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History of Britain
With by Simon Schama
Author
Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2001; 3 p.m. EST
In "A History of Britain: The Wars of the British," the recently published second volume of Simon Schama's series, Schama details the turbulent chapter of Britain's history between 1603-1776. Plagued with internal conflict, civil wars and uncontrollable American colonies on the one hand and the overwhelmingly successful business enterprise of "Britannia Incorporated" on the other, the history of these few generations affected the history of people all around the world.
Schama will be online Tuesday, Nov. 1 at 3 p.m. EST to discuss British history, the second volume of his "A History of Britain" series and the 15 part History Channel documentary based on the book.
Schama was born in London in 1945 and since 1966 has taught history and art history at Cambridge
and Oxford and art history at Cambridge, Oxford, and Harvard. He is now university professor at Columbia
University in New York. His prizewinning books include Patriots and Liberators; The Embarrassment of Riches;
Dead Certainties; Landscape and Memory; Rembrandt's Eyes; and A History of Britain, Volume I
A transcript follows.
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over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Simon Schama: At the time I was writing the history of Britain's religious wars, one of the lessons I have been learning is how important religion has stayed as a factor in political life. When I as a kid in school I remember a teacher saying "we can't really be sure about the rest of the 20th century, but organized religion will not be a large part of our histroy." So much for his insight.
One of the main stories we tell in this series is how Britain gets out of it's civil wars based in religious differences and finds a way to construct a civilized society that can argue without bloodshed.
It is sobering really.
Joseph's Brodsky once said "when history moves,. She caches you unaware."
Fairfax, Va.:
Perhaps it's too soon to tell, but how does Tony Blair compare to the leaders you discuss in the series? It seems that most of Britain's leaders in the series so far make a catastrophic blunder somewhere along the way -- has Blair fared better?
Simon Schama: Well, it is too soon to tell.
But, the record has been extraordinarily impressive. He has lead from out front in everything he has done, not just the latest headline. In tackling the positions of the labor party which used to me much more doctrine led. He was prepared to take a lot of risks and come out fighting for a centrist position. He certainly has the eloquence of leadership. Whether he can continue to hold together a naturally factious party is a test that will come in the months ahead, when the immediate sympathy waivers.
Washington, D.C.:
Will there be more volumes of History of Britain?
Simon Schama: Yes one more.
It takes the story more or less up to the present day. There will be another four programs on the History channel as well.
Des Moines, Iowa:
Are you interested in writing a similar series of books on the history of America?
Simon Schama: Interested, but no.
I am interested in doing a project on the Britain - American relationship though. I am someone who has a split identity between the two countries, having lived here for many years, and would love to give that identity a reason to exist.
Washington, D.C.:
How did the history of Britain during the period you've written about in this volume affect generations of people around the world?
Simon Schama: Tremendously important question.
It had a huge effect. To give you a sense of how important it was just for American history - we know that Jefferson was drafting the constitution of Virginia in 1775, he went to the library o f Williamsburg and poured over archives of the British civil war a decade earlier because he knew that the British had been the first to experience a real battle against absolute monarchy in the days of Cromwell. If one wants to look at the earliest documents about governments by consent, the best place to go is the prose writing of the poet John Milton. That is why there are so many people called Milton in the United States. Milton's writings, he was secretary in Cromwell, wrote the first great treatise on the freedom of the press and he believed that the executive - the king - should be answerable to the people and could be removed by the people if he persisted in ignoring their wishes. So, in some ways, the founding fathers, that they were really round two of the British civil war and that had the first not happened there would have been no political philosophy to give America a sense of their freedoms and own rights. The Declaration of Independence in its lists of charges against the King is almost exactly borrowed from the documents which were published in 1689 to justify the deposing of King James II.
So, an old history which seems very remote and obscure to us was meat and drink to the Founding fathers. It was the prologue to American Freedom. There were certain aspects of what happened in the 1600s and 1700s which were not told to this day, and one of them was the long tragedy of Anglo-Irish relations. If you go to Belfast in N. Ireland you will still see painful reminders of the long memory of the 17th century. Memory of Oliver Cromwell's massacres and memories of King William III's military campaign.
Delray, Va.:
During the American Revolution, how did the common British people feel about the colonies? Were there people in England who agreed with our complaints against the crown?
Simon Schama: Lots. The common people tended to be very patriotic, so they were less sympathetic to the colonies. The further down the social scale you got the more endearing people were to the king, but among the politicians there were extremely vocal voices in favor of the American complaints. Especially Edmond Burke and the ex-Prime Minister William Pitt. Pitt made speech after speech after speech on the Parliament floor warning that Britain would never be able to impose its will by armed force on America.
When American's protested against unjust taxes, they were actually echoing the same complaints that the English had had in the previous century.
So the pro-American lobby in Britain was a minority, but a very eloquent and powerful one.
Los Angeles, Calif.:
How happy are you with the History channel series? How much control do you have over it's production?
Simon Schama: We make the series in Britain through the BBC and in that process I have a lot of input if not actual control. I help choose the locations, work very closely with the director and cameraman and even go into the editing room to help cut the program. I am very much a hands on producer.
The one thing that I wish would happen with the History Channel airing is that there would be fewer commercials and in house spots, because the longer the break, the harder it is for viewers to follow our story.
Virginia:
Good afternoon, Mr. Schama. My husband and I are thoroughly enjoying your History Channel series.
I apologize for my not-really-relevant question, but I'm not sure where else I can find the information. Do you know if there are any plans to release A History of Britain on DVD? We are very interested in buying a copy of the series, but would much rather have it on DVD than on VHS.
Thanks again for such a great series! Will there be a part 3?
Simon Schama: Yes it will. It is not something we wanted to rush into, because we wanted to make one with a lot of rich supplementary materials. There will be a lot of extra good stuff on it. The DVDs for all three series will be out this time next year we are hoping. Meanwhile, you can get the VHS tapes now. The DVD will do justice to the gorgeous photography that I realize is hard to do on normal broadcast television.
Harvard, Ky.:
How was General Cornwallis looked upon after the American Revolution by the British public?
Simon Schama: He actually got off rather lightly in terms of his reputation. It should always be remembered, Cornwallis was fiercely pro-American up until the war. Once the war had started they felt that their allegiance had to shift toward England. He knew he had to make the best of a bad war. He sort of escaped a lot of the blame for Yorktown. Ten years later became Governor General of all of British India and actually fought a very successful campaign against the French. His last appearance was against the Irish rebellion in the 1790s. Personally he was generally recognized as modest and rather jolly. He was seen as a very unpretentious country gentleman. There was quite a lot of affection for him.
Newark, N.J.:
What is your favorite period in British history?
Simon Schama: They are all wonderful and terrible
any period has moments of light and lots of darkness.
Arlington, Va.:
Although not quite in the timeframe of the book, does Britain bear any responsibility for the volatility in the area of India and Pakistan?
Simon Schama: We are dealing with this in volume III
The British, after they decided to leave India very early on in the 1920s, were in a very tough position. They certainly wanted India to remain a single country but they had to realize that the rise of the Congress Party under Ghandi had lead a response to a militant Muslim nationalism inside India. The Muslim party led by Jinnah believed that Muslims would be swamped by the large number of the Hindu population. There came a point where the Muslims would not back away for their demand of a separate Muslim state. So, if you are the British government, what do you do? Do you try and keep them talking to each other or do you accept the fact that there will be more bloodshed if you do not agree to a separate state - Pakistan.
That said, there were undoubtedly mistakes in timing with the British withdrawal in India and they British badly underestimated the extent of violence between Hindus and Muslims in 1947 and 1948, but they were powerless to stop it. The only way they could have stopped it would have been to hang on in India for another 10 years, but no one, especially not the government of the time, wanted that.
Herndon, Va.:
Mr. Schama: I'm ashamed to admit I haven't read your written work yet, although I'm closely following the TV series. Do you ever play "what if" and try to imagine what would have happened if Great Britain hadn't lost the American colonies when it did -- if a "Canadian" arrangement could have evolved?
Simon Schama: No I don't, but if I did, that would be the best one to pick.
Perhaps British food would be a bit better.
Sudbury, Ontario:
I see the subtitle of the book is "The Wars of the British" Looking at the timespan listed it would also seem to be a book about colonialism, or the latter period of. Is that the case? If so, are tere any comparisons between the rise and decline of the Roman empire and the rise and decline of the British Empire? (I mean decline in the sense of it's global sovereignty)
Simon Schama: Well, the British certainly thought there were parallels. When they were building the Empire they thought about ht Romans all the time. The first statues of the founders always had togas on, but the British wanted to be different from the Romans in that they wanted their empire to be one of trade and liberty. Of course their empire ended up being of soldiers and slaves. Later in the 1800s there was a very strong economic component of the empire, and in the 1830s the British empire was the first to abolish slavery. In the end the empire really declined and fell because of the price it had to pay to fight two exhausting wars.
For more on this "wrong empire" tune into to tonight's program. Also, on Sunday there will be a marathon of the series from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. on the History Channel.
Post script is that some historians think that there is a closer parallel to the rise and fall of Rome and the American empire. It is certainly true that we have our own barbarians at the gates and the ruins of my own city in downtown New York do put one in mind of the great history Edward Gibbon musing in sorrow in the ruins of the Roman forum.
Alexandria, Va.:
I am somewhat taken aback by the vitriolic aspect of some British criticism of Israel and or America, and the extent to which in The Guardian newspaper at least hostility towards Israel and the post 9-11 America are conflated.
To what extent do traditional British attitudes towards Jews affect how Britons view Israel and even the United States?
Simon Schama: Hugely. I am upset and shocked by The Guardian as well.
There is an old left wing romance of the Arab world among British intellectuals, and there is also a left wing/right wig golf-club anti-Semitism which lingers on much longer than it has a right to. Sometimes -- and I say this with pain as a British Jew - it seems that, to these people, Israel is just a shocking inconvenience. Those who presume to think that somehow the massacre of 5,000 Americans was a actually America's fault are the same sort of people who, in their heart of hearts, thought Auschwitz served the Jews right.
Simon Schama:
I am very grateful and happy about people's enthusiasm and support for history as storytelling. What we try to do in the series and in the books is make an argument through the emotional power of storytelling without distorting the truth. In times like these I think history is the cultural equivalent to public health. We need history to give us a rich sense of what the defensible character of our community is. History gives us something a little bit more content rich than the mantra of civilization versus evil. From history, especially the history of our western democracies, comes the courage of self-respect, and educated self-respect is the beginning of hope.
washingtonpost.com:
That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the
discussion.
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