[Anthropgrad] Research School of Humanities - Work-in-Progress Seminar 30th May

[Sharon Komidar]

Dear All, would you please circulate the following on your email lists.
Apologies for cross posting. Many Thanks, Sharon.

 

The Research School of Humanities presents,
A WORK-IN-PROGRESS SEMINAR

1- 2.30 pm, Friday 30th May 2008, Theatrette, Old Canberra House

Flying the Flag: British and German historians in World War I and World
War II.

 

Dr Alastair MacLachlan

Research Fellow, Research School of Humanities, ANU.

 

Historians have always rallied to the flag in wartime. How they rally to
the flag, however, can differ in different wars. In this talk, I hope to
compare the very different repertoires of patriotic historical writing
in World War I and World War II.

 

In 1914, there was a massive mobilization of historians for patriot
duties in both Britain and Germany. The German case is well known, and I
shall briefly allude to the activities of the German historical
fraternity in 1914 and beyond. But the mobilization of British
historians - though less well known - was almost as striking; and I
shall explore some facets of their extensive patriot duties, through the
polemical writings of historians such as G.M. Trevelyan, H.A.L. Fisher,
A.L. Pollard, Ernest Barker and others from 1914 through to 1919.

 

No such mobilization of the historical profession occurred in 1939 and
1940. In Germany, there may have been special reasons for this. But
again in Britain, the performance of historians was extraordinarily
muted. And when patriot history did emerge after 1940, it was often
inward-looking, nostalgic and escapist. As an exercise in
counter-factual analysis - a questionable but in this instance, I
believe, a necessary intellectual enterprise - I shall try to suggest
some possible reasons for the threadbare and regressive nature of
historical writing both in Britain and in Germany during World War II.

  

Alastair MacLachlan is a Research Fellow at the Research School of the
Humanities. An early modernist by training and for nearly thirty years a
member of the History Department at Sydney University, he has written on
17th century England, 18th century European politics and diplomacy, the
French Revolution, European nationalism and 20th century British and
European historiography, including a study of the British Marxist
historians. He is currently writing a book on 'The British History
Wars'.

 

Convenors: Ken Taylor and Stephen Foster
For general enquiries please contact: 
Phone: 6125 2434
Email: administration.rsh at anu.edu.au 
Web: http://rsh.anu.edu.au/


All Welcome

Please Circulate