The Coalition's bringing in Niall Ferguson to help rewrite the history curriculum.

miscsoc

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Mon May-31-10 05:00 PM
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The Coalition's bringing in Niall Ferguson to help rewrite the history curriculum.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/30/niall-ferguson-school-curriculum-role

He's basically made a career out of churning out triumphalist pseudo-history glorifying the empire, iirc he also sees the U.S. as the successor to it and thinks that's quite a good thing too.

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non sociopath skin

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Mon May-31-10 05:16 PM
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1. I already posted about this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=191x30987

The Skin

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miscsoc

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Mon May-31-10 05:19 PM
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2. oh, pardon me

i missed it when i was skimming the titles to see if anyone had posted about it

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non sociopath skin

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Mon May-31-10 06:08 PM
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3. S'alright

:fistbump:

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fedsron2us

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Mon May-31-10 08:20 PM
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4. I gather Ferguson is a champion of 'counterfactual history

Edited on Mon May-31-10 08:22 PM by fedsron2us

which is basically seems to me essentially an argument for making up alternate endings if you dont like what happened.

To me he violates the fundamental duty of a historian which is to try and let the sources and the period speak for itself without imposing your world view on top. For example slagging off Edward Grey for getting Britain embroiled in the First World War does not really explain why the British ruling classes allowed themselves to be drawn into the conflict. His work is not without merit but he is a showboater who ultimately interested in plugging his own ideas rather than really understanding the past

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LeftishBrit

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Tue Jun-01-10 01:55 AM
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5. Agreed!

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non sociopath skin

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Tue Jun-01-10 05:27 AM
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6. ... and, like Norman Stone before him, ingratiating himself with politicians of the right ....

... though it looks as if Ferguson stands to make more money out of Cameron than Stone ever did out of Thatcher.

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