As I confront my own puzzled sense of national identity, I have reached for the best way of explaining my own people, and people in general, and that’s history. So this book may be about all the kings and queens who ruled England – and it’s mainly kings, the olden days being, among many many many other flaws, extremely sexist – but it’s not really about the past. It’s about history. History the school subject, the hobby, the atmosphere, the wonky drawings of kings, the grist to heritage’s mill-that’s-been-converted-into-a-café, the sense of identity.
History is a very contemporary thing – it’s ours to think about, manipulate, use to win arguments or to justify patriotism, nationalism or group self-loathing, according to taste. In contrast, the past is unknowable. It’s as complicated as the present. It’s an infinity of former nows all as unfathomable as this one. That’s why historians end up specializing in tiny bits of it.
For England, in particular, history is about who we collectively are and how we feel about it. It’s one of the attempted answers to the great human question: what the hell is going on? Most animals don’t ask that question, which is why you can put a massive Ikea next to a field of sheep and they just keep on grazing. Not even twenty minutes of bleats and gestures and questioning looks, they’re just not interested. But a vast amount of human endeavour is an attempt to answer it in different ways: all the sciences and all the humanities. Microscopes, philosophies, expeditions, religions and poems are all having a go.
History is a very contemporary thing – it’s ours to think about, manipulate, use to win arguments or to justify patriotism, nationalism or group self-loathing, according to taste. In contrast, the past is unknowable. It’s as complicated as the present. It’s an infinity of former nows all as unfathomable as this one. That’s why historians end up specializing in tiny bits of it.
For England, in particular, history is about who we collectively are and how we feel about it. It’s one of the attempted answers to the great human question: what the hell is going on? Most animals don’t ask that question, which is why you can put a massive Ikea next to a field of sheep and they just keep on grazing. Not even twenty minutes of bleats and gestures and questioning looks, they’re just not interested. But a vast amount of human endeavour is an attempt to answer it in different ways: all the sciences and all the humanities. Microscopes, philosophies, expeditions, religions and poems are all having a go.
