Oh What A Time... - #83 Historiography (Part 1)

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

This week we’re tackling a subject Elis has suggested, the writing of history itself: historiography! We’ll be chatting about one of the godfathers of history Herodotus, the owner of one of history’s all-time great beards Karl Marx and we’ll be discussing (and mainly trying to understand) postmodernism.  Elsewhere, Tom keeps losing his keys and claims there’s nothing he can do about it, Elis is convinced there was once a thing called the ‘Never Never Club’ in South Wales and why exactly are keys still such a big thing anyway? If you’ve got anything to add on any of these subjects, please email us at: [e-mail] If you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER?Up for grabs is:- two bonus episodes every month!- ad-free listening- episodes a week ahead of everyone else- And much moreSubscriptions are available via AnotherSlice and Wondery +. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.comYou can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom xSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wandery Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of Oh What A Time early and ad free. Join Wandery Plus in the Wandery app or on Apple Podcasts. Hello, welcome to Oh What A Time, the history podcast that asks, what was life like before house keys and those weird little things that you put on key rings that allow you to locate house keys? And the reason I'm asking this is that Tom is having to record with the door open in his little office because his mother-in-law doesn't have house keys. And as Chris said, quite rightly, in my opinion, there's always something. have house keys. And as Chris said, quite rightly in my opinion, there's always something. There's always something.

And that wasn't said with any particular levity. There wasn't much. It was quite cutting. I felt like I was being knee capped. Well, there's no affection there. Or empathy. I kept saying it sounds like a good system. So we should explain the system is that... That your mother-in-law doesn't have a house key, so you broadcast or podcast with the door open so that you can hear her knock the door or ring the bell. It's a good system.

I need to be clear to listeners. This isn't the front door open. This isn't the front door wide open to my house and I'm upstairs doing it. No, no. I do have house keys. My wife's taken her pair and my pair to work with her. That's the reason. But that means your mother-in-law doesn't have a pair. Why doesn't she have a pair? She should have her own ones. Because she did have a pair, then I lost my pair and I gazumped her pair.

It's a good system, Tom. Do you and Claire not have your own pairs of keys? Do you not have your own keys? Don't question the system, Chris. We do, but we… Why are the keys just floating around? Yeah, yeah, like a sort of communal, hey man, just take the keys. What about owning your own keys?

Look, we get invited to a lot of stuff. A lot of parties. The Brits, the Oscars. We're at a lot of dinner parties, a lot of gigs, and things go missing when you're living such a social life. Will Barron Listen, when you go to as many sex parties as Tom does, things are going to get missing. Tom Cuthbert Keys get chucked in the bowl, do you return to the bowl afterwards? Will Barron Yay, exactly. You don't know whose keys they are. Some keys are just on a chest. Tom Cuthbert Yeah.

Will Barron And it's like, well, I'm not picking them up now, because blah, blah, blah. They're covered in baby oil or Thomas keys, so it's very difficult to locate proper keys. Why didn't you have a new set cut when you lost your keys? Will Barron Because I'm quite busy at the moment. That's why. It's not because I hate locksmith. Who makes a key? Mason Hickson Timsons. Will Barron Timsons, there you are. It's just I haven't had the time to do it. You don't have ten minutes.

That's a high-end estimate as well. Ten minutes. Once again, I refer you to the fact that we get invited a lot of stuff and we're now in the Christmas season. There are two locksmiths within five minutes of my house. Congratulations. Someone's doing well. Which also says a lot about...

I don't know how you want me to react to that. Well it says a lot about how much locksmith business there is knocking about. Absolutely. Because you would think that one would price the other one out of business, but no. So what I'm saying is they're everywhere. You don't live in rural Suffolk. You don't have to go into Ipswich to get your keys cut. You live in a very small

part of London to me. They're everywhere. It's like saying, well, why didn't you go to prep then? Oh, well, I'm too busy to go to prep. They are everywhere. And if you don't live in London, substitute prep for Greggs. Or in Wales, Spa. There are spas everywhere in Wales. Will Barron Look, I hear what you're saying, but it's about finding the time. I'm trying to be the best parent I can be, the best friend I can be to my friends. Take them all to the locksmiths. Take your friends to the locksmiths. You mentioned earlier, by the way, El, the fact that I get invited to a lot of sex parties, which just to be clear is not true either,

nor do I have any interest in that. You get invited, you just don't go. That's different. People always want you there. Geoff- My spam folder and my email suggest there's a lot of stuff happening around my local area, but I'm not interested in it. But it is a thing I've thought about. Let's say a situation where I was into swinging, I'm not into swinging. Mason- Why are you thinking about it? You sound like you're into swinging. Geoff- You know where people have to chuck their car keys or they have to throw their car keys or their car license into a bowl at the beginning. I don't drive, so it would have to be my provisional. And I keep thinking about

that situation where there's a lot of car keys and then one green provisional driver's license. And then it'll... If you pull out the provisional, do you get to pop it back in? You could put in your NUSH insurance card, maybe? That's good. That's nice. I've got an oyster card which I used to get around London. Blockbuster video card. Here you go. Will Barron When I was a little kid, I don't know if this was just De Verpouwis Police who did this. I was a member of the Never Never Club where- Will Barron Right, what's that?

Will Barron Oh, it must have been a De Verpouwis Police initiative where you were given a card to keep in your wallet that said Never Never, and it was Never Never Talk to Strangers. So yeah, it was in there alongside all of my other membership cards. Mason- So when a stranger tried to talk to you, would you say, wait a second, I just need to refer to something? Will- That was the idea. Mason- And you'd get your card out and you'd read it and go, oh, Never Never, sorry, I can't continue this conversation.

Will- You'd flash the Never Never card like a red card to a potential paedophile. Mason- Yeah, what was it for? Will- That's what the police wanted us to do. They came to the school. This would be about, I would suspect, 89, 90. They were like, right, you're all members of the Never Never Club. This is not a thing. To quote you, Ellis, it's a good system. It's a good system. What is this for? So let's just talk, you're walking down the high street in Carmarthen, I'm approaching you and I'm saying, hi, how are you doing? Having a good day? I've got a bag of sweets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would go, hang on. Hang on. This reminds me of something. Oh, yeah, yeah,

yeah. And then I'd open my wallet. There'd be, I don't know, a voucher in there for something. I think, no, no, not that. There'd be a book token. I think, no, it's not that either. It's this. That's right. I'm in the Never Never Club. I would say, no. Not for me, no. I would walk on. The Never Never Club. Not for me, sir. We've got a lot of listeners. I'm assuming we've got a lot of listeners of roughly my age from the David Powis Police area. Please, if you remember the Never Never Club, get in touch. Because it can't have just been my primary school.

It certainly wasn't mine. First of all, the Never Never Club is you never, never discuss it, isn't it? That's the thing. He also brought in a tough top cycling helmet and said, I think you should all wear these if you go on your bikes. I remember, I tried to get standard about this, but it never really worked, even though I think it's really funny. So I went home and I said, Mom, a policeman said I need a cycling helmet in case I have an accident on the bike. My mother said, how much is it? I said, it's £13.99. Mom said, that's a bit expensive. Why don't I get you and your sister one to share? We were going to share a cycling helmet and save 50% of the time. Will Barron Well, saw it in half, one has the front one, the back of the head.

Not at the same time, both heads crammed in it on a tandem. Ellis, would you like to guess the only person in my primary school class who failed his cycling proficiency? Surely not. The only pupil. Take your guess. I failed mine first time. Oh, did you?

For doing skids because I'm cool and young. Is that really why you failed? What? You were nervous? What? You were doing tricks? guess? I failed mine first time. Oh, did you? For doing skids because I'm cool and young. Is that really why you failed? What, you were nervous? What, you were doing tricks? I was doing tricks, mate.

I was so confident on the bike. I was doing tricks. And the woman said I… I'm failing you because you just did a loop the loop, upside down in this playground. Yeah, Benny hops the works and the woman said, I can't pass you for that. And I burst into tears, which I actually think is cooler than passing first time. Wow. And then I passed second time.

I failed because I didn't know left and right. It's a good system. It gets worse, Ellis, because I basically had to go down the hill and then she was going to call out left or right and that's the way we'd have to turn at the bottom of the hill. It's a bit of a surprise to see how you react. I confidently led the class down the hill despite the fact not knowing left or right. She called out left. I went right. Every other child went left and I failed immediately on the spot. But look at me now. Will Barron This is a sensitive question. This is a sensitive

question. When it's late at night, when you're staring at yourself in the mirror, I don't know whether you're shaving or whatever, how much self-loathing is there, Tom? How much self-approach? What do you think? No, pretty cool guy, actually. Pretty cool guy. With my mother-in-law hammering on the front door saying, I've been out here for six hours. Well, that is your sliding doors moment. If you'd have actually turned left that day, you'd be now living in a golden castle. Yeah, yeah.

Well, sliding doors would make my life much easier to be honest, Chris, but it's... So, solve one of the major issues. Get them fitted. Exactly. Well, is that the end of the roast? Out of interest, I don't know how we done. I just want to know how much sense of approach there is.

Just on the subject of keys, I sent you a clip that someone has shared on social media from Tomorrow's World in the 80s talking about what 2024 was like. I don't know if you watched it, but one of the things he said that would be happening in 2024 is that no one would have keys anymore. You would open all your doors in your house with your fingertips, your fingerprint. And it made me think like, why hasn't that really... that's a good system. We're not sort of that far off it though. With cars, for instance, like keyless ignitions and stuff, which I think is completely pointless. Yes.

I remember the time when you would unlock the front door of your car with an actual key, like it was a house key. Obviously we haven't had that for 20 years probably. The fingerprint thing, I just think it would be administrative, especially if you were renting and you might be moving house every year or so. Then it would be an administrative nightmare. Having to go down to the tips would be fingerprint. Instead I've just moved into 13 Acacia Avenue and we need to change the fingerprints on the lock. Or the previous owner having to give you their thumb. Cutting it off with a hacksaw.

Actually, I think you might have stumbled on the answer there. Keys are such big business, as you just mentioned earlier, Al, there's two locksmiths or key cutters near you. Maybe the key industry, they're in the ear of all the politicians. Big key. Big key, the big key industry. Yeah, do you think Kia Stama is in the pocket? Kia Stama, what a perfect name for that role. Kia Stama, he's in the pocket of big key. The technology's existed for years.

He's actually called Steve. They made him change it. I'll tell you a modern key that's really annoying, Ellis. We've got a sort of electric car and it has a key that when you walk up to it and it's in your pocket, it'll allow you to open the door and then you can start driving. The issue is, as we found in the past, as long as you have the key near the car when you start it, you can then drive off. It doesn't necessarily mean the key is in the car. So we had a situation where... Oh, this is a nightmare for you. Have you had this? So I had the car key in my pocket, I think it was, and then Claire

drove off, assuming she had it in her pocket. When you stop eventually, then you can't start the car again. So now you're miles away not near the key. Will Barron So what happens then? Jason Vale You have to get the key back to the car. Will Barron Oh, my God. Jason Vale So what happens? Will Barron So someone has to get on the tube or whatever.

Will Barron So does the car just stop? Jason Vale It doesn't stop because that would be dangerous I suppose. But the moment you park it and turn it off, you can't then start it again. Will Barron You can't restart it. But you'd think that in the prototype, in the sort of development stage, that this would have become so apparent for the cranes of the world. There's everyone who works in designing new car technology just really, really on it. I mean, that's what it must be. Oh my god. There you go. So, you know, the modern world is not all it's cracked up to be.

No, I mean there are loads of things that are definitely more of a ball lick than they used to be. Yeah, exactly. Well, in my grandparents' day, nobody bothered locking their doors anyway, did they? That's the thing. Although there were technically locks and keys, but no one ever used them. I remember that growing up, just not locking the door and people just, you know, it would just be left on the latch. Yeah, I remember walking to school when I was in primary school and I was walking past, the primary school was sort of on a state of houses. I remember walking past this house

and the front door key was on a piece of string, but it was outside the letterbox, so it was hanging from the front of the front door. I remember thinking, that can't be a good thing, got it? Mason- Just get rid of the door. Mason- You don't even have to break in. That can't be a good system. Mason- That's remarkable. But then you are. It's a different time, a simpler time, a safer time. Mason- A simpler time. Mason- And I miss it. By the way, if you's a different time, a simpler time, a safer time. A simpler time. And I miss it. By the way, if you've got anything on the big key conspiracy, hello at owrtime.com.

Let's blow it wide open. There are some good things, of course, about living in the modern age. One of those being email. Oh, yeah. So should we crack into a bit of correspondence before we crack into this episode? Does that sound good? This is a great email. I thought this was genuinely fascinating. This is from Sam Kears. You will love this, Ellis, because it is coffee based. And it's about the history of coffee, basically. A very specific history in the world of coffee. Mason- Fun fact. I detest surprises. I detest surprises. To the extent that no one is allowed to surprise me with a gift ever. And so I always know exactly what I'm having for my birthday and for Christmas.

And Izzy said, can I surprise you? And I said, no. And she went, right, well, you're going on a coffee tour for Christmas with like a, with like a bloke who's going to walk me around London and tell me the history of coffee in London. And I said, I'm glad you didn't surprise me on Christmas day with that. Will Barron A bloke. Mason Hickman Just some bloke. Will Barron A bloke's quite nonspecific, isn't it? Some guy she just met in Costa who seemed to be enjoying his coffee.

Mason Hickman Yeah, he said, yeah, I'll give that a go. Will Barron Why not? Mason Hickman Yeah, I'll Google it on my phone as I'm doing it. I could do that. So I know why I'm having for Christmas and it's that. So yes, I'm going to be very interested in the... Do you know where my Hatred and Surprises comes from? I feel quite bad about this. My mother once for Christmas bought me an unauthorised biography of Alan Shearer. Unauthorised?

Written just by a bloke. An authorised! Written just by a bloke. Brilliant. A footballer also you have no particular link to either. No. Don't support Blackburn Rovers or Sanampton or Newcastle United or England. Or England. So no real. He was the best striker of my teenage years. I'm good of you to admit that. It was more of a sort of grudging admiration than, you know, I was a big Shearer fan. My mother, she always wanted to ensure that the same amount of money was spent on the

three of us. So she had a very, very tight budget. So this book was like £2.99. And obviously, I was £2.99 under what she'd spent on my two sisters. I remember thinking, I'll never read this. And I will read pretty much anything. I actually did read it in the end, because I love football. But I remember thinking, I would have either preferred to have been told what she was going to spend £2.99 on, so I could veto it or suggest something, or that she hadn't bothered in the first place, because I don't like presents going to waste. And it's also, this comes into play because once, when Izzy, because Izzy loves surprises and she loves surprising

people. For my birthday about less than a year into our relationship, has it been in the first year we were going out with each other, 14, 15 years ago, she surprised me with a gift for my birthday. It would have been like my 30th, probably my 30th birthday. And it was a painting, like on a canvas, oil on canvas, of all of my favourite meals. And I remember thinking, sort of pardon me for swearing, what the fuck am I going to do with this? You've literally painted- What did you do? You've painted Bolognese.

So who painted it? Izzy did. Izzy did it herself. And you've painted a? Izzy did. Izzy did it herself. And you painted a fryer. Yeah. What am I going to do with this? Makes me look like we live in a primary school.

You're learning English as a second language. Do you know what? I actually like, I would like that as a gift. Yeah, because you're a bit soppier than I am. Yeah, but I think that's generally quite sweet. You're welcome to have it. Yeah. You still got it?

Oh, it's... It'll be knocking around somewhere. I'm putting it up. Not mad. So, Nesta bought you the unauthorised autobiography of Alan Shearer for Christmas. Is that what it was? That's amazing.

Yeah, they don't want to sound ungrateful, but I would prefer people to keep their money. Yeah. You know, I hate people wasting money. Absolutely. Do you know what I feel for in this? Who? Your sister who got the unauthorised autography of Mike Newell. Stuart Ripley.

Stuart Ripley, exactly. Do you know what's pathetic? You're naming all these fictional books and I'm like, I'd love to read that. And I want the food picture. Says the man who spent years doing a 90s football podcast. This is why I love surprises. If I wake up on Christmas morning with an unauthorized biography of Mike Newell, I would genuinely be excited.

It would be such a handbrake turn from your wife. Where she got it from? It really would. What prompted that? I would love to know what percentage of the listeners know Mike Newell, but I can tell you with certainty my wife would not know who Mike Newell is. She would have had to have been at an event where Mike Newell was selling them. That is the only way she would have got one and thought, this is a nice guy.

Oh, maybe I'll spend six quid. It's football. Chris likes football. That's the only reason she'd take it. A charity fate or something. Will Barron And Mike Newell would have to be in full kit just for her to clock that he was a footballer. Will Barron Yes, yes. So as a consequence now, and I don't want to appear ungrateful, I just, I would say that when I was given the oil on canvas

painting of my favourite meals, there was, I would say, a quizzical element to me receiving that gift. Sort of a raised eyebrow and a oh wow, thanks. Yeah. As opposed to brilliant, I'll put it with all the others. I was hoping it would end that it was such a realistic picture that you ate it. That would be the perfect end. Is he walking in? Your mouth full of papery bolognese. Didn't taste like a fry ham. So, ex-Blackbone striker, Mike Newell, if you are listening and you have got an autobiography, do send it to Chris. I will also read it. I'm sure it will be a corker. Now, I'm only interested in the non-authorised version. Any official Mike Newell merch, not

interested. Okay, let's get into this email which I flagged up about 15 minutes ago and then Ellis said he didn't like surprises. This is from Sam Kears and it's titled, Crappy East German Coffee and the Vietnamese Solution. Hi all, I love the podcast and really enjoyed the recent subscriber episode about the history of East Germany. I've read the book that Ellis talked about and had the same moments of revelation as Ellis did

regarding my views on East Germany. Very briefly, if you're not a subscriber, this is a sort of quality subscriber episode that is available to you. If you become an Overtime full-timer, there's so many brilliant episodes you won't have heard before. Because I did a book review on Beyond the Wall East Germany 1949 to 1990 by Katja Heuer, which was a book I thoroughly enjoyed. And we've had about six people emailing saying that they are going to buy it as a Christmas present for their partner this year. Look at that.

It's on my Christmas list. Is it? Yeah. Make it seven. I'm an influencer. Where's your cut? Where's your cut? So, Sam has said, I have lived in Vietnam for

the last three years. So, the part of the book that was particularly interesting for me, the East German government couldn't provide their people with decent enough coffee, and they loved good coffee. This is the thing you talked about, isn't it, Ellis? Yeah. Yeah. So, it was causing the government some disquiet. So, after the end of the war in Vietnam, East Germany engaged in a partnership with Vietnam – another communist country – to provide them with better coffee. Did you know about this, Al?

Oh, I think this might be in the book, actually. Supporting the creation of the coffee bean farms around Vietnam, in the end the wall had come down before it really started to pay off, but the legacy in Vietnam is hugely significant. The coffee culture in Vietnam is the number one social activity. Every other building is a coffee shop and on every corner is a small coffee cart. Young people are more likely to be having a coffee on a Saturday night than they are to be clubbing or going to a bar. So the lack of good coffee in East Germany has resulted in the creation of

Vietnam's most popular drink and pastime and created a $3.37 billion export industry, the third largest in the world. Ellis, I'd love to know if you've ever tried Vietnamese coffee. It's a side point. It's extremely strong, but also very good coffee. Cheers, Sam." Isn't that fascinating? So the lack of coffee in East Germany led to this deal with Vietnam, which then led to the explosion in popularity of coffee in Vietnam and became a huge export for it as a country. Amazing, all this because of East Germany. Because those communist countries did have relationships with other countries, like other communist countries I should say. Because obviously not all communist countries are

part of the Soviet Union, but they did try and trade with each other. That's really, really interesting. Fascinating, isn't it? And also you've got to keep your population happy. And coffee is one of life's pleasures. Absolutely. It's like when you read contemporary accounts of British soldiers in World War I complaining about the food. You know, if you're cold and wet and being shot at, that is awful enough. But also, if the food you're eating is terrible as well, it's just so miserable.

Will Barron Absolutely, yeah, completely. Also, it's ability to completely transform your feelings about a day is something to focus on as well. If you're having a difficult time, the knowledge that there's going to be a meal you might enjoy at the end of it. We all experience on a personal level. That's something I definitely feel routinely if I'm stressed. It's like, well, at least to the end of the day, I get to have something I enjoy. Mason Everson And also our food, our bad food is no comparison to the bad food in the trenches. Also there's rats everywhere and everything's dirty and you're being shot at and you're well aware that the people in charge are idiots. You must have woken up in the morning and thought to yourself, do you know what? This is shit

actually. Toby Perkins Yeah, and I'm just imagining Tom Crane in the trenches. He's just lost his keys for the fourth time that day. To the munitions box where all the guns are kept. Going over the top, tapping your pockets looking for your keys. And I'm holding up a stick that looks a bit like a gun and going rat-a-tat-tat. Asking the person in charge of your platoon to stop whistling because he's like, hang on, I haven't got it, I haven't got them, Claire's got them.

I have tried Vietnamese coffee. There's a place in central London called Kiss the Hip Boat that sells coffees from around the world and I've had it there and it's excellent. Very briefly, before we head on to today's history, there's something you should look up if you're interested in wartime trench rations that Chris and I think have talked about in the past. There's this guy who buys World War I and World War II rations genuinely from the trenches. You've seen this, haven't you Chris? Chris Yeah, love it. Absolutely love it. Will Barron And then eats it now. And often is like really sick from it because of course it's like,

it's meat that's been in a tin for the last 110 years. 110 years, exactly. He does have certain standards. Sometimes he'll go, this is obviously inedible. I won't eat this. But that line is nowhere near what a normal person's line would be. Okay. I'm now going gonna have to watch this. And this is why TV is losing out to social media and YouTube. Well, yeah, because you know why? Because you never get that on ITV.

On telly they wouldn't let you do it. Exactly, yeah. There are too many gatekeepers stopping maniacs from eating 110 year old meat. Where's the internet? It's the Wild West. You can do what you want. They want to see celebrities ice skating. They don't want to see someone eating century-old corned beef. Having filled in lots of health and safety forms, I don't doubt. And then being sick on their own sofa. Apparently that isn't family-friendly Saturday Night

TV and this is why you're losing out television. Oh, is there another phrase you're going to bandy about, I'm sure? Duty of care. Well, no, I want to watch a maniac eating meat that's a century old. You've lost my business TV, you've lost it. So Sam Kears, thank you so much for that superb email. That was genuinely fascinating. If any of you have any tidbits of history, stuff from where you live that relates to stuff we've talked about, do send it in. Whatever you want to send in, we love to hear from you and here's how you get in contact with the show.

All right, you horrible lot, here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at oh what a time dot com and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at oh what a time pod. Now clear off. Okay in this episode we are discussing historiography, the study of history, the philosophy of how historians write their books and their articles and how they formulate stories, etc. It was something I studied at university. I've got to be honest, I wasn't very good at it. To the extent that I got quite a bad mark in my exam. So I'm looking forward to reading a slightly more palatable version of it as commissioned by us and written by our fantastic historian Dr Daryl Leeworthy because when I was an undergraduate I was correct as reflected in my marks. Was it your worst module?

By a distance Tom, because I like stories. What I don't like is a discussion on the philosophy behind the story. I find it odd to follow Tom. And can I ask a question with that in mind? Why did you suggest this subject for us to do? Because feminist history I really liked, black history I really liked, working class history I really liked, oral history I really liked. I mean there's loads of them. You know, it's sort of gay histories, the history of the minorities, the history of history I really like. What I could not, colonial history, what I could not handle, and what I was very bad at was postmodern history, which I just found so difficult to understand.

Will I'll be grappling that in part three, Ellis, so hopefully I can help you on that. What a character dangle. It's very, very theoretical. It's very theoretical. I think now it might be easier because obviously also the pucks around it were never written in a particularly readable, accessible way. So it's quite difficult theories to grasp. Ben, who has certainly theories I found quite difficult to grasp, quite technical, sort of philosophical theories, difficult to grasp, quite technical, philosophical theories, also written often in quite inaccessible language. And I was 20, I had other things on my mind, Tom. I had other things on my mind, Chris. For instance, standing in nightclubs feeling anonymous. I had that on my mind. Jason Vale Where's my Never Never card? Why does every

girl I try to kiss say, where's my Never Never card? Will Barron Hang on, I'm a member of the Never Never club! Let me get my card out! Why do people keep getting their cards out whenever I try to kiss them? It was a nightmare. So I'm quite looking forward. Because also I did read, long after graduating, out of curiosity, I read books like E.H. Carr's What is History, which I really liked. And there was a book called In Defense of History, which was written by Richard Evans, Richard J. Evans, which is a book I really, really enjoyed. And then I think after I'd done the module and received the bad mark, I then sort of, I kind of found books that were a better gateway

into it in the first place. And I sort of wish I'd taken more notice of them. Got you. When I was studying it. But that's fine. We make mistakes. We learn from these mistakes and we move on. But it's actually an interesting subject. It is, to be fair. Should we just quickly explain what we're covering today? At the end of the show, I'm going to be talking about postmodern history, the move from modernism to postmodern history. Postmodern history basically being the way most historians today would view history. I think that's a fair way of

cloaking it all. So I'm going to be talking about that later. Chris, what are you going to be talking about? Chris McAllister I'll be talking about Karl Marx. I always thought, I mean, Karl Marx is definitely a huge gap in my knowledge, but I always thought of him as an economist. But he was, of course, a historian as well. So I'll be talking about Karl Marx and his view on history known as historical materialism. Will Barron I walked past the French house on Dean Street, I think, isn't it, in London the other day. And I said to about five or six people, the people I was with, Karl Marx used to drink in there, and they were less interested than I'd hoped. But never mind, that's fine.

They, these five people were your two children, and they're, and they're classmates. They're six year old classmates. Not a Marxist among their number. I couldn't believe it. Come on. You're in year one for God's sake. I'd expect you to have a broad understanding of Marx and Marxism by the time you're in year one. So, I think as this is a history podcast, we may as well jump straight in at the beginning. Now, professional historians as we understand them in the 21st century haven't actually been around all that long,

only since the 19th century or so, although the concept of the subject, an analysis of past events to make sense of them, history, that goes back to ancient times with the Greek writer Herodotus, who was often known as the father of history. But what does Herodotus, what does his sense of how to write about the past line up, how

does that line up with the man usually identified with the start of sort of modern history, which is Leopold von Röntgen, and his dictum, how it truly was? Now that's the question, which is closer to the truth and can they both be regarded, or should they both be regarded in the modern day as historians? Now Herodotus, he wanted to set down a record of past events, as well as to think about why they happened and what their effects were. And that's the key difference, right?

So the key distinction between a historian and just a chronicler who writes down what happened and when, or an antiquarian, is how and why. Okay? And he explained, my purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks. So he was like, all right, yeah, yeah, sure. Let's bring the non-Greeks into play. Will Barron It sounds a bit like that's been chucked

in as an afterthought though. That there's been a sort of frown from someone in the front row. Will Barron It's like fine, and non-Greeks. Okay, so that is what history meant to him. And to a large extent, this is still the history found in bookshops, or as Darrell put it, in the notes he prepared for me, or in rival podcasts. Which aren't quite as good, right? They tend to discuss, you know, the presenters letting in their mothers-in-law because they don't have their own sets of keys. They don't discuss that stuff as much on the sort of the rival history podcast, but that's what sets us apart. So to write his histories, Herodotus used documents and spoke to witnesses,

just as a modern historian would, you know, would use various sources written or otherwise in oral history. But Herodotus was not above a little bit of bias or lurid gossip, and he made it clear that when he liked something or someone and when he didn't. So for him, the Greek point of view was totally paramount, right? For him, Greek culture, it was above everything else. It was above reproach and basically other stuff was weird. He was like, yeah, sure. If they're not Greek, I'm not buying it, basically. For instance, for Herodotus, every Babylonian woman served as a prostitute at the temple at least once in her life. He said that. In Egypt, women urinate standing up and men sitting down. So he's basically pouring scorn on other cultures.

Yes. He's absolutely not a woke historian. He's the very opposite of that. He's not a politically correct historian. Somewhere in the Arabian Peninsula, Herodotus claimed, I try to get information about flying snakes. He's like, listen, let's concentrate on the real stuff. Let's keep it Greek. And yeah, if I've got to, I will. But let's keep it Greek. Mason- To be fair to me, in terms of the woke stuff, he's undeniably old school. You can't

get away from the fact that the ancient Greek… Will Barron- Yeah. Pre--social media, he wasn't... Exactly, yeah. No one was tweeting him to say, I'm not really sure about this stuff, actually. The sort of stuff you said about Babylonian women is the wrong herodotus. You're cancelled. I dread to think what his DMs would have been like, but he wasn't checking them. Unless they came from Greeks. If you didn't have a Greek name on your Instagram, there's

no way he's opening that DM. But where he went as a writer and as a historian, a lot of his classical counterparts went as well. So if you take the most relied upon historian of Alexander the Great, it was Ariane of Nicomedia. Nicomedia was a Greek city situated in what is now modern day Turkey. Ariane was born in the first century AD, or CE, several centuries after Alexander's time. And he wrote his campaigns of Alexander partly as an emulation of other, much older books, notably Xenophon's Anabasis, which was written the decades before Alexander. So Alexander was born in 356 BCE. The Anabasis was composed on 470 BCE, and Xenophon had seven books in

his volume, right? So Ariane had seven in his. And they both show a tendency towards military adventure. Will Barron Right. Rupert Spira And that's the thing, that was the thing that historians, I think this might have been, I mean it's been a long time since I read it, I think this might have been in E.H. Carr's book, actually, What is History? Historians eventually got to the point where they saw, like, yeah, we're always talking about Caesar crossing the Rubicon. Let's talk about other people who cross the Rubicon. They've got really interesting

stories as well, surely. We've kind of done Caesar now. Let's have a look at the other people who've done it. Mason- Is that because there's an audience who's interested in those stories? What do you think the reason is for that? Mason- Or you just think that those stories are stories worth telling. Yes, okay. Yeah, interesting. Because you think, well, if you're just a farmer who's crossing the Rubicon, what's the story of that farmer's life? What was it like for them? We're always concentrating on great people, like the great man theory of history, but that's very, very flawed if you just do that.

But I can understand how, as a historian, you'd think, well, we're gonna have to concentrate on the wars, aren't we, considering the time we live in. So, Ariane's case, enthusiasm for certain of his characters led him away from the historian's supposed, or supposed impartiality towards basically an apology for misdeeds and in place is a hagiography of Alexander himself. And I can also understand how if you're driven to write a historical biography of someone, someone you really, really admire,

it would become a hagiography. For example, the Michael Jordan series on Netflix. Yeah, or the unauthorised autobiography of Alan Shearer. That is interesting, isn't it? It's that idea of your mindset as you enter into the practice of doing something is going to have such an effect on what is created, undeniably so. For instance, if I wrote a book about Gareth Bale, I would skirt over the Madrid issue. So at times, some modern historians argue that despite his reliance on sources contemporary to Alexander's time, Ariane basically came close to making things up or just misunderstanding the documents he was using. So like all historians, Ariane was fallible, but he had a purpose that can be understood, right?

So yeah, he set out with Xenophon's work as his model, but he did also want to add to the body of knowledge available to fill in gaps in understanding and to advance the intellectual frontier, which is what all historians want to do. Now Arians' Roman audience were keen for the latest word on Alexander, it was almost semi-mythical. Just like in our times,

people will read huge biographies of Hitler and Stalin, hoping that some brand new fact will leap off the page. It's like whenever I'm in an airport, like if you're in WH Smiths or something, that Heathrow or Gatwick or Bristol Airport, and you go into the book section, there will still be massive biographies of Hitler and Stalin. Yeah, and the target market is sat on this record with us. It's Chris Skull. Chris Skull is the guy on an easy jet to wherever it happens to be with 40,000 words on Stalin. I've read a few books on Hitler, but the one I just read by Ian Kershaw, that biography,

it did present a new fact. I was going to save this for, I was going to do a book review of it. I will get around to doing it. But I did learn a new fact, which is that Hitler was drinking gun oil. Wow. It was a tip, like a home remedy tip that was passed around the trenches in the First World War. Like, oh, it'll keep your bones warm or some absolute nonsense.

So he was like necking gun oil his whole life. Was he just taking shots, Chris? Was he taking shots? Oh, very good. Gun oil? There's a new fact. There you go. There you go. What did he think it was going to do to him? Yeah.

I've actually marked it on the page. I'll save it when we get around to the subscriber special. We'll do an Ian Kershaw Hitler biography review. Because there's a few astonishing things that he was doing. special we'll do an Ian Kershaw Hitler biography review because there's a few astonishing things that he was doing. I mean throughout the war increasingly he was pumping his body full of literally everything. It's insane the effect his doctor had on him as well. Just like methamphetamines all these just everything was just he was just full of everything awful. Well Kershaw plays that down interestingly. He plays down his drug use. Yeah. Which there's another book, Blitz, to which he deals with that. But we'll save all this for the Ian Kershaw Hitler book review. Great. Okay. Absolutely. Loved a bong as well. You know that. He loved a bong.

Loved hot boxing a tank. It's his favourite thing. So, you know, often if you don't, unlike Chris, get a new Hitler fact, if you've read the book, you can, and people do compare earlier leaders with their own to help us make sense of things, which I think is why people like reading history books. Because for a variety of reasons, you know, you want to make sense of things. It also, just because something happened once doesn't mean it's going to happen again. It's not a way of future-proofing yourself. But people in power often use history or bad history for their own devices. So it's important that our historians are treated with respect. Toby So it's a vital job. Now, what emerges from Arian's portrait of Alexander the Great

are histories, contradictions, omissions and novelties. Because that's the thing with omissions, you can't include everything. So what you decide to omit and what you decide isn't important is fascinating. And everyone has, you know, there are different reasons for all of this, which is why you've got to study the historian

as well as the history. So take the question of what brought Alexander to the Oracle Oasis at Siwa. Now Arians was unable to resolve the contradiction between the sources. Aristobulus said two crows led Alexander to the place, and most writers agreed with him, says Arien, whereas Telemé suggested to the contrary that it was actually two snakes. So how on earth do you make head or tail out of that? So Arien allowed the reader to decide, while leaving them in no doubt that what really mattered was that this otherwise human king had received the support of the gods, whether

it was a crow, whether it was a snake. That's not really important as far as he's concerned. He's like, oh my God, the guy's got animals helping him. The gods are on his side. And that distinguished him from those who ruled. So, I can assert that there must have been some divine intervention to help Alexander because this is what seems probable, says Arien. Now of course, as modern readers of Arien, we also wonder why most of these ancient writers preferred one source to another. We might also ask whether there were other sources to consult, or what they might have said, and why Arien doesn't refer to them. One such source is either the court history by Calythenes,

the campaign historian employed by Alexander to write down stuff as it happened, or the day journal compiled by the campaign archivist. But Ariane was a very good student, he'd done his homework. So he was clearly aware of Polybius, who was a Greek historian's view of Calythenes, as quite frankly, he thought he was a propagandist. And he was like, well, that's not worth the paper it's written on. And so for him then, he was like,

okay, well, that is a source that I can legitimately ignore. And I will omit that. So he got around to it using basically, he was basically using techniques that historians use today. He was behaving like a historian. We would recognise this. He's like, okay, nice one, mate. You're getting a 2-1 for that. You're not going to get a first, but you're certainly going to get a 2-1. Will Barron I find it so mind-blowing to think about historians in antiquity. Will Barron It absolutely fries my mind when I think about it. Will Barron

It's just what you're doing to try and go run around gathering history. In my eyes, you're at the dawn of history. It just feels massive. And are these just very briefly, are these recorded on scrolls, as it would have been, or whatever, for reference for a small community of people? It's not something that's produced and then available to the public, obviously. It's not something that's produced and then available to the public. Obviously, it's simply... Will Barron No, no, no. I mean, you couldn't buy it at Terminal 3 of Athens Airport. No.

Will Barron Loads of stone tablets in a row. The bestsellers list. Will Barron Arrian dealt with primary evidence. And he read secondary literature, and he made choices, and he had an argument. So that is what historians do. Yet it wasn't. It was not all that long ago that Aryan was thought of as not a historian at all, or just like a simple honest soul,

but not a historian. So why is that? Well, partly because he was several other things. He was a senator, he was a military commander, he was a friend of the emperor, and he was a philosopher. So his historical writing, which has kept his memory alive in our own time, it was just one element in a much broader career. But we mustn't get too hasty, he recorded past events and at times was clearly frustrated at not being able to reconstruct what had happened. So Arrian reminds us that being a historian is not easy, and there are all sorts of gymnastic maneuvers involved, you know, and for him all sorts of gymnastic manoeuvres involved. And for

him, he was inventing some stuff. But what I find fascinating about him, and what's curious about him, is that he's coming up against the same problems that a modern day historian would. So he's trying to fill in the gaps, because you can't read it all. And also, he doesn't have the internet. No, there isn't some bloke at the University of Dublin who's done a better job than you and you can't crib his stuff. You can't jump on a WhatsApp group with loads of other antiquity historians. Absolutely not.

Have you read this? You know, and there can't be, you know, there isn't a historian, I don't know, studying in Iowa who's got a fantastic blog and you think I'll just copy what she's done. Copy and paste wouldn't come in for another 2,000 years. 2,000. You can't copy and paste a stone tablet. You can't push it against another blank stone tablet and it'll rub off. Doesn't work like that. My point was going to be there also wasn't a process through which he would have understood the way in which you should be a historian. What reflects a decent and fair waiting information. The fact that he's aware of someone is a kind

of a propagandist. That sort of awareness, that just had to come from him. There's no process. There's no... Yeah. Will Barron Do you know what? Obviously, this is just one tiny anecdotal piece of evidence. But when I was doing my MA, I did it on...the title of it was something like Socrant Society, Sport and Propaganda in the Second World War in South Wales. I can't quite remember the exact wording. So I spent weeks and weeks and months and months reading a lot of newspapers from the time from World War I. I was in various different libraries in South Wales doing it. Then a couple of years ago, I wrote a piece about Wales losing to Armenia for the Guardian in

a qualifier for Euro 2024. I just got a fact wrong in it. My friend Ian tweeted me. I'd shared the article on Twitter and he'd read it as soon as it had gone out. He tweeted me and said, it wasn't so-and-so was manager. It wasn't Bobby Gould who was manager when we lost to Moldova. It was Mike Smith. Then I texted the editor of The Guardian and said, you need to change it. And he changed it online, but it still made print. Will Barron Right. Yeah. Okay. Good. Alistair God. I mean, it's very, very doubtful. But if anyone's studying my work in a hundred years time, I really hope that they double check those things. But when you start thinking like that,

you're like, Jesus Christ, I can't rely on anything. Will Barron I think you'll get away with it unless Mike Smith is reading the article. I think I see how you are. Will Barron People are very, very fnicity about football facts being wrong. But it got changed online. So unless you've got a paper copy, and some of the late traditions would have been amended as well. So unless you bought your copy in the North of England or Scotland, or probably West Wales, you'll probably be OK.

And good luck with that, because you spent 24 hours driving around, didn't you, from newsagents to newsagents? Yeah. It cost me thousands of pounds. Alright, that's it for part one of historiography. If you want part two right now, you can become an O What A Time full-timer. You can do that via Wondery Plus or you can go to another slice where benefits include bonus episodes every month plus ad-free listening and both bits in one go. If you want all that go

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