political history – Going Medieval

On history versus chronicles

I wrote a piece, years back at the beginning of the Trump administration about the difference between journalism -wherein facts are both reported and various narratives scrutinised to a larger public- and chronicles, a sort of narrative timeline wherein various theoretically important events occur. This week I have been thinking about this again, as well as the general public’s relationship to how we transmit information, given a fairly chilling announcement from the UK government.

On slavery, propaganda, and “apolitical” history

To celebrate its death throes, the other week the lame duck crypto-fascist Trump government came up one of the worst historical takes yet seen, a horrifying little dossier that they call the 1776 project. You can no longer read it, as it was rightly removed from the White House website, largely because it was a bit of racist lunacy that one can only come up with by specifically eschewing the works of any historians. I, however, am compelled to write about it, with the help of handy screenshots because I am one of those pesky historians that they decided to exclude while coming out with bangers like this:

On defeats, small people, and the UK election

Lovelies, it is a dark time here in the UK. Our last election has gone very badly indeed for those of us who want to protect the vulnerable and build a better world. It can be difficult to watch a status quo which harms us reassert itself, especially when many of us have worked very hard to overturn it. As the dust settles and we collect ourselves in the face of a bitter reality, I have started thinking about how this feeling is nothing new, and there are some positives that we can think about.