.
I see that the University of New England's Heritage Futures Research Centre has finally updated its web site!
The Centre was founded in 2001 to consolidate the University's range of expertise and research relating to the natural and cultural history and heritage of regional Australia, and to facilitate the sharing of values, information and expertise among scholars, professionals and the broader community.
The Centre has a strong multidisciplinary focus, something that I as a Centre adjunct value greatly. After all, when I write I am never sure whether or not I am writing as a historian, an economist or as a policy or management adviser!
