[Closed] Historical popularity

I forget the exact phrase/quote but its something along the lines of "only the winners of wars get to write history"..

The other sides of the stories are 'disappeared' or changed for obvious reasons

Define what you mean by 'far more impact'.

Henry VIII had a pretty profound effect.

Hi Muddydwarf - interesting topic but I am not sure that I agree with you about certain periods being ignored. I think if you name any period then people will be able to name fairly mainstream programs that cover it.

Which specific periods were you thinking of? - see if you can stump the hive 🙂

We do get larger than life characters who come to define certain periods though. Almost as if they personify something about them in our minds.

Henry VIII had a pretty profound effect.

The Reformation is certainly one of the most defining event, if not the most, in our country's history - plus he had six wifes and TV does like any excuse for a sex scene.

Henry VIII & the general Tudor period is perennially popular as many tv programmes show, yet other historical periods in our history that have had far more impact on us today are generally unknown by many.

Such as..?

Which specific periods were you thinking of? - see if you can stump the hive

Ethelred the Unready

Last Wednesday. I have not seen many drama series about last Wednesday.

I have not seen many drama series about last Wednesday.

I saw one, I think it was called Newsnight.

History and theology - STW has jumped up a few intellectual rungs this week 🙂

As for important historical periods - I'd start with the Normans. Massive effect on England. Possibly the biggest. Followed by Plantagenets.

Well, maybe not a direct impact as such but things like the wars of the roses which turned the direction of England in a new heading leading us to Henry Tudor - which led to the Stuarts and all their problems.
The Reformation would have happened anyway IMO but would the Crowns of Scotland & England been joined?
Henry VII had a bigger influence on govt than his son, Centralising power in an attempt to nullify the traditional power of the great Magnates that had led to the Wars of the Roses & threatened his authority - creating the nucleus of a modern(ish) State.

Yet Henry VIII is most famous for not keeping his hose fastened!

jimJam hits it for me, certain personalities come to define the age - what exactly did Victoria do for example, shouldn't we rather call it the Isambard Kingdom Brunel age? 😉

Also, for me personally Alfred the Great and his progeny, whilst the concept of an England' had been mooted by others Alfred was brilliant enough to actually start the process, and his children and grandson finished it. Surely that deserves a place of honour in the National mind, yet the story is almost unknown to most I suspect.
Why do we concentrate on Henry VIII and Not Alfred?

history is WRITTEN by the winners and is written to tell a story, and what isn't written is pretty hard to talk much about. So whilst the Norman conquest is well known, not so much is written about the Danelaw. You hear about King John being a shit, and Richard being good, but you don't get much on the real story about being french and spending the entire reign in the holy lands. Was Richard really an evil hunchback or did it suit the Tudors justifying their position. Why is so little known about Matilda, maybe the idea of a Women in that position at that time was an issue?

If you look at the population of the UK through ALL history maybe a few hundred people are actually known about in any depth. How can you teach people about what is not recorded in any depth.

Another case take the Illiad, Kleos, heroic death, it is about actions that are remembered.

However through time many actions are of great importance but they are hard to pin to a time or a place, and so are easily forgotten, or they don't fit the narrative that those writing the histories deemed important. Imagine a world without Steel, but name the person who first created it.

Read up on the Mongol destruction of eastern europe and how the two sides tell VERY different stories.

You learn about what is known and what suits,

Mongol empire has always been a popular history in the far east.

The story of Temujin's subjugation of the Mongol tribes & the creation of possibly the world's largest Empire is a fascinating one for sure.

Stephen and Matilda, again a formative period in English history, one of several full scale Civil Wars we've had but we only really think about the last one.

but do you read the story as the Poles defeated the Tartars or that the tribes departed after the death of the Khan? The stories suit the purpose of the teller.

Why was John a shit? Possibly because his father bequeathed him virtually nothing, and he then had the thankless task of screwing taxes out of the population to pay for his brothers muslem-bashing holidays in Palestine!
I would give someone's right arm to be stood on the beach as Richard I was about to embark on his Crusade, and listen to Eleanor of Aquetaine rip him apart for not begetting a son & heir and instead sodding off to Jerusalem so he could shag his lover Philip of France (if I could understand medieval French)

Of course stories tell the tale the writers want you to hear, but can not both have some truth? Polish forces held back the Tartars, but would they have continued to do so had the Horde not returned to vote on a new Khan?

other historical periods in our history that have had far more impact on us today are generally unknown by many.

Adam Curtis often talks about this in relation to current affairs, suggesting a reason why some global events are more newsworthy than others. He talks about events either being or not being 'Storyfiable'. We have a story-telling language and discipline whether its in drama and literature, reporting the news or writing our history. If one event is more prominent in our culture than another its not necessarily the case that ones more important than the other, it might just work better as a story.

Nostalgia's not what it used to be.

s'also about the school curriculum. They are quite selective about what history they teach - which is necessary to go into any depth. I remember learning about some things, but whole chunks seem to be missed out.

I went to a talk from Nial Fergusson last weekend..... he was talking about historical precedents for demogogues getting elected after financial crises 😯

Our children and most of the adult population know nothing about Wat Tyler, The Peoples Charter, Chartism, Owain Glynd?r and the Peterloo Massacre!

The above is exactly what I was getting at - important points in our history are unknown, yet others that have a larger than life central figure are celebrated. The 'storyfication' angle is probably why, there's no huge central figure in the Chartist movement etc. for all the worthy men and women who laboured for those movements.
I remember being taught about the Roman Army in primary school, but naught about why they came to Britain. Then it was a 1000yr jump to the Normans, then Tudors & Stuarts & then the Industrial Revolution.
Seemed a bit of a pick and miss approach to the subject.

Shagging and people being nasty to each other. That's what captures public imagination when it comes to history. However, no aspect of history is totally ignored, no matter how dull an era or area you can bet some academic has published on it, it's just that the Tudors make better TV than early grooved ware.

Also, history programming and education is often deeply parochial, plenty of kids come out of school only having been exposed to history in a very narrow British / European context.

I remember being taught about the Roman Army in primary school, but naught about why they came to Britain.

Veni, vidi, vici.

Sounds reasonable to me.

The work of Theodore of Tarsus in the seventh century in bringing classical education to Britain was unsurpassed for centuries. It has been argued that his influence extends even to the Court of Charlemagne and the Carolingian Renaissance through Alcuin, his intellectual beneficiary.

I think very strongly that the whole period from the Synod of Whitby in 663 until the death of Bede in 735 should be considered absolutely crucial in British and wider European history.

Of course history is written by the winners. Look how much has been written about the British Empire.
The sun never set on it as the saying goes.

The reason for that saying is simply that the British had territories in enough time zones that it was always daytime somewhere in it.