Posted on 02/11/2010 3:19:42 PM PST by bruinbirdman
Academics have attacked a decision by a top university to scrap research into English history before 1700.
It was claimed that the move by Sussex University risked jeopardising the nation’s understanding of the subject and “entrenching the ignorance of the present”.
Under plans, research and in-depth teaching into periods such as the Tudors, the Middle-Ages, Norman Britain, the Viking invasion and the Anglo-Saxons will be scrapped, along with the Civil Wars.
The university will also end research into the history of continental Europe pre-1900, affecting the study of the Napoleonic wars and the Roman Empire.
The university said it was “reshaping” its curriculum and research following a £3m cut in Government funding.
Last week, universities across the country were told their budgets were to be slashed by £449 million next year, including a £215m reduction in teaching funding, with threats of further cuts in the future.
Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, has claimed that institutions can use the opportunity to focus resources on their strongest areas.
But in a letter to The Daily Telegraph, 17 leading historians said the move was short-sighted and risked undermining the public’s understanding of the past.
“To cut everything but the most modern puts in peril the public function of history, entrenching the arrogance of the present and making a mockery of the claim by the
minister behind these cuts that 'we also wish to keep this country civilised',” said the letter.
The academics, who all trained at Sussex, said that the decision to sever ties with European history before 1900 was a particularly retrograde step.
“For a university which has long prided itself on its European links to abandon the serious study of such pivotal areas of modern history as the French Revolution will mean depriving Sussex graduates of the mental furniture of educated
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Making it all the more easy to be overrun by the muzzies.
Do they have no private universities? All are at the mercy of government? Well, hopefully they have some independent historians.
As long as 1776 was included in limey history, I have no problems with it.
Yes, English history begins roughly with the establishment of the Bank of England.
1215 is candidly more imporant for us all.
In the beginning there were hot lumps.
1700 Marked the end of the monarchy as such and the beginning of Government by the people. The concepts of Socialism were being debated in France and England late in the 1700’s. I wonder if that has anything to do with it?
In South Carolina it starts in 1877. heh
No King Canute
No Magna Carta.
No Richard the Lion-Heart.
No Crusades.
No Robin Hood.
No Simon de Montfort.
No Elizabeth I
No Spanish Armada
Ah yes!
A document or a law recognizing basic rights and privileges.
From Latin magna carta (great charter). After Magna Carta, a charter of political and civil liberties that King John of England was forced to sign on June 15, 1215. It was revised several times over the years, and it became an important symbol, establishing for future generations that there were limits to royal power
Gotta erase that pesky Medieval Warm Period...
England, circling the bowl...
You must know where you come from. I guess no one’s gonna crack open some Churchill in British academia?
The Glorious Revolution of 1689 virtually ended personal rule by the monarch, although George III made an effective end run around that. But the real power now lay with the aristocracy, and it was pretty autocratic. The number of people voting in parliamentary elections feel during the 18th Century, and “democracy” did not comes until Parliamentary Reforms in the 1830s, but certainly in 1867 when Disraeli extended the ballot beyond the Middle class.
No Cromwell. Yet there he stands outside the House of Parliament.
So it begins. Eliminate everything Christian and western about England and jump right into the “Age of Imperialism.”
Insanity!
They can rewrite history books but they can’t make history go away.
An understanding of history is central to our institutions, our freedom, and our ability to make good decisions in the future. I'd junk all the ethnic studies, sociology, political science and the like curricula to keep history.
That's North Carolina, you mean.
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