The International Fleet Review has been on here in Sydney. Held to to commemorate the centenary of the first entry of the Royal Australian Navy's Fleet into Sydney Harbour, it's really just an excuse for a big party.
Thursday the tall ships entered Sydney harbour. 
Friday the RAN sailed in in convoy, mimicking the events of 100 years ago. The photos come from the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
Today I am going across to the other side of town to watch some of the events. Should be fun.
Friend Debbie K referred me to a piece by John Quiggin in the Guardian, Like a zombie, the productivity doctrine is back – we need to fight it. What did I think, she asked? This is what I wrote in reply:
I have only scanned John's piece quickly, but I would agree in part: making people work harder is not real productivity improvement; we saw aspects of that in the 1990s; improving labour utilisation is important. I would also disagree in part; there is scope for gains in some of the areas that he talks about. But I also think that much of the discussion misses the point because of the narrow scope applied to micro-economic reform. But that's a broader question.
Now that I have read John's piece, I would strengthen my position. To the degree that John is arguing against some of the arguments coming from the business sector and others that we must all work harder just to stay where we are, then I would support his argument. However, I cannot accept his argument that that a focus on productivity improvement is not a good thing, a zombie to be killed, nor would I accept his somewhat swinging attacks on micro-economic reform. I have previously argued in this place for a new focus on productivity improvement.
I would agree with John that improved work force utilisation and training are key elements in productivity improvement, although I also think that the somewhat simplistic approach adopted to training - more is better, so long as it complies with ticks and rules, - means that the cure is sometimes worse than the disease. A tick, after all, is also an insect whose bit can kill kill an animal.
I also suspect that John would agree with me when I say that I have little faith in many of the productivity nostrums coming from the business community and especially the big end of town. After all, and with exceptions, their record in their own businesses is not especially good. Business and indeed Australia more broadly, has a cost not productivity culture.
As a simple example, take Dick Smith Electronics. Under Woolworth's, that business effectively collapsed. Twelve months or so ago, it was sold as a basket case for $20 million. I'm not surprised. I went into Dick Smith a year back and there wasn't a damn staff member to help me. I wandered the floor looking forlorn, but no-one came.
Twelve months later, the Dick Smith business is worth between $520 and $600 million. That's a profit! No doubt many things contributed, but I will give you a small example. Three weeks ago, and reluctantly, I went back into that Dick Smith store simply because it was convenient. Again, I wandered around looking forlorn. This time some one came up to help me, answered my questions efficiently, and dispatched me from the store quickly carrying my goodies. Now that's productivity improvement!
Just a note at this point.
Postscript
As it happened, Ramana looked at a part of all this yesterday in a A Mid Week Holiday; the post includes a link to Get a life, an Economist piece on working hours. This concludes:
So maybe we should be more self-critical about how much we work. Working less may make us more productive. And, as Russell argued, working less will guarantee “happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia".
There was also an interesting piece by Ian Heathwood in On Line Opinion, Older workers wrongly shunned for jobs. Here Ian wrote:
A third of the business leaders surveyed reportedly said older workers did "not like being told what to do" by a younger person, are more forgetful and dislike new technology. Business leaders feel older staff have difficulty learning new things and do not want to work long hours.
When I first read the piece, one thing that I noticed was the reference to long hours.
Its not how long we work but how we work, that's important. If you divide salary by hours worked, staff who work longer hours may notionally cost less per hour our, but that says nothing about their value. That's quite a different issue.
Nice to see Niar return to blogging with a first post, My Years with ASEAN, after a long break. Niar began blogging back, I think, in September 2008 and quickly became a member of the village. For the last three years she has been working for the ASEAN Secretariat in Singapore. I have kept in touch via Facebook, but blogging is better!
Over at his place, Neil has had a number of interesting posts. He often digs up things that I haven't seen or wouldn't go looking for. Cinema Asia is a case in point. Loved the shots of the old Chinese women.
From India, meantime, Ramana has also had some interesting posts. In Story 15. One Of The Apples Of My Eyes., I was interested not just in the story but in in the kinship customs that Ramana talked about. I think that I understand, but I'm not sure. Perhaps Ramana could explain in more detail sometimes. Staying with Ramana, following my post Sunday Essay - the Turning, Ramana purchased a copy of the Tim Winton book, so I'm waiting for his reaction.
I have always been fascinated by cultural differences, including changing language. In a way, this links back to the point I was further exploring in Monday Forum: marcellous on history. A friend brought up in another country started browsing one of my Mary Grant Bruce books. She found it reasonably incomprehensible. It's not that the English is complicated, but rather that the terms and some of the underlying ideas are alien.
I find something of the same thing in talking and writing. I draw from my my own experience and reading, using a mixture of words and concepts that have become part of my way of thinking over the years. Every so often I am forced to pause because of the blank looks I get; the common cultural base that I took for granted is no longer there even among those that I might have expected to share it.
The US Government shutdown has begun, with both sides in entrenched positions. Meantime, the fight over the debt ceiling looms. A friend chose to visit Washington just at this time, and her Facebook page is full of photos of the places that she had wanted to visit, now shut!
So far the markets are taking all this in their stride; we have been here before, after all. The immediate damage done to the US economy will depend on the length of the shut-down. There are varying estimates here, from .1% to 1.4% of GDP. The debt ceiling is more important, for US default would be a first.
Here in Australia, the economic commentary on the performance of the Australian economy is best described as confused. And that's without taking into account the US position. China is up, or is it? Australia has an incipient property bubble, or does it? Australian manufacturing is still declining, or is it? Each statistical release is studied, reacted to; the reporting and commentary flocks, circles, breaks away, depending on the number; not everybody has the same interpretation, birds in a flock adopt different positions, but the flock as a whole wheels in a common way.
For my part, I am the bird sitting on the nearest tree or telegraph pole watching the whole thing. I see little point in rushing to rejoin the flock; too much effort. I accept that many of my fellow birds have no choice. They have deadlines to meet, advice to be provided, income to be earned, bets to be made. For my part, I am trying to focus on the longer term directions, setting the parameters for that flight south - or east, or west, or whatever!
We live in interesting times, and shortly I will have to provide some longer term advice. But for the moment, I stick my head under my wing and try to peck that annoying insect causing irritation.
Marcellous made a long comment on History, history wars and the wonder of the on-line world that I thought was worth bringing up in full as a contribution to discussion. Think of it as a guest post! I haven't commented at this stage to prevent my own views interfering with reaction.
Marcellous wrote:
This is very rough, but I'd say "history" really exists on three levels.
The first is, broadly, cultural general knowledge. Necessary for a liberal education, also for consideration of political and economic questions where analogies or lessons are drawn from history. This carries with a the lesson, on numerous levels, that the past is a foreign country.
The second is a "civics" strand. It is an open question whether that is first or second. In a way that is a subset of the cultural general knowledge, but it is the bit where the state cares to get involved in its own interests.
You need some things for both. I was shocked recently in China when my language tutor, a young research student in a humanities subject, clearly had no idea when the Ming dynasty yielded to the Qing (not, incidentally, the Quing, as I recently heard Brendan Nelson call it at the National Press Club).
Arguments about the school syllabus, I think, mostly swirl around these two, especially when we are talking about the bit of the syllabus which will be compulsory. (History as an elective is in severe decline in high schools these days.)
The civics is the bit where either selection or the slant of analysis (explicit or implicit) becomes a political argument.
Of course there is an intersection between the two. If you teach the industrial revolution, what else do you want to say about unions, the combination acts, child labour laws, labour law generally,....oh no! the rise of the labour parties in the UK and Australia as the political advocates for the organised working class! Propaganda! (We could also do Madame Bovary and the money lending acts as well, I suppose; or the "English", "Glorious" and French revolutions.) Under the present Federal government such revolutionary talk should probably stop at 1830.)
Both of these over all tend to be, at least at first, a question of facts and conclusions. They can be populated by ripping yarns such as the version of the Punic Wars you give (though don't you think there is a bit of a subtext about the Pax Romana and the Pax Americana lurking beneath this?). Or it could be (as I remember learning in agonising detail) the history of the reform of the voting franchise in the UK in the nineteenth century up to universal adult suffrage.
The third aspect of history is probably the subject rather than the subject matter: a diachronic analysis (otherwise it is historical geography) of change over time - however analytically or narratively constructed, where the key intellectual disciplines are the use and marshalling of evidence to tell the story/give the analysis. This only really enters the picture in senior high school (to a point) and after.
Ancient history is more fun because even now the sources are more sparse so you can exercise more imagination joining the dots. I still remember a thrill in Medieval History studying (I think) Arnold of Brescia when I realised that I could read (albeit in translation and with less knowledge of the context) practically all of the source available to anyone. The closer you get to now, the more that freedom is circumscribed by how many more sources/facts/artefacts are available - not that I would say (as you do) that it makes things dogmatic."
Reflections
I brought marcellous's comment up as a post because of the reflections it triggered.
To begin with, we need to distinguish between history and historiography, the writing of history. In a way, history just is, the story of the past waiting to be discovered. Historiography is very different, for what we chose to write about and the way we write about it is always based on and influenced by the present, including our own short pasts. What we think of as history is therefore always selective, changing.
We also need to distinguish between history and historical method. We may chose our topics, but how we approach those topics, the techniques we use to analyse the evidence, is a different matter. Here there is a a body of professional knowledge, of technique, that should be applied. The habit of some, especially French intellectuals such as Michael Foucault and his disciples, of squeezing, forcing, history to support their models may sometimes have yielded insights, but I never though of it as history because it breached what I saw as the fundamental canons of historical method. I also found it quite indigestible, at times eye-glazingly so.
A key feature of good history is that it must be refutable. I like and write what marcellous called a diachronic analysis of change over time, however analytically or narratively constructed, where the key intellectual disciplines are the use and marshalling of evidence to tell the story/give the analysis.
In writing, I am very conscious of my own selectivity. I select and present evidence in a way that makes sense, at least to me, that allows me to tell a story. However, that story is not what actually happened, but my own perception at a point as to what happened. I am creating patterns and relationships that feel right to me. However, I know from my own life experience just how messy and complex reality is.
Everything that I write and say, the simplifications that I make, is likely to be wrong to some degree. Part of my role as an historian is to make my sources and analytical processes transparent enough to allow proper challenge, Of course I don't do this all the time. In writing my weekly history column for the Armidale Express, for example, I want to interest and tell a story. I am not going to load that with all the paraphernalia that goes with more professional writing.
Marcellous referred to civics. This, he suggested, is the bit where either selection or the slant of analysis (explicit or implicit) becomes a political argument. I would broaden this to cover the broader formal curriculum.
In its way, history is deeply political. You can see this at present in the disputes over the Armenian genocide, the way that Byzantine history still affects modern Greece, the stories of the Balkan conflicts or the continued dispute between China, the conflict between Japan and China over the rape of Nanking or Aboriginal re-interpretations of Australian history.
The things that we chose to study, or are chosen for us to study, determine our memories and perceptions of the past. That which is excluded may still exist in history, but for practical purposes it dies from our memories; It takes time, but it happens. That is why there has been so much venom in the history debates, for here we have not just questions of selection, but also of rejection. What we study and indeed what we should think about it is dictated.
I think that the modern history that marcellous and I did at school was probably similar, based on his descriptions. You cannot study political or social history in Australia or England without addressing the question of the union movement and the rise of the Labor (Labour) parties. When I first studied modern history at school, these were one thread in the narrative, The same thread came through in the school economic texts in looking at institutional structures in Australia. That is why, I think, that I retain a view that unions have a legitimate role even when other aspects of my personal views might suggest the opposite.
I have chosen the union case quite deliberately, for several years ago I argued that the central problem facing the union movement lay in the way that changes in curriculum and the teaching of history had effectively amputated the union present from the union past in popular memory. This is not a comment on the Howard period, by the way. The changes happened earlier.
While I may disagree very strongly on particular manifestations of current unionism, I remain sympathetic to the broad role of the union movement because I know the historical context. I found and indeed find unionism to be a good thing in historical terms.
I am out of time this morning. I will conclude these reflections tonight. 
Tonight stretched into two days! Seems to do that when there are other things on. The US Government shut down has begun; that and other economic news has been the focus of my attention!
In comments, Neil drew my attention to a 2008 post of his: Now, what did I learn half a century ago?. This book is from that post. It was one of the older texts. In comments, marcellous also corrected my interpretation that the history that he did at school was similar to that that I had studied, although I think that the topics marcellous highlighted were common.
Memory is an imperfect beast. I have lost count of the number of times that I have made errors on this blog when relying on memory alone. The question of what was studied in school or university history and when is an example. I have a broad pattern in my mind, but when it comes to detail at a point and especially key inflection points in content or approach, accuracy is lacking.
Course content is a reflection of what was considered important at the time; the way the subject was taught also reflects broader education and indeed social attitudes at the time; the two interact, further influenced by the technology available. All this said, I don't think that it affects my point that in choosing what to study in history, we also choose what to forget.
I didn't 
Know what to expect when I went to see The Turning. In that I wasn't disappointed!
Tim Winton is one of Australia's best known writers. The Turning is a book of seventeen short stories. Many of the stories interweave, creating a twisting central plot-line.
I hadn't read the book, although I will certainly do so now. My failure to read the book in advance proved to be a major error, for it would have added to my enjoyment of what is a quite complex movie. Complex? Each of the short stories has been turned into a short film under a different director who chose their own cast. Producer-director Robert Connolly provided overall coordination, directed one segment, but otherwise left it to each director to do their own thing within a broad framework. So we have what are in fact common characters at different stages played by different actors interpreted in different ways.
Seventeen short stories makes for a very long film, three hours. Even with an intermission, I was struggling a little at the end, wriggling uncomfortably in my seat, enjoying the film but wishing that it would end! With the normal movie, even a long one, the central plot provides coherence. Here you have to focus, responding to each segment, working out how the bits fit together. Despite that, this is likely to become a cult movie whose individual segments will be repeated again and again.
In visual terms, The Turning is quite stunning. While the budget is not public, it is reported to have been less than $A5 million; I found that hard to believe, given the production qualities. It has some of the most beautiful visuals I have ever seen. It also stars some of Australia's best acting talent, familiar faces whose qualities we know, as well as less known's. In drama terms, some of the individual segments are quite gripping. They hold you, but leave you dissatisfied because you want to know more.
This is a very Australian movie. I went with a friend who grew up in another country. I found myself nodding at particular scenes, then trying to explain to her why so. I don't know Tim Winton, but he clearly has a country background. Guns, Aboriginal fishing parties on the beach, sand caves, sexual angst in smaller communities, country cops, shows, they were all there.
In commercial terms, this is an Australian first, movie as an event. Some of my favourite Australian movies made for equivalent money and targeting main stream release have vanished without trace. This movie (wisely) eschewed commercial release. It went the film festival, art deco cinema event, approach. It limited its release to a small number of cinemas, charged a premium price (tickets are $25), relied both on word of mouth and the cultural mafia. The film will get its basic cost back from limited release, and then make its money from after sales.
I doubt that It will be ever done again. This is a one-off. I don't know the commercial terms that were negotiated, but some of the actors who were involved in combination would have blown a limited budget in fees.
It actually made me very proud. Despite my sore bum, my restlessness, I would like to see it again. I would like to rewatch individual segments. I would like to soak myself in the film. We couldn't have done this even twenty years ago.
From a purely professional viewpoint, I kept thinking how do I turn my writing into this? I would so love to showcase my own area, to simply tell the story.
This post is a brief follow up to Sydney school sports' wars. The bigger post that I wanted to write is taking time. There is a very big story here about the evolving world of sporting and indeed academic competition among schools.
I stumbled across all this because my old school (TAS - The Armidale School) re-entered the GPS Rugby competition. I started going to the games. Then I stumbled across the Green & Gold Schoolboy Rugby Forum. one of a number of Rugby Forums. I go to see these games on my own, meaning I have no-one to share with. I have really enjoyed the games, but its actually quite lonely, For that reason, I started to post on the Green & Gold NSW GPS forums from a TAS and then broader country perspective.
It's been quite rewarding, although very distracting in time terms. Game time plus writing time takes away from my other priorities, but I like it from both a sharing viewpoint and because, perhaps, I provide a different perspective from those embedded in what is really a Sydney competition. Like all forums there are fire fights, strong views, but my fellow commenters have been very kind to me. I try to be balanced, to keep a focus on the fun side. to share.
Before continuing these brief comments, here are two links. Number one is a story by Malcolm Knox in the Sydney Morning Herald, Schools learn lessons of sporting world. The second is a video celebrating Newington College's 2013 Rugby success. You don't have to watch the whole video, but do look at the first few minutes. Further comments follow the video.
Eldest daughter is fond of US school and college sporting underdog films. You know, new coach comes in in difficult and leads the team to triumph to the benefit of all. In a way, this video fall in that class with its focus on triumphalism. But that's not what I want you to focus on.
Look at the power and speed of those boys. Remember, this is school boy rugby. We live in a performance focused, measurement focused, competitive world. As the best get better, the gap between them and the pack widens. TAS is a rugby school, a centre for Australian Institute of Sport rugby development in Northern New South Wales. Its approach to rugby is as professional in coaching terms as that holding in Sydney, But it is half the size of the Sydney GPS schools. Our firsts played and won the Sydney GPS thirds competition, but would have been demolished in the firsts.
The competition between schools is not limited to the GPS, nor too sport. All the schools, state as well as private, try to compete within the limits set by budget and focus. They also adjust at the margin.
For example, as a selective High School and the only state school in the NSW GPS, Sydney High attracts the academically inclined kids and the driven parent kids, those driving and indeed sacrificing so that their kids can get the best professional start. This creates an imbalance problem in other areas like sport or indeed just the demographic and social balance in the school itself, So Sydney High is changing its rules to give local kids a better chance to get in,
In sport, the problem is further complicated by the professionalisation in adult sport. All teams in all codes look to their feeders, the schools and junior competitions. They want first shot at the boys and increasingly girls who might give them that later edge. This gives rise to what is called warehousing, the paid placement of kids at schools by sports or sporting teams. Of course the schools like this, for they get the kid and cash, as well as the kid's contribution to school sporting success.There are no instant rights or wrongs in all this.
At present, I am working in an Aboriginal organisation. Sport provides an opportunity for Aboriginal advancement. I talk proudly about TAS's role in this area. Two TAS boys are playing in the national indigenous team about to compete in the national under sixteen rugby competition. I am proud of the boys and of my school for giving them the chance. But where do I draw the line in terms of the broader debate?
My feeling is that we need a proper analysis of the complexities that we find ourselves in, not the simplistic focus of the recent SMH stories with their focus on economic and social inequality.Do we ban Aboriginal sporting scholarships? I would have thought no, but that may well be the outcome of the current debate.
Last Saturday I wrote (Saturday Morning Musings - Abbott: ideas, structures and success):
What has surprised me a little coming from a PM who promised a calm and ordered approach to Government has been the initial speed of action. It may be ordered, but it's not calm. It's more ram through. However, it is consistent with Mr Abbott's pledge that the new Government will do what it says it is going to do. However, herein lies a potential problem.
Stop the Boats, Mr Abbott now prefers Operation Sovereign Borders, has already ruffled Indonesian feathers. The sillier aspects of the policy such as the boats buy-back or payments for Indonesian informers are probably not-doable unless the Indonesian Government chooses to cooperate. The broader aspects including turn back the boats may or may not have the desired effect. However, what I didn't quite understand was the way it was done.
Was it really necessary to ruffle Indonesian feathers in quite that way? In process terms, all the Government had to do was to announce immediate steps, noting an intention to discuss further steps with our neighbours.
In the early days of the Rudd Government we saw both haste and a lack of sensitivity in action especially on the international front that proved to be early signs of later problems. We also saw something that I struggled to describe at the time, but which I came to think of as a disconnect between party and people, indeed between party and reality.
Now the new Government's Stop the Boats 'appears to have broken into a full scale diplomatic spat with Indonesia, one not helped by former Howard Government Foreign Minister Alexander Downer's comments. Those comments display the sensitivity for which Mr Downer was once famous.
My point on Saturday focused not on what was done, but how it was done. In a response,DG wrote: In relation to "insulting Indonesians", Joe Ludwig's ban on the live cattle trade, apart from kicking an 'own goal', surely takes the cake? Too true. It was indeed a case where a purely domestic response had very significant effects that continue.
Australian Foreign Minister Bishop may have indicated, as the Indonesian Foreign Minister's statement apparently suggested, that Australia wants to work "behind the scenes" and "quietly" on the issue to prevent too much publicity. The approach followed seems to have had the opposite effect. It is, in fact, an own goal.
Mind you, I too am responding from within an Australian frame. The story leads the Australian airwaves this morning. However, as I write, neither the Jakarta Post nor Jakarta Globe on-line editions carry any reference to the spat. Stop the Boats may be a top Australian issue, but it is well down the rankings when it comes to Indonesian domestic concerns.
In concluding, my focus here is not the rights and wrongs of the Australian position, but on the way it was done.
Postscript
It appears from today's reporting that the release of details of the meeting were all an error.
Postscript 2
I had missed this recent story until commenter DG pointed it out. I quote from the Australian:
UP TO seven West Papuan independence activists are believed to have fled across the Torres Strait to northern Queensland in search of asylum after supporting Australian "Freedom Flotilla" members who sailed close to Indonesian waters earlier this month. ................
The flight of the West Papuans has the potential to cause a serious row with Jakarta, just when the Abbott government is already under fire from Indonesia over its controversial plan to turn back asylum-seeker boats.
Here is the Radio New Zealand report, here the NITV report. It will be interesting to see just how the Australian Government handles this one.
Here in Sydney, the issue of the professionalisation of sport in the GPS (Greater Public Schools) competition has finally broken into the open. This is an example of the coverage. I have been following this one for a while, watching it slowly boil over.
The problem is not unique to the Sydney GPS competition. I have been collecting material to write an interpretive piece, but will wait until the dust settles. It's actually a rather interesting case study of the way that management and measurement systems affect institutions in a competitive environment.
On yesterday's post, History, history wars and the wonder of the on-line world, I brought up the video that youngest (Clare) told me about introducing the Punic Wars. This is the second video in the series:
Love it. You see, one of the problems in sharing history is to provide the context. With videos like these, you can provide an easy overview and then start adding detail and texture.
Last night youngest and I chatted over dinner about our mutual plans. She is editing the fantasy novel that she wrote at school, greatly shortening and tightening it. We spoke of my plans, including my need to learn more about videos and podcasts. It's actually quite hard as you get older to stay current.
My next short term writing target is to capture some of my management writing in an e-book. Talking to a friend, AC, about my plans, she commented on my focus. I am very focused, driven even, but I also struggle with priorities and deadlines given that a large slab of my time has to be devoted to earning an income to support my writing addictions.
Here, by the way, I thank kvd and Scott for their contributions to the Keep Belshaw Writing program. I was especially touched by Scott.This was Scott's message by PayPal:
Our country needs keen minds to keep bringing their ideas to the public. Your work compares favourably to equivalent journalists and should be supported.
Scott is making his way in the world and doesn't have a lot of money, so I was especially grateful.
Anyway, Clare and i were talking about the way i might use podcasts and videos to support my better management messages. She is going to follow up with some of her friends re gaining me support.
Today at work, I talked about some of these issues with colleagues.None of my writing occurs in abstract. It is always influenced by current experiences. That, I think, is why I am so concerned about getting older. I need relevancy. I have to stay in touch.
How else can I apply my experience to current events? How else do i get my messages across?
With some of my management material, I need to take actual workers and incorporate them in some way. That is why I am interested in video. We shall see what emerges.
In a piece on the ABC's the Drum, Only one side is fighting the curriculum wars, Tony Taylor has revived the spectre of the history wars. The introduction to the piece reads:
Behind the false assertion that the national curriculum is left-wing lies the hope that an Abbott Government will instead expose children to the corrective propaganda of the Right, writes Tony Taylor.
According to the short bio on the Drum, Tony Taylor teaches and researches at Monash University. In 1999-2000 he led the federally-funded national inquiry into the teaching learning of history in schools. From 2001-2007 he was director of the Commonwealth National Centre for History Education and from 2008-2012 he was a member of the ACARA's history advisory committee.
At one level, Dr Taylor's piece can be read as a defence of his work on the national curriculum in face of attacks from, among others, the IPA, a right wing think tank. At a second level, it's actually a contribution to the so-called history wars in its own right. I leave it to you to read the piece and the comments it attracted. For the moment, I want to make a few observations based on my own experience.
By it's nature, the study of history involves selection, selection of field, topics within fields and the questions we ask of the evidence. In many ways, the study of history centres on what we chose to remember about about the past. Those items not chosen slowly disappear from shared memory.That is why the question of school curriculum attracts so much angst, for here we have centrally directed choices as to what will be remembered.
I note that this selectivity is not limited to formal curricula. I have written before about the way that cultural gatekeepers affect what is on offer in history. I have also noted the influence of popular taste, including the way in which military history came to dominate the history shelves in book shops. Another example can be seen at school level in Australia in the rise of the popularity of ancient history compared to modern. Students simply find it more interesting. I don't blame them.
There have been enormous advances in historical knowledge and techniques since I first studied history. We know far more about the past, pulling the veil back on lost aspects of history in a way that I would have found inconceivable as a school boy. You can see this in popular forensic history programs such as Time Team or the Australian show First Footprints. There is also far more interest in history as such. Here the internet has been a huge help in providing easier access to basic information. The history I write through my columns and on-line would not have been possible even ten years ago.
The reason ancient history is more popular than modern lies in two things. One is the advancement of knowledge, enriching the material students can draw from. The second is interest; my impression is that students like the relative freedom of ancient history as compared to the more rigid and doctrinaire modern. I emphasise that this is an impression. No doubt my school teacher colleagues can correct any errors.
Looking now at the teaching of modern history, one of the things that I have noted is the progressive loss of historical context; students at school and university see history in chunks, disconnected from broader patterns. This is where selection comes in. The context that I learned at school with its emphasis on European and especially English history, its focus on Empire and Commonwealth, is no longer acceptable. Indeed, it was biased. But it did provide a context that allowed me to see patterns and then, later, to challenge my own views in light of evidence and my evolving thinking.
I think that we have lost that unifying context, for there is no agreement on a general framework. The themes that do exist are partial, fragmented. Outside the new field of Big History, students do not appear to be given a general overview. When I first studied history at university, we began with a full year general course that aimed to provide a full introduction from pre-historic times, setting at least a partial frame for later studies. I am not saying that we should go back to that, but it did help.
Some years ago, I was greatly worried by what I perceived to be the biases in the teaching of history and the consequent loss of focus on what I considered to be important, the loss of my own history as fashions changed. I am no longer worried about that. As part of this, I no longer worry (or at least not to the same extent) about the bias in the school curriculum. Why? The answer lies in the internet.
As a "popular" historian, I put the word in italics to indicate not that I am popular but that I write for a general audience, it is up to me to use the platforms that I have been given. Say I feel that that the historical topics that I am interested in are being ignored? Then it's my job to write about them, to try to attract interest. Say I think that discussion on a particular topic is biased? Then write about it. Say I believe that a new context is required, or at least an altered context, then write about it.
I can do all this. Each week, my history writings have a potential reach of thousands through print and on-line. Most just skim, but some respond. To my mind, that's a very democratic thing. It gives me freedom to write, to think, to communicate in ways never possible before. I have access to source material in a way that's never been possible before.
All this is rather wonderful, something that I have tried to explain from time to time. For the moment, I just remind myself to enjoy the experience.
Postscript
kvd reminded me that Denis Wright has some rather good posts that in some ways linked to my theme. In order, they are:
Look how much historical information Denis packs in and in such a simple style.
And here's a link to an introduction to the Punic Wars sent to me by youngest. Made by game makers, it's actually a very good introduction to a complicated topic.
A brief follow up comment on yesterday's post, Budgets, debt ceilings and the need for a US shock. I generally try to avoid posts that are expressions of opinion without any real analysis. But as I watched the Republicans who had passed the bill line up for a photo shot and the obligatory expressions of triumph, I was struck by the apparent disconnect between their domestic triumphalism and some of the flow-on effects of their actions.
Here in Australia have complained about what I see as the growing tendency of Australian Governments to take actions and express views driven by domestic concerns oblivious to the flow-on effects beyond Australia's borders. Refugee policy is a case in point, with yet another aspect of that policy apparently causing disquiet in Djakarta.
Past Australian Governments have generally been sensitive to the realities of this country's size and international position, avoiding or at least limiting domestic political myopia. The US is so much bigger and so much more powerful, increasing the importance of the narrow domestic view.
The day after the last Australian elections had I had to complete the economics column I write for Business Solutions Magazine. This is always slightly complicated, for I am writing on current economic conditions with a print lag that can run to weeks. This creates a real risk that new developments may invalidate my analysis even before the column appears in print. So far so good, but its a bit nerve-wracking.
US developments are obviously important to my analysis and herein lies a problem. While I am generally comfortable with my overall analytical framework and try to avoid specific forecasts (my knowledge of the immediate tea leaves is no better than anybody else's), US policy and politics introduces a remarkably random element into the whole analysis. It's not just the vagaries of quantitative easing, I understand those, but the way that the US game of fiscal chicken can have direct impacts on the real economy that flow on.
If you think about it, its quite remarkable. Here in Australia we complain about budget vagaries. We criticise Treasury's inability to get its budget forecasts right. But we do have a budget that provides a starting point for analysis. The US, the largest economy in the world, does not. The US doesn't have a coherent economic policy, it limps by. That is why I wrote;
I know that this is a bit like welcoming the equivalent of an economic H bomb, but I kind of hope that the US Congress fails to avoid either a Government shut down or a lift in the debt ceiling. The US system is important globally on many levels, but I just don't think that it's working in political or policy terms.
No doubt they will muddle through as they have done in the past. This problem has been around for a long time, long enough to feature in an economic chicken episode in West Wing. This made compelling viewing as drama, but was also depressing from an economic policy perspective. If the US were to hit the fiscal and debt cliff there would be pain. But just maybe, the various players and satrapies that dominate the US system might then be given a reality check.
