Tim Cooper on Niall Ferguson

[bricolage]

Although in your report (TV and War Games: how the Tories' history man plans to bring the past to life (http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jul/09/television-war-games-niall-ferguson), 10 July) it remains unclear whether Niall Ferguson actually has any formal role in advising the government on the history syllabus reform, it is clear that all history teachers should be concerned by his proposals. They constitute the opening shots in an ideological struggle that will attempt to establish a single dominant historical narrative in schools that not only excludes critical alternatives, but will drive a wedge between history teaching in schools and the direction of historical research more widely. As teachers and researchers of history we will need to be prepared to resist any effort by the government to make children learn just one kind of historical story.

The danger in the conservative longing for a single "coherent" historical narrative is precisely its anti-historical tendency. For all the waffle about contingency and accident in history, conservative historiography has never really thought of history as open to radical change, but rather as closed and tending in one direction.

The current crisis of capitalism, as well as the devastating environmental consequences of capitalist development, suggest that perhaps it is time for history in schools to to reflect the question not of how the west got it so right, but of why things have gone so awry.

Tim Cooper
The University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jul/12/struggle-history-schools

[ComradeOm]

I was honestly shocked when I heard that Ferguson will be given a role in designing the curriculum. Not only is he an apologist for empire, whatever that article says, as an historian he's wafer thin. His 'Boy's Own' history (of course he'd want to visit battlefields) is pure TV-history with little worthwhile content. He's exactly the sort of person who'd reduce the syllabus to nothing but 'kings and dates and battles'

[BAM]

He's a poor historian. I read his books The Cash Nexus and Ascent of Money and they weren't very good. His proposals for changing the teaching of history in schools through use of video, class participation, etc., are nothing new. History teachers already employ a variety of teaching methods.

The one thing I agree on is a continual narrative in history teaching, rather than just isolated random pockets of history. Unfortunately, given Ferguson's associations, we all know what kind of narrative he favours. I've never really thought much of "counter-factual" history either.

[RadioRaheem84]

Ferguson is a third way new labour type.

[∞]

Ferguson is keen on over-simplifying hunter gatherer societies and the aspects of socialism etc. I've read Ascent Of Money.