Quizzes & Puzzles31 mins ago
david starkey
..on Question Time..so rude,so pompous..he looked fit to explode..one lives in hope..
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I feel it's probably worth saying, as someone who is taking steps to enter the research community in history, that David Starkey is not the King Of All The Historians the media makes him out to be. He's virtually irrelevant other than in his capacity as populariser among Early Modernists, and his preference for constitutional/high-political is actually fairly outdated and, from what my Early Modernist colleagues tell me, is fairly removed from what most people in the field are actually doing. I'm told Starkey's name very rarely comes up in citations - and even when it does, it's typically his older work.
Personally, I see no reason why a constitutional historian of the Tudor period is consulted so frequently and help up as having some kind of special insight on current affairs. His opinions really aren't worth any more than the next opinionated journalist. But Starkey is an excellent example of the authority obsession so endemic among parts of the British public. The man is obsessed with his own authority, which would probably make sense in discussions of Tudor politics, but not contemporary politics. That's why he riles me, anyway.
Personally, I see no reason why a constitutional historian of the Tudor period is consulted so frequently and help up as having some kind of special insight on current affairs. His opinions really aren't worth any more than the next opinionated journalist. But Starkey is an excellent example of the authority obsession so endemic among parts of the British public. The man is obsessed with his own authority, which would probably make sense in discussions of Tudor politics, but not contemporary politics. That's why he riles me, anyway.
Television likes recurring characters. The latest mad scientist, Prof Brian Cox is the new Patrick Moore or Magnus Pyke.
Likewise, Starkey is the new barmy rightwing historian. Twenty years ago he was played by David IrVing and forty years ago by Enoch Powell.
They are on the telly because they can do the character not because they have any special powers.
I do not like Starkey, just like I didn't like Irving and Powell, but I don't think I am supposed to. He is the Simon Cowell of TV Academics.
Likewise, Starkey is the new barmy rightwing historian. Twenty years ago he was played by David IrVing and forty years ago by Enoch Powell.
They are on the telly because they can do the character not because they have any special powers.
I do not like Starkey, just like I didn't like Irving and Powell, but I don't think I am supposed to. He is the Simon Cowell of TV Academics.
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