Why is history predominantly political and military in focus?

Prima Nocte

Why is history predominantly political and military in focus?

slowburner

Because these are the spheres of human activity which have the most profound effects on the greatest number of people, and they tend to be recorded in the greatest detail.

nuac

Like slowburner said..

There are of course numerous specialist areas

Prima Nocte

can you recommend any reading that deals with this question?

nuac

About history reading

I am not an academic, but have been picking up history books second hand for many years.

When I get interested in a particular topic or area, I read about it in parts of those books. Interesting to see differenct POVs.

Prima Nocte

nuac wrote: »

About history reading

I am not an academic, but have been picking up history books second hand for many years.

When I get interested in a particular topic or area, I read about it in parts of those books. Interesting to see differenct POVs.

books as to why history is predominantly military and political in focus

Tombo2001

Because history has historically been written by the elites, and the elites are mostly interested in what is most relevant to them.

I dont mean that in an anti-elitism way, more in a matter of fact way.

One of the best museums I've been to was the country life museum in Castlebar; that was so interesting because it detailed how ordinary people lived.....

Its far more interesting for me personally to see what an Irish household used to cook dinner with in 1880 than to learn about the Land Leagues.

The other thing is that the forum for recording history, until the 20th century, was in manuscript. This was most suited to recording political events, whereas say photography may be more suited to the everyday.

Thats my tuppence. I'm obviously not a historian.

Peregrinus

The question you're asking there is not a historical one, but a historiographical one; your interest is not so much in history as in the discipline of studying history.

I've never read a book on historiography - it's a pretty arcane subject, I think, and anything you find will be pretty academic - but it is undoubtedly true that we seem to be most interested in political (inc. military) history, and therefore that's the area in which most writing and publishing is done. And economic history would, perhaps, be the next biggest field.

Which suggests, perhaps, that what really fascinates us is power - how people acquire it, how they use it, how its use affects us.

who_me

I'd love to see a history of Ireland/Europe/the world; not focusing on who was the 'leader' at the time, but from a cultural/linguistic/art viewpoint.

How the languages, lifestyles and technologies changed as each new wave of immigration/invaders arrived.

Tombo2001

who_me wrote: »

I'd love to see a history of Ireland/Europe/the world; not focusing on who was the 'leader' at the time, but from a cultural/linguistic/art viewpoint.

How the languages, lifestyles and technologies changed as each new wave of immigration/invaders arrived.

The Jewish museum in Berlin is very good for that.

It contains a big section on the holocaust obviously. But that is only 1/3rd of the museum I think. The rest is dedicated to Jewish culture over the centuries and would include a lot of those cultural elements.

One of the best things I saw there was a short film by I think the director Billy Wilder who was born in Berlin but emigrated. it was basically "a day out in berlin" in the 1930s. It followed a bunch of girls and guys around Berlin doing the things they did on a Sunday afternoon, going to the funfair, going for a picnic, going for a coffee and so on. It was a very pleasant movie.

Prima Nocte

I'm not sure if this is true but a source told me that only 10 percent of soldiers in World War 2 saw action. If that is the case then films such as saving private ryan and programmes such as Band of Brothers are not a fair account of a soldiers experience in World War 2. Would that be correct?

Hidalgo

who_me wrote: »

I'd love to see a history of Ireland/Europe/the world; not focusing on who was the 'leader' at the time, but from a cultural/linguistic/art viewpoint.

How the languages, lifestyles and technologies changed as each new wave of immigration/invaders arrived.

Works on social history are really only coming to the fore lately and still lag awy behind political, economic history etc.

For Russia, Shiela Fitzpatrick has written some excellent material on peasant life under Stalin. Another excellent source is 'Stalinism as a way of Life' by Lewis Siegelbaum . It features translated documents from those on the periphery, letters etc.

Giles McDonagh has an excellent book on post War Germany. While it looks at the role of the occupying Allies, it also gives an insight to daily life for the average German in each of the 4 zones

There are books out there such as memoirs, diaries etc, but just far harder to find. Sometimes, its luck as much as anything if you find quality material

gobnaitolunacy

Prima Nocte wrote: »

I'm not sure if this is true but a source told me that only 10 percent of soldiers in World War 2 saw action. If that is the case then films such as saving private ryan and programmes such as Band of Brothers are not a fair account of a soldiers experience in World War 2. Would that be correct?

They may be a fair interpretation (rather than 'account') of experiences of one set of soldiers, maybe another set of grunts were doing mind-numbingly boring details far from the front lines or guarding facilities at home and never set eyes on a German or Japanese.

But it wouldn't make for very dramatic cinema

Manach

To paraphrase from Thucydides' opening of his histories, Politics and War are were mankind makes the most costly of mistakes - going to war. So any documentation on how the events that have lead up to that junction and how it progressed would be significance to interested readers.

robp

Prima Nocte wrote: »

Why is history predominantly political and military in focus?

Move to archaeology! There is a much stronger emphasis on life styles, populations, behaviour and migration.

nuac

Tombo2001 wrote: »

The Jewish museum in Berlin is very good for that.

It contains a big section on the holocaust obviously. But that is only 1/3rd of the museum I think. The rest is dedicated to Jewish culture over the centuries and would include a lot of those cultural elements.

One of the best things I saw there was a short film by I think the director Billy Wilder who was born in Berlin but emigrated. it was basically "a day out in berlin" in the 1930s. It followed a bunch of girls and guys around Berlin doing the things they did on a Sunday afternoon, going to the funfair, going for a picnic, going for a coffee and so on. It was a very pleasant movie.

Yes I was in that Museum, and also visited a number of other Berlin museums. In one there was a special exhibition on WW2. The Germans face up to the Holocaust, and display their history well

nuac

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Because history has historically been written by the elites, and the elites are mostly interested in what is most relevant to them.

I dont mean that in an anti-elitism way, more in a matter of fact way.

One of the best museums I've been to was the country life museum in Castlebar; that was so interesting because it detailed how ordinary people lived.....

Its far more interesting for me personally to see what an Irish household used to cook dinner with in 1880 than to learn about the Land Leagues.

The other thing is that the forum for recording history, until the 20th century, was in manuscript. This was most suited to recording political events, whereas say photography may be more suited to the everyday.

Thats my tuppence. I'm obviously not a historian.

That museum in Turlough is very good. Mayo County Council did well to buy that house and facilitate the National Museum taking it over. Their first major exhibition outside Dublin afaik.

I regard the Land League and it's work as one of the more important events in recent times. It broke the power of the landlords and made every tenant farmer a freehold owner of his land.

Many farmers would not have been able to take part in the War of Independence if an RIC report to local landlord endangered the tenancy

slowburner

robp wrote: »

Move to archaeology! There is a much stronger emphasis on life styles, populations, behaviour and migration.

Google is quite useful for looking up definitions.

Thomas_I

Prima Nocte wrote: »

Why is history predominantly political and military in focus?

http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/brunel/A57741357

This link leads you to a page on the former "BBC H2G2 Messageboards" where a retired teacher I know from the former BBC History MBs edited his essays with the title:THOUGHTS ON HISTORY IN HISTORY´

I´ve read it myself a couple of years ago and it has been an experience to read about how other people think about history and he has made a great deal in writing about that. If this is not too academic to you and if you´re not easy upset by some "Anglo-centric" parts it the whole project (naturally because he´s an Englishman), then it might be of some interest to you. It can only be read there, because although written as draft to a book by the author for publishing, it hasn´t been published yet because no publisher wanted to publish that.

It´s possible that you might find some answers to your questions, but these are not to find in one or a couple of lines.

goose2005

slowburner wrote: »

Because these are the spheres of human activity which have the most profound effects on the greatest number of people

Debatable - there have been lots of wars that changed little or nothing, while developments in climate, agriculture or technology have had huge impacts on the world. However, wars usually involve a small number of events with clear characters and a narrative, while "Irrigation Techniques, 1700-1900" doesn't, even though the latter might have had a greater impact on ordinary human lives.

nuac wrote: »

I regard the Land League and it's work as one of the more important events in recent times. It broke the power of the landlords and made every tenant farmer a freehold owner of his land.

A cynic might remark that it replaced a small number of powerful, exploitative landowners with a larger group of powerful, exploitative landowners - it was very much a lower middle class movement

Reekwind

Hidalgo wrote: »

Works on social history are really only coming to the fore lately and still lag awy behind political, economic history etc.

For Russia, Shiela Fitzpatrick has written some excellent material on peasant life under Stalin. Another excellent source is 'Stalinism as a way of Life' by Lewis Siegelbaum . It features translated documents from those on the periphery, letters etc

It's worth noting that Russian history was somewhat late to the game here*. The politics of the Cold War, more so than lack of source material, making a social reading of Soviet history deeply unfashionable until the late 1990s. Even then you had Rabinowitch putting a social spin on the Revolution as far back as 1968 (and being heavily criticised for it)

But in most fields of history this is distinctly old hat. The wave of Marxist graduates began to leave an imprint on history departments decades ago. Witness Christopher Hill writing 'bottom up' accounts of the English Civil War in the 1950s. The hugely influential French Annales goes back to 1929.

This take on history doesn't always make it into popular/television history but today you could never write a decent account of, say, Hitler's rise to power without at least mentioning the class tensions in Weimar and the NSDAP's support base in the peasantry and small towns. Contrast to earlier accounts that focus exclusively on Hitler, with the German people portrayed as little more than passive puppets

*Even if it's now arguably passed through social history and well into postmodernism, Siegelbaum's book owing more to the latter than the former

Waitsian

OP - Howard Zinn's 'People's History' books are quite revealing, and very good imo, and Chris Harman did one in a similar vein called 'A People's History of the World'.

There are a lot of social history books out there, one need only look.

Waitsian

nuac wrote: »

That museum in Turlough is very good.

The museum in Dundalk is very, very good. I'm not saying there's no mention of political or military history, but most is weighted towards the townspeople's lifestyles, occupations and social life. Their Archaeology section, second floor, is also very good.