A short history?

Is it possible to write a short history of England? Isn't history, by its very nature, really quite long? Or, is it possible to write a short history of England, and for it to be any good?

Simon Jenkins, in reaction against the disconnected history we learn at school, which seems to imply that Henry VIII was followed by Hitler with very little in between, was challenged by his publisher to write a History of England in 55,000 words. Which might sound a lot, but that’s only five and a half undergraduate dissertations, which really isn’t much at all.

At Ilkley Literature Festival on Friday, Jenkins did a very interesting 45 minute talk on his book, a whistle stop tour of English history from 410 and the departure of the Romans, when Jenkins believes England (as opposed to Britain) was really born, to the current coalition government. Before I start to criticise, I must say that I truly believe that there is a real place for simply telling the story of history, for people to know their country’s background and how we came to be where we are today. There’s also great fun in the traditional tales of heroes and villains, good kings and bad kings, Alfred burning the cakes and James hiding up the Oak Tree.

BUT. All history is interpreted by the historian. English history is made up of infinite, related, vastly different stories. And when one man stands up and says ‘this is how it was’, that is very misleading, and quite frankly, not true. Jenkins did, in the question and answer session at the end, acknowledge that when trying to tell such a huge story (or as I see it, collection of interwoven stories) in such a ridiculously short space of time, it is going to become generalised and uncritical. So why do we try and do it? I would argue that there are two types of history, popular and academic. Popular history often still implies that their version of history is ‘how it really was’, while academic history is constantly justifying its conclusions, comparing differing interpretations, and accepting that even primary sources written at the same time about the same event can tell us very different things. The best history writing (or television, or museum exhibition) integrates the two, taking the most academic scholarship into account whilst giving clear, interesting, fun information about the past. And most importantly, it acknowledges that everything we know now about the past is interpreted through both the sources we use and our own modern eyes.

As some comedian (who’s name escapes me) said on the telly last night, all archaeologists really know about the past is that it was full of skeletons who lived underground. The rest is made up. I wouldn’t go quite that far, but he’s got the right idea!