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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Nevil Maskelyne.
From: Carl Herzog
Date: 2004 Jul 17, 11:21 -0400
From: Carl Herzog
Date: 2004 Jul 17, 11:21 -0400
There seem to be two camps on Sobel: One camp
applauds "Longitude" for generating interest in celestial navigation,
while accepting the historical shortcomings in her story and the way she told
it. The other camp feels that, in molding the story as she did, Sobel has done a
greater disservice to history, and lead the lay public into adopting false
beliefs about the development of celestial navigation.
Which side you fall on depends on your view of
the role of popular history and its impact on us as a society. Among
professional historians, this is growing issue.
The public appetite for history is
particularly high these days, and several authors have grown particularly
successful by feeding the demand. However, in this age of "infotainment", we as
a society expect our history (and our news and nearly every other aspect of
our culture) to be entertaining. In this environment, nuance and detail are the
first victims.
At one point, many historians were willing to
overlook the shortcomings in popular accounts. "If it, at least, gets
people interested," the argument went, "we can correct the mistakes later.
Better this than nothing."
But as mythology and reality become more and
more closely intertwined in the minds of the public, a growing number of
historians are expressing concern. History is nothing without facts. And
history's usefulness as a guide to our future actions is grossly compromised as
its factual basis erodes.
A new film, currently in U.S. theatres, claims
to tell "the true story" of King Arthur and is backed up by a marketing website
that describes the "real" identity of each of the primary characters in the
Arthurian legend. Is this harmless entertainment that may even entice a few
people to learn more about medieval history? Or is this is a frightening mass
deception that will rewrite history in the minds of the general
public?
Either way, anyone with a genuine interest in
history has a responsibility to nurture that interest in others, and encourage
skeptical thinking about history written with a slant or without an
adequate breadth of sources.
--
Carl Herzog,
...who is not a professional historian by any
means, and probably believes a lot of things that aren't true.
