Popular History and Personal Politics: Ironic Eurocentrism in Some Recent Historiography

Today I finished a recent volume on history edited by Helen Carr (PhD candidate at Queen Mary University London) and Suzannah Lipscombe (professor of history at University of Roehampton), the former being the great-great-granddaughter of legendary historian E. H. Carr who pioneered the field with his seminal What is History? (1961). It was only fitting that this new volume, featuring brilliant contributors including Peter Frankopan and Simon Schama, should be entitled What is History, Now? which seeks to expand upon the work that Carr did in the 60s in exposing the nature of historical inquiry as a far more subjective endeavour than had previously been anticipated. In spite of this glowing repertoire for a potentially outstanding book, I found that many of the individual author's political concerns tainted some of the entries, but in a way I did not expect. The issues with this volume, inconsequential as they might be for some, have larger implications for how we do history in the 2020s and indicate how Carr's work the subjectivity of history has been reapplied in our current context.

The overarching error with this book is this: disproportionate emphasis on the perceived vestiges of Western colonialism have prevented many of the contributors from focusing on truly forgotten and peripheral histories from around the world. While some authors manage to do a good job in maintaining their focus on general topics, and many discussions of marginalised histories in the face of colonialism are truly compelling, a number of the authors preoccupy themselves with making certain parts of "our" history their central concern in order to make a political point, leaving a truly global perspective on the cutting-room floor.

From the very start of the book, we are given a wonderful essay by Frankopan who sets the stage for an understanding of global history. Carr and Lipscombe undoubtedly made the correct decision to place this essay at the start of book as it sets the tone for what we are about to read: Western outlooks on the nature and contents of history have tended to dominate the field and have thus left non-European and non-American histories on the sidelines. This needs to be replaced by a perspective that embraces a more holistic view of human history from all communities, particularly those on the sidelines. The following extract encompasses the exact attitude that should have undergirded this volume but, as we shall see, did not:

"All empires are extractive but it can be so easy to slump into a self-regarding Eurocentrism that sees European empires as 'different' to empires built in other parts of the world. The scale of extraction, certainly, was greater and longer from the early modern period as Europeans established themselves all around the world, partly because of new technologies that enabled quicker and very substantial acquisition and removal of goods. But the Inca used the same model of hierarchies, persecution, and violence to dominate other Indigenous peoples in the Americas, as did the Arabs in Central Asia and North Africa, as did the Bantu during their expansions in Africa. Restitution does not stop at Point Zero, in other words, but requires the intellectual journey to be completed in full - ultimately going back to understand human history fully, and not just cherry-picking starting points that are invariably based on the arrival and activities of Europeans in other parts of the world... This underscores the significance of global histories, for the effect of leaving out cultures, peoples, regions and periods that are not a part of the mainstream does more than leave a gap in the picture. It erases histories too. By focusing so heavily on Europe, huge parts of the global population have had the past of their ancestors at least implicitly deemed as secondary. But, furthermore, this too has the effect of leaving a void that not surprisingly leads to a lack of proper respect, a lack of dignity, and a lack of equality" (27-28).

This is a brilliant point that Frankopan raises—no less than what I would expect from the author of The Silk Roads (2015). Yet from what I could gather from other essays in the book that do concern themselves with broader histories, only Frankopan and the later contributor Rana Mitter (in his essay on the importance of East Asia's history), were able to do this without recurrent backtracking into commentary on modern aftershocks of colonialism. With consistency, the laudable call for a "globalised" view of history is neglected by other writers who present their essays as general overviews of various subjects yet choose a remarkably un-global focus: Maya Jasanoff's essay on the history of empire places gargantuan emphasis on the British Empire and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade with little mention of the other global superpowers and their own participation of human slave trafficking (pp. 84-99); Miri Rubin's essay on the history of religion spends an inordinate amount of time talking about European Church History, producing only a single paragraph discussing "global" religions (pp. 197-210).

Chief among the contributors guilty of this is Dan Hicks with his essay on the fictive "glorious memory" produced by statues of slave-owners and other morally dubious figures of our history (pp. 101-14). Yes, our history. Not Mongolia, which proudly maintains a statue of Genghis Khan in Ulaanbaatar; not Japan, which commemorates a number of war criminals on the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo; not even the many statues of Stalin that remain in Russia to this very day. Just us, the inheritors of a particular colonial tradition in a sea of civilisations built on the backs of the same discomforting practices. Whatever happened to a global perspective? 

To be clear, I have no doubt that Hicks' essay would still apply to these monuments to war and imperialism in Asia and other continents. The problem, it appears, is that his personal preference is to angle the conversation towards these controversial statues in the UK and the US—likely to appeal to the hysteria in the wake of 2020 and the removal of confederate and slavery-commemorating shrines. Regardless of what stance you take on this issue, the epicentre of Hicks' focus is, for whatever reason, narrowed to the Anglophone world exclusively. Even Frankopan himself falls into this pitfall from time to time, referring to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade as "the slave trade" (p. 29) implicitly giving pre-eminence to the slave trade that occupies our history lessons over the many others that have occurred throughout history (and still to this day). As per Frankopan's own words, prioritising one example of brutal practices from the past neglects other histories as implicitly "other," and does not strike me as a "global perspective" in any sense. These authors (for fair or ill) appear to have their eyes set on deconstructing common conceptions of Western history, ironically occupying space that could be filled by lesser-known, non-European histories on the same matters.

This problem is exported to other contributions as well. Emily Brand opines in her essay about family history that the endeavours to look into family heritages have been bestowed "a lingering whiff of conservatism" (p. 214). A reasonable and potentially thought-provoking point about how power and privilege may present only a select few with the chance to access their familial history is smothered by the tacit assumption that anything resembling "conservatism" (whatever that may mean in the 2020s) is to be equated with an upper-class, antiquated self-indulgence. Following the above authors in suit, Brand also falls into the trap of discussing European/American family history at a disproportionate rate compared to those of a non-European background. Too often in this essay (and much of the book) is the history of those not of European descent denied the opportunity to stand on its own terms, but rather as it relates to Europeans/Americans. The perceived legacy of colonialism has such a monumental effect on Brand's own writing to the point where she appears to not be able to discuss non-Europeans apart from the history of Europeans themselves! As such, promising mentions about how West Africans and Māori people view family history (p. 215) are buried under obsessive tangents about Western power, Trump, and Black Lives Matter—themes that are disturbingly recurrent throughout the book.

Particularly guilty of this activist mindset is Leila Blackbird and Caroline Dodds Pennock on indigenous history, their essay giving the (obviously false) impression that natives cannot be studied without reference to colonialism. I, for one, would very much like to learn about Native cultures, particularly their oral traditions and their pre-colonial and post-colonial history. Am I wrong for desiring to study these things in isolation from the obviously heinous crimes of colonists? For thinking that Native American history can stand on its own two feet without constant reference to events of such trauma? Such does not appear to be the case, especially for Blackbird who conceptualises education itself as the enemy of indigenous identity, a system expressly designed to destroy her and fracture her culture (p. 254). They appear to take Carr's call for scepticism towards objectivity to such a radical degree that even the concept of trying to perform neutral research is thrown under the bus as a "deeply problematic dynamic" (p. 250). Moreover, once again, we are seeing an imbalance in the presentation: to talk about "natives" is to talk about them globally, is it not? To discuss the many unique and thriving native cultures across the globe. Yet the centre stage is hogged by discussions of modern political aims of Native American rights in the US. A laudable goal in and of itself, but we are not only presented with an American-centric perspective, but one that Blackbird and Pennock seek to shield from criticism by decrying the very notion of objective research and critical investigation.

We can further illustrate this point with Onyeka Nubia's essay "Why Diversity in Tudor England Matters." Right off the bat, we have a very specific focus on a period in English history where Africans are only discussed in tandem with their relation to European society. It seems somewhat insulting to not be able to talk about these individuals apart from their association with their surroundings, especially if Nubia's point about how Tudor legal systems were likely not enamoured with race like they were in later centuries—rather prioritising social standing, lineage and wealth—stands true. Yet even when it comes down to the wire, how many African Tudors can he cite for his case? Four! Now, to give Nubia the benefit of the doubt, I have no reason to doubt that there were more Africans who made their way through Tudor England and even found themselves part of the landed gentry. Yet four confirmed individuals across a period of more than a century does not scream "diversity." The use of this term suggests something other than what the evidence suggests, setting the burden of proof heavily against this thesis that has become a tired political talking-point. This could have positive effects in how we British folk conceptualise our history, yet it comes across as condescending and poorly evidenced. Indeed, it appears that the author's priorities lie with why these pieces of evidence are important and relevant rather than the importance and relevance of the evidence itself. There is a conscious mutilation of the subjectivity that Carr advocated for here.

In one sense, I can understand the inordinate focus on the present as to how it relates to the past in this book. It is, after all, the subtitle: How the Past and Present Speak to Each Other. Perhaps it speaks to the vast influence of colonial history and how we need to reckon with it today. I find that to be quite an promising objective that could yield positive results. Yet with the legacy of Carr being repurposed for obvious political activism, I must point out the methodological pitfalls in some of these contributions that stand in the way of their own objective to help us understand the past and apply it today. If we really want to bring different peoples together and promote an authentic understanding of different cultures and standpoints on the value of history do we really want to continue focusing on the evils of a particular section of global society, neglecting the ills of other societies, and thus precluding space for learning about other peoples and their backgrounds?  

Historiography is a massively broad discipline with many facets. It is important that we provide voices to as many different kinds of people as possible in order to hear what they have to say. It is simply unfortunate that our desire to "atone" for one particular continent's misgivings has led us to focus on the subset of people who comprise that continent over those who are still waiting in line for their voices to be heard. Even more ironic that it has occurred at the hands of those who would undoubtedly label themselves as "allies" to such a noble cause.