When I
sorted my grandfather’s books, I picked up G.M. Trevelyan’s English Social History. It was first
published in 1942 by Longman during the dark days of the Second World War and
Hitler’s attempt at world political and ideological hegemony. The book ranges
from Chaucer’s England to late-Victorian times and has a nostalgic, antiquarian
tone and descriptive form. It is astonishing that this volume was one of the
main social History texts until the 1960s. G.M. Trevelyan described social
History as ‘the history of a people with the politics left out’ and as ‘the
daily life of the inhabitants of a land in past ages’. Since the 1960s there
has been an ‘explosion’ of publically-funded social History research,
publication and degree course provision, a development that parallels the standing
of Annales history in France and Gessellschaftsgeschichte studies in
Germany.
If
attention is turned to contemporary culture and today’s media, observers may
note the extent to which emotion is squeezed out of social, even sporting,
news. Who was not touched by Andy Murray ‘blubing’ after loosing the Wimbledon final to
Roger Federer in 2012? This introduction of emotion into footage is an
indulgence unconsidered in, for example, the Syrian Homs settlement where
survival and avoidance of catastrophic injury are the (unconstructed cultural) foundation
of day-to-day life. This is the line of thought that leads to the suggestion
that the, some would say indulgent, ‘working up’ of an emotional dimension in
the media is an ‘inside’ yardstick of the security of a liberal democracy. This
comment fits with the wider discussion of a definition of Liberal democracy by
Gilbert Pleuger in the concepts section of The
Good History Students’ Handbook.
Contributor
Geoff Williams. Sempringham eLearning Office
