Extract:

It’s a life-changing roll call. As the admissions tutor reads out names, the men and women gathered around the table reply crisply to each one: “Yep … yep … yep.” Each “yep” is actually a no. It’s a rejection of a candidate who has applied for a place at the University of Cambridge.

The weakest of the field have already been sifted out; up to a fifth of applications are declined before the interview stage. Now the tutors are gathered to consider the results of those interviews. Five women and seven men are gathered at a table, in a light-filled, rectangular room at Churchill College to discuss admissions to study natural sciences.

The easy ones go first. These are the candidates whose academic track record is – by Cambridge standards – marginal, and whose performance at interview has been disappointing. As one candidate’s name is read out, one of the academics notes that he got an interview score of two, out of a possible 10. “Oh dear,” says Richard Partington, the senior admissions tutor, who sits at the head of the table. Next to Partington is a steel trolley with the applicants’ files.

Then, they get down to business…

Source: The Guardian

Personal recollection: I interviewed at Pembroke, Cambridge in 1998, and went up in 1999. Having been to a state grammar school with virtually no record at the time of sending people to Oxbridge, I didn’t receive a great amount of guidance about the best way to approach the application/interview process. We did a mock interview with some teachers from the local public school, which I recall being a humiliating failure. Someone told me that the only wrong answer to a Cambridge interview question was ‘I don’t know’. That, pretty much, was that.

My tactics were therefore improvised. I knew I wanted to read History, and decided to apply to Pembroke because, when flicking through the university prospectus, I saw that the admissions tutor was an historian. His number was published in the prospectus, so I telephoned one afternoon, introduced myself and asked a long list of questions about what life at Pembroke was like, how the teaching worked, and whether it was the sort of place I’d fit in.

After that I went to an open day, saw the same admissions tutor and buttonholed him for another long conversation about history and the college, etc.

Subsequently, when I was called for interview, there were three sessions scheduled, each of about 20 minutes in length, one-on-one. The first two interviews were structured around discussing historical essays I’d written in school; but one of them, which started on something like the Weimar Republic, went off-track and we ended up discussing Kurt Cobain and the musical influence of Nirvana on the grunge scene.

The third interview was with the admissions tutor. It was the end of the day. I remember - although this may be fanciful - him emitting a groan when I walked into the room. We talked a bit about college and history and studying, then at the end of the interview he said he wasn’t going to ask me if I had any questions, as I’d asked quite enough previously, and he was keen to get things wrapped up so he could get off to play tennis.

On New Year’s Eve 1998 I received an offer.

Moral: I don’t know that there is a moral here, other than to say that in my case a measure of enthusiastic, precocious lobbying probably helped. Looking back, I suppose that another admissions tutor would have found it all wildly irritating, and life would have turned out differently.

(Sidebar: When I got up to Cambridge I was fortunate enough to be taught a bit by Richard Partington, who appears in the piece I linked to, above. Besides being, evidently, an open-minded and progressive admissions tutor at Churchill college, he is also a very brilliant medievalist, who knows more about Edward III than anyone else.)

An extract:

One hundred and fifty years after Anglo-Saxon England was invaded by the Normans, Anglo-Norman England was invaded by the French. On 21 May 1216 King Philip Augustus’ eldest son, Louis the Lion, landed at Stonor on the Isle of Thanet, kissed a crucifix, planted it in the ground and began an 18-month war for the English crown. He had been invited to England by a group of barons who wished to replace King John as punishment for repudiating the terms of Magna Carta. The war Louis waged, although ultimately unsuccessful, was a damned near thing.

Sean McGlynn’s new book calls this England’s ‘forgotten invasion’, although in recent years Hollywood has been trying to remind people about it. The climax to Ridley Scott’s recent Robin Hood movie had Russell Crowe mugging about on Dover beach, fighting off the French hordes; Jonathan English’s rather better Ironclad was set around the violent siege of Rochester castle the autumn before Louis’s arrival.

So it is not entirely forgotten. But 1216 is certainly neglected, given the fact that John was the only post-Conquest medieval king besides Stephen to suffer the ignominy of a full foreign invasion. (Edward II, Richard II and Richard III were overthrown by invading armies, but these were all led by returning natives.)

Glynn’s book attempts to right the historical wrong. Again, however, the title misleads. It is only on page 153 (of 241 pages of text) that Louis’s invasion actually begins. The first two-thirds of the book are a military history of John’s reign, beginning with Philip Augustus’s successful campaign to conquer Normandy between 1200 and 1204, then skipping ahead to John’s unsuccessful campaign to retake the duchy, which culminated in the monstrous battle of Bouvines in 1214.

That’s not to say this is a bad book. In fact, McGlynn tells a dashing story with gusto. His section on the siege of Château Galliard in 1203-4 is the best that has been published for a very long time. McGlynn calls it ‘arguably the most dramatic siege of the entire Middle Ages’. That’s pushing things a bit, but the author still summons up the importance and horrid excitement of the battle for Richard the Lionheart’s greatest fortress.

The question that is only partially answered, however, is why John’s reign ended in such disaster. How did he manage to rile the English barons so badly that they would rather have been ruled by a Capetian than himself?

If you want the answer, you’ll have to read the Speccie.

A typical statistic:

Last year, less than 30 per cent of 16-year-olds in comprehensive schools were entered for GCSE History, compared with 55 per cent of pupils in grammar schools and 48 per cent in private schools.

Alarmingly, there were 159 comprehensives where not a single pupil was entered for GCSE History; and in a majority of state secondaries, less than a quarter of pupils now take the exam. (Daily Mail)

That is concerning. And as Tristram Hunt MP pointed out on the radio this morning, it is particularly concerning if it means that studying history becomes an educational privilege restricted to private schools. For history to become as marginalised in the British curriculum as, say, ancient languages or classics would be catastrophic. That, however, is the way we’re going.

On the surface, it feels like the problem is that no one can make their mind up about what history is for, or indeed whether it should be for anything at all. Do we teach history to develop skills or knowledge? Do we teach history in order to educate our children about the people, events and values that have made Britain great, or to broaden their minds to the alternative narratives of all people all over the world? Should we be teaching them about Lord Nelson, or Nelson Mandela? Winston Churchill or Mary Seacole? Cicero or Confucius? And so on.

The present government seems to have a preference for amending the historical curriculum to equip children to answer trivia questions about British political and constitutional history between the Roman invasion and the Falklands war. It thus fulfils the ‘citizenship’ function - a means by which to introduce kids from all backgrounds to a romantic, patriotic, conservative teleology of Britishness. This gets up lots of left-wing people’s noses, and understandably so.

But whatever. No one will ever settle that argument. For politicians - to bend an Orwell phrase - all history teaching is propaganda: a means of sowing their own political ideology on young minds in the hope that it may flourish in the future. (This may, of course, be one reason why state-school kids, who are not stupid, have no wish to study it.) In a way, it’s healthy that the argument should continue, for as soon as it stops, someone has won, and the propaganda has worked.

The most potent argument I can think for obliging children to continue learning history until the age of 16 (apart from the desire that there should be a forcibly expanded market for my own books, natch) is in fact one that has gone a bit out of fashion this year. History teaches essential, unique skills.

Yes, skills - but before you say ‘ugh, what a filthy, New Labouristic, dismal reason to learn about great events in the past’, think of this. My children - our children - will grow up during the business-end of the Information Revolution. As the internet continues to mature, these children will live their lives bombarded with more words, thoughts, arguments and voices than any generation before them. Wherever their lives take them, they will need to be consummate bullshit detectors.

Which is what history teaches you. Interrogate what you’re reading. Understand the partiality of everything. Think about what you’re being sold. Sniff out propaganda. Understand the myriad clever, and not-so-clever ways in which people have always tried to screw one another over. Spot the lie. Spot the spin. Spot the weasel. Appreciate real heroism. Don’t be gullible.

Well, if history doesn’t teach you that, what does?

In 1999 I took four A-levels: History, Economics, English Literature and Mathematics. If I were doing it all again now, I would do the same again, although perhaps I might swap Eng. Lit. for Computing. Those disciplines seem to me to give you both rigorous old-fashioned learning and valuable skills to make you a useful, engaged, agreeably suspicious person.

Here are some very kind things that those who have read it in advance have said:

“Dan Jones’ The Plantagenets is outstanding. Majestic in its sweep, compelling in its storytelling, this is narrative history at its best. A thrilling dynastic history of royal intrigues, violent skulduggery and brutal warfare across two centuries of British history.”

SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE, best-selling author of Jerusalem: The Biography

“The Plantagenets played a defining part in shaping the nation of England, and Dan Jones tells their fascinating story with wit, verve and vivid insight. This is exhilarating history – a fresh and gloriously compelling portrait of a brilliant, brutal and bloody-minded dynasty.”

HELEN CASTOR, best-selling author of She-Wolves

You can pre-order ‘The Plantagenets’ here

This is an extract:

By the middle of the 15th century, the various kingdoms of Europe were strong, wealthy, civilised and culturally sophisticated, albeit more or less perpetually violent, viciously intolerant and prone to disease. Trade flourished and some of the world’s greatest philosophers, artists and writers were at work in cities and universities across the continent.

This beautiful, bloody world is the subject of Hywel Williams’s smart illustrated history of Europe’s middle ages. It is a pleasant, erudite jumble of politics, military history, potted biography and cultural study, and it gives a rich flavour of medieval life. Williams’s text is both clear and detailed. He ranges from Plantagenet England, Robin Hood and Chaucer to Norman Sicily and Reconquista-era Spain.

Excerpt:

The British soldier represents many different and contradictory strands of our national identity and character. We see and, what is more, we desire from our soldiers a blend of godless savagery and selfless heroism that is not demanded of anyone else in society. And more often than not, our soldiers oblige.

Richard Holmes’s social history of the soldier is a book of majestic, heart-rending humanity: a deeply affectionate portrait of British soldiers as they have existed for more than 350 years[...]

It is obvious that much has changed since the days when British soldiers served at Blenheim, but Holmes traces a strong tribalism that has bound together the Army throughout its ranks and divisions across the ages.

Source: The Telegraph

I suppose it would also have made sense to mention Richard II’s words to the vanquished Essex rebels in 1381. “Villeins ye are, and villeins ye shall remain, not in bondage as before, but incomparably harsher”. It seems to reflect the hang ‘em high attitude which will likely prevail upon those identified as looters and rioters this week.

Exactly 630 summers ago, London burned at the hands of violent mobs. Angry men and women, drawn from the lower orders of society, rampaged the streets for nights on end - looting, setting fire to property, attacking other Londoners and paralysing the limited policing resources of an unpopular government.

Clouds of thick smoke filled the air as buildings were sacked and burned. Rioters communicated with messages composed in cryptic language and sent by covert means. Soon after the London riots began, copycat attacks followed in other English cities.

The upheaval scarred the city and the psyche of the well-meaning majority, who watched with horror as an underclass ran amok, seemingly delighted by the meaningless violence in which they indulged.

Two years ago I wrote a book: Summer of Blood: the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 (Harper Press), which charts the events of that rising. This week, during what has been dubbed the Chavs’ Revolt, it feels a bit like a warning from history.

Our city is no longer much like medieval London. And yet, when the capital riots, it does so in familiar fashion. The causes may be different but the methods and composition of the crowds don’t change much.

Mass riots do not happen solely because cities contain bad people. There is always a catalyst, and usually a set of acute underlying grievances. In 1381 a poll tax sparked violence against a political class who were seen as corrupt and self-interested. This week, the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan caused tensions between the police and disenfranchised young people who have never known discipline to spill over into violence.

But now, as then, the character of the riots has morphed quickly from principled protest to mindless destruction. The composition of a riot transcends history. It goes through stages. Shortly after a riot begins, those people who have a specific cause are joined by others who have a panoply of other grievances. Anger becomes general, directed at a whole government, system or way of life.

Then comes a dull thud of boots, heralding the arrival of the rent-a-mob: the herds of rough-necked scrotes who like trouble for its own sake. This is when a riot really hits its straps. In 1381, Londoners with scant connection to the original causes of the revolt massacred Flemish merchants and piled their bodies in the streets. This year, their dullard descendants burned furniture stores and nicked tellies out of betting shops.

Rioters have always found ways to organise in such a way that they will elude the authorities, too. BBM and Twitter are new mediums for a very old message. In the Middle Ages, strange letters were circulated by organisers, calling on rioters to “chastise well Hob the Robber and take with you John Trueman”. A very loose modern translation: “let’s fuk up da feds, bruv!”

And there are two more historical notes to add. First: it was the Mayor of London, William Walworth, who saved the day in 1381, when he stabbed to death the rebel leader Wat Tyler during negotiations with the king. Second: another rioter was tried and executed in East Anglia for the crime of saying “he was a messenger of the great society”.

There’s a message there for Boris - and for Dave, too, I fancy.