Europe: A History (235 page)

54.
Kipling, ‘Recessional: June 22, 1897’, in
The Oxford Book of English Verse
(Oxford, 1939), 1069.

55.
Martin Bernal,
Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization
(2 vols., London, 1987–91).
[BLACK ATHENA]

56.
Molefi Kete Asante,
Afrocentricity
(Trenton, NJ, 1988), 6,11. Afrocentrists can be particularly scathing about American black leaders like W. E. B. Du Bois who worked for integration and assimilation. ‘Educated at the University of Berlin and at Harvard, the citadel of western images in America, Du Bois was steeped in the traditions of European scholarship…. Working from a Eurocentric vision, he participated in the philosophical currents of Western Europe, and therefore reflected the same mental flow as Darwinism, Marxism, and Freudianism. These rather materialistic approaches to life viewed conflict as the driving force behind progress’ (Ibid. 16–17).

57.
See George James,
Stolen Legacy
(San Francisco, 1976), which maintains that European philosophy and creative thought derive from Africa.

58.
S. Amin,
Eurocentrism
(London, 1989); V. Lambropoulos,
The Rise of Eurocentrism: anatomy of interpretation
(London, 1993).

59.
Jacques Ellul,
Trahison de l’occident
(Paris, 1975), 217.

60.
Edward Said,
Orientalism
(London, 1978).

61.
In his
History of Western Civilization: A Handbook
(see n. 64 below), W. H. McNeill uses ‘Western Civilization’ interchangeably with ‘the Civilization of Western Europe’, ‘European Civilization’, ‘our civilization’, and ‘European History’. He makes two main divisions: ‘Classical Civilization’ and, from
AD
c.900, ‘European Civilization’, the latter identified with ‘Western Christendom’ (pp. v-vii, 243–8).

62.
Maurice Keen,
The Pelican History of Mediaeval Europe
(London, 1969), 9.

63. Ibid. 12.

64.
W. H. McNeill,
History of Western Civilization: A Handbook
, 6th edn. (Chicago, 1986), 672.1st edn. 1949—a companion to the 9-vol.
University of Chicago Readings in Western Civilization
.

65.
J. Mortimer Adler, ‘Great Books, Past and Present’, in his
Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind
, ed. G. van Doren (New York, 1988), 318–50; see also Harold Bloom,
The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages
(New York, 1994).

66.
J. Plamenatz, ‘Two Types of Nationalism’, in E. Kamenka (ed.),
Nationalism: The Nature and Evolution of an Idea
(New York, 1976), 23–36.

67.
Ibid. 29–30.

68.
Eric Hobsbawm, ‘The Return of Mitteleuropa’,
Guardian
, 11 Oct. 1991.
[WIENER WELT]

69.
Halford Mackinder,
Democratic Ideas and Reality
(London, 1919), and esp. ‘The Round World and the Winning of the Peace’,
Foreign Affairs
, 21 (1943), 595–605. See Chapter X,n.73.

70.
In this, Dr Plamenatz (see n. 66 above) was not alone. See Chapter X, n. 23.

71.
See ‘The Stanford Mind’,
Wall Street Journal
, 22 Dec. 1989, and ‘Stanford’s Image’,
San Jose Mercury News
, 17 Mar. 1991; also ‘Travels with Rigoberta: Multiculturalism at Stanford’, in Dinesh D’Souza,
Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus
(New York, 1991), 59–93.

72.
See Allan Bloom,
The Closing of the American Mind
(New York, 1987).

73.
Stanford University, General European Program, 1987–8: ‘Europe I’ (Prof. J. Brown), ‘Europe II’ (Prof. J. Diefendorf), ‘Europe III’ (Prof. J. J. Sheehan).

74.
Quoted by George Gordon, ‘The Land Where You Can’t Tell Wrong from Rights’,
Daily Mail
, 21 June 1991.

75.
Allan Bloom,
The Closing of the American Mind
, op. cit.

76.
D’Souza,
Illiberal Education
, op. cit.

77.
Adler,
Reforming Education
, op. cit.

78.
Goethe, ‘Talismane’, from the
West-Ostlicher Divan
(1815), in
Goethe: Selected Verse
, ed. David Luke (London, 1964), 233.

79.
A. J. P. Taylor,
English History, 1914–45
(Oxford, 1965).

80.
Hugh Gaitskell, in the House of Commons, 1962; quoted by Keith Robbins; see n. 98 below. Lord Tebbitt in the House of Lords in 1992 improved on Gaitskell’s gaffe, talking of‘1000 years of British parliamentary history’; quoted by Prof. David Cannadine at the Anglo-American Historical Conference, University of London, 30 June 1994.

81.
University of London: School of History and Institute of Historical Research,
Syllabus and Courses, 1992–3
(The White Pamphlet) (London, 1992).

82.
Jonathan Israel, ‘History in the Making’,
Independent
, 28 Dec. 1992. See also Conrad Russell, ‘John Bull’s Other Nations’,
TLS
, 12 Mar. 1993.

83.
David Cannadine, ‘British History; Past, Present, and Future’,
Past and Present
, 116 (Aug. 1987). 180. Dissenting opinions were published in 119 (May 1989).

84.
See BBC
Newsnight
, 17 Sept. 1991, on ‘J. R. Tolkien’s Heritage’; also H. Carpenter,
J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography
(London, 1992).

85.
As of 1992. By 1993–4, the Honours School of English Language and Literature at Oxford was offering two course variants, one of which was the ‘Special Course in English Language and Early English Literature’. ‘Old English Literature’ and ‘Old English Translation’ were still set papers for all candidates for Honour Moderations and Preliminary Examinations in English.
University of Oxford Examination Decrees and Regulations
, Oxford 1993, 31–3, 71–2,
177–67
. ‘The Examination in the School of
Modern History shall always include 1) The History of England … 2) General History during some period… 3) a special Historical subject…’ The requirement for a knowledge of compulsory non-English texts had been dropped (ibid. 49,257 ff.).

86.
Jean-François Baque, ‘Car chaque enfant meurt à son rang: le patriotisme en chantant’,
Historama
, 89 (July 1991), 64–6.

87.
V. Ogilvie, ‘Teaching Without Nationalistic Bias’,
The Times
, 7 June 1947; G. M. Trevelyan, ‘Bias in History’,
History
, 32/115 (1947), 1–15; Paul Kennedy, ‘The Decline of Nationalistic History in the West, 1900–70’,
Journal of Contemporary History
(1973), 77–99

88.
Tadeusz Korzon,
Historya Nowożytna, Tom I do 1648 roku
(Cracow, 1889), 1–2.

89.
Korzon’s volume initiated a series planned to cover four periods of Modern History: i, Renaissance; ii, Reformation, 1517–1648; iii, Balance of Power, 1648–1789; and iv, Revolution, 1789–1815. In his judgement,
historya najnowsza
or ‘Contemporary History’ took over from Modern History in 1815. Thereafter, the historian’s task was reduced to collecting material for later analysis (pp. 2–4).

90.
Special credit in this field must go to the Eckert Institute in Brunswick, which embodied UNESCO’s efforts to revive pre-war schemes for eliminating national bias from history-teaching. See
Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research: An Outline of the Institute’s Development, Tasks and Perspectives
(Braunschweig, 1947); also n. 107 below.

91.
K. V. Bazilevich
et al, A History of the USSR
(3 vols., Moscow, 1947–8).

92.
e.g. the Oxford Syllabus for GCE A-Level History (1992) required candidates to take two papers from a list of seven ‘Outline’ and seven ‘Special’ papers. The Outline Papers cover limited periods such as 1066–1273,1603–1715, or 1895–1964, and are subdivided into so-called ‘British’ and ‘General’ sections (in effect, into English and West European plus Russian). Each contains ‘Nominated Topics’, such as ‘The Peasants’ Revolt’ or ‘The Thirty Years War’. The Special Papers address subjects such as ‘Government in Early Tudor England, 1509–53’ or ‘Nazism and the Third Reich, 1919–45’; University of Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations,
General Certificate of
Education 1992: Regulations and Syllabuses
(Oxford, 1990), 49–72.

93.
D. Iredale,
Discovering Local History
(Aylesbury, 1977); C. Phythian Adams,
Rethinking
English Local History
(Leicester, 1987); also E. Hinrichs,
Regionalitaet: der ‘kleine Raum’ also Problem der intemationaler Schulbuchforschung
(Frankfurt, 1990).

94.
See M. G. S. Hodgson and E. Burke (eds.),
Re-thinking World History: Essays on Europe, Islam, and World History
(Cambridge, 1993).

95.
Élie Halévy,
L’Histoire du peuple anglais au XIXème siècle
(1913–26), trans. as
History of the English People in the Nineteenth Century
(6 vols., London, 1949–52); Denis Mack Smith,
Italy: A Modern History
(1959), trans, as
Storia d’Italia dal 1861 al 1958
(2 vols., Milan, 1966); Hugh Kearney,
The British Isles: a history of four nations
(Cambridge, 1989).

96.
Christopher Dawson,
The Making of Europe
(London, 1932). See also C. Scott,
A
Historian and His World: A Life of Christopher Dawson, 1889–1970
(London, 1984).

97.
Richard Coudenhouve-Kalergi,
Pan-Europa
(Vienna, 1924; New York, 1926); Pierre Renouvin,
L’Idée de fédération européenne dans la pensée politique du XIXe siècle
(Oxford, 1949); Salvador de Madariaga,
L’Esprit de l’Europe
(Brussels, 1952); R. Albrecht-Carrié,
The Unity of Europe: a historical survey
(London, 1966).

98.
Keith Robbins, ‘National Identity and History. Past, Present, and Future’,
History
, 75/245 (Oct. 1990), 369–87, being the presidential address to the Historical Association Conference in Cheltenham, Apr. 1990.

99. Jenny Wormald, ‘The Creation of Britain: Multiple Kingdoms or Core and Colonies?’,
TRHS
, 6th ser., iii (1993), 194.

100.
See Norman Davies, ‘Stalin’s History Lesson’,
Spectator
, 6 Aug. 1988.

101.
L. Brezhnev, Speech at Bad Godesberg, W. Germany, 23 Nov. 1981.

102.
M. Gorbachev,
Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World
(London, 1987), 191–5: ‘We are Europeans’ (p. 191); ‘The home is common, but each family has its own apartment, and there are different entrances’ (p. 195).

103.
See G. W. Blackburn,
Education in the Third Reich
(Albany, NY, 1985).

104.
Such, apparently, was the fate of Tiny Rowland, later Chairman of Lonrho and proprietor of the
Observer
, who in 1941 was arrested and interned under Section 18B of the Act relating to ‘British-born persons with leanings towards Fascism’; ‘All Well That Ends Well’,
Observer
, 23 May 1993.

105.
Norman Stone, ‘The Evil Empire: Heroes and Villains’,
Sunday Times
, 1 Sept. 1991.

106.
David Cesarani,
Justice Delayed
(London, 1992).

107.
Against Bias and Prejudice: The Council of Europe’s Work on History Teaching and History Textbooks
(Council of Europe Report, Strasbourg, 1986).

108.
Margaret Shennan, op. cit. p. 53, esp. the chapters ‘Europe and the Time Dimension’ and ‘Europe’s Cultural Identity’.

109.
Jean-Baptiste Duroselle,
Europe: A History of Its Peoples
(London, 1991), ‘Epilogue’, 411–15.

110.
See Adam Zamoyski, ‘An Historic Case of Euro-fudge’,
Sunday Telegraph, 6
Nov. 1988. J. Nicholas, ‘Half-truths about Half of Europe’,
Guardian
, 25 Oct. 1991.

111.
‘Quand un livre scandalise la Grèce’,
Libre Belgique
, 26 Apr. 1990; ‘La prima Storia Europea offende tutti i 12’,
La Stampa
, 4 Nov. 1990; C. M. Woodhouse, in
Kathimerini
(Athens), 3 June 1990.

112.
Academician M. V. Sakellariou, letter to the Greek Deputies of the European Parliament, 18 Mar. 1990.

113.
Kathimerini
, 30 Sept. 1990.

114.
Jacques Montaville
et al., Histoire de l’Europe
(Paris, 1992). See Julian Nundy, ‘History Leaves Britain Behind’,
Independent on Sunday
, 19 Jan. 1992.

115.
Benedikt Anderson,
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
, 2nd edn. (London, 1991); quoted by G. Varouxakis in
UCL History Newsletter
, 8 (Dec. 1991), 22–4.

116.
Prof. Marc Raeff, in ‘What Is European History?’,
History Today
, 36 (Jan. 1986), 46–50.

117.
Professor Marc Ferro, ibid.

118.
Dr. Eva Haraszti, ibid.

119.
Prof. Immanuel Wallerstein, ibid.

120.
A. J. P. Taylor, ibid.

CHAPTER I

1.
Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, in
Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains
(1734); also ‘On the Difference of Men in Different Climates’,
De l’Esprit des lois
(1748), trans. as
The Spirit of Laws
(London, 1878), xiv. 2.

2.
P. Vidal de la Blache,
Principes de géographie humaine
, ed. E. de Martonne (Paris, 1921), trans. as
Principles of Human Geography
(London, 1926); also
La Personnalité géographique de la France
, being the introduction to his
Tableau de la géographie de la France
, English trans. (Manchester, 1941); F. Braudel,
L’Identité de la France
(Paris,
1985). Montesquieu wrote that Britain was ‘a nation so distempered by the climate to have a disrelish of everything, nay even of life’ (Esprit des lois).