Kings and Castles (10 page)

Acknowledgements

The essays and articles in this collection were originally
published in BBC History Magazine, History Today and Heritage Today (the
magazine for members of English Heritage). The author would like to thank the
editors and owners of these periodicals for their kind permission to reissue
them here. Places of original publication are noted below.

1. Heritage Today, no. 89, March 2010.

2. Living History Magazine, vol. 1, April 2003.

3. BBC History Magazine, vol. 13, August 2012.

4. Heritage Today, no. 75, September 2006.

5. Heritage Today, no. 79, September 2007.

6. Heritage Today, no. 74, June 2006.

7. History Today, vol. 55, December 2005.

8. Heritage Today, no. 82, May 2008.

9. This article appears here for the first time.

10. History Today, vol. 58, March 2008.

11. BBC History Magazine, vol. 12, August 2011.

12. BBC History Magazine, vol. 10, March 2009.

13. History Today, vol. 59, April 2009.

14. BBC History Magazine, vol. 9, March 2008.

15. This article was written for Heritage Today but never
published, and so appears here for the first time.

If you enjoyed
Kings and
Castles
you may like to read:

History Today and Tomorrow

Paul Lay

History, at its best, calls everything into question. It
offers no comfort, no shelter and no
respite,
it is a
discipline of endless revision and argument. It forces its students to confront
the different, the strange, the exotic and the perverse and reveals in full the
possibilities of human existence. It is unafraid of casting its cold eye on
conflict, both physical and intellectual. And there is more history than ever.
It is his story, her story, our story, their story, history from above and from
below, richer, more diverse and increasingly global. It has no end, as the
benighted Francis Fukuyama discovered when the permanent present ushered in by
the fall of the Berlin Wall came crashing down on September 11th, 2001. History
opposes hubris and warns of nemesis. It doesn’t value events by their outcome;
the Whig interpretation of history expired long ago.

The discipline has undergone major shifts. It took the
pioneering work of Peter Burke in the 1970s and 1980s to make cultural history
acceptable, widening the remit of the academy considerably: now there are
histories of fashion, of shopping, of the family, even of perfume and the
Internet, yet the histories of high politics and military conflict are still
evident and more
skilfullt
researched and written
than ever. There are many more female historians: Amanda Vickery and Lucy
Worsley
reveal the intimate lives of men and women in
Georgian England, Helen Castor illuminates the impediments to female rule in
the
Middle
Ages and Juliet Gardiner paints vivid
portraits of the home front.

There is a substantial audience for serious history. 
Programmes such as BBC Radio 4’s
 
In
Our Time
 
and
 
The History of the World in 100
Objects
 
have captivated audiences
worldwide. Historians outside the academy such as Simon
Sebag
Montefiore
, Antony
Beevor
and
AmandaForeman
sell large numbers of critically
acclaimed books to readers unafraid of challenging narratives.
 
History
Today
 
continues to gain new subscribers and
readers from around the world eager to explore history from every continent,
encompassing all periods and genres. The reputation of British historians and
the history
departments
in which they work alongside
an international cast of excellence, remains high. History departments in
universities elsewhere, from Turkey
to China,
now teach their students in English. The future of the study of the past
appears bright. Nevertheless there are problems, imposed largely from without,
which threaten the discipline’s well being. This personal account examines
history’s current condition and points to its future.

To continue reading and discover more Endeavour Press titles go to:
www.endeavourpress.com