History is beyond retrospective creation

A person over the age of 35 will have a sense of the speed of change, change in medical science, change in digital control and change in the possibilities of communication. As an example of rapid change, consequent to the technology of fracking, the US has changed from a country with a large energy deficit and major importer of oil to the state with the world’s greatest oil and gas reserves that now outstrips Saudi Arabia. We hear about the vigour of the ‘bric’ states, Brazil, Russia, India and China and there are other countries, such as Indonesia, where the economy will soon ‘take off’. Evidence of economic growth is irrefutable and growth can be engineered and engendered. What can’t be engineered and engendered is a country’s History and in the instance of Britain the political culture has an irreplaceable foundation on, for example, Magna Carta, the Peasants’ Revolt, the seventeenth-century regicide, the development of party in Hanoverian Britain and the extension of franchise and party over many decades. No proclamation of Human Rights adopted and/or imposed on a country can replace or be a substitute for a foundation laid by centuries of political evolution. This comment are connected with the blog entry of 28 August 2012 ‘Why Danny Boyle should be Chancellor/FRHistS’.

Geoff Williams. Sempringham eLearning Office

History and human nature

Human nature is the constant in History, a constant that spans time and place. In consequence and in reverse, History is a mirror of human nature. Illuminating episodes, that ‘shine a light on human nature’ include the American Declaration of Independence 1776, the twentieth-century ‘modern’ dictatorships constructed and then socially tolerated, Stalin and Mao Tse Tung, as examples, and the surrender of many, mostly but not exclusively young males, to religious crusade and jihad over the last 20 years. This writer suggests that all three political ‘expressions’ need ventilation for a society to achieve and retain stability.

Geoff Williams. Sempringham eLearning office.