Oh What A Time... - #83 Historiography (Part 2)

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed!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.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of Oh What A Time Early and ad free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Hello, this is part two of Historiography. Let's get on with the show. All right. Karl Marx, a man with a beard and several thoughts. I've always thought Karl Marx is a bit unpenetrable as a kind of subject matter. It felt so dense at school. He's from an age that I just didn't really understand.

And he said things like when it comes to economics and history, that when I was learning about it, I was like, I just don't even know what this guy's on about. And that's where it stayed until today. It's interesting because capital or does capital is a tough old read, but the communist manifesto is easy. It's actually very readable and it's short. So you will zip through the communist manifesto. It's actually really interesting and it's short. So you will zip through the Communist Manifesto. It's actually really interesting, the Communist Manifesto.

A lot of his stuff was pamphlets, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. Which ties in with the thing I will tell you later on, which is he was known to be quite lazy. Is that why he went with the pamphlet rather than the book? Yeah, he doesn't strike me as being lazy, if I'm honest. Yeah, a lot of his output was quite dense, but he was known as being like... Das Kapitel, I don't think, was finished when it was published.

He didn't get actually around to finishing it. Engels helped him out. Well, like my Welsh language stand-up show didn't have an end. It did have an end. It just, the end didn't come together until very, very late in the process. So please do watch it when it goes on. S4C on Boxing Day. Karl Marx, I'm going to start with a Karl Marx quote.

Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please. They do not make it under any circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given, and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weigh like a nightmare on the brain of the living." I guess that runs counter to the great man of history theory, isn't it? Great men creating history themselves. It's not you arrive in a situation and you've got to make the best of it. Yeah, yeah.

I'm just imagining being handed a pamphlet outside Oxford Circus tube and that's written on the front. I'm like, well, this is weighty. I was expecting it to be like gym membership or something. Have you got anything else? Oh, got anything lighter. Yeah. Anything that gives me half price at ITSU, that would be good. Oh my god. If Karl Marx was right now, he'd be ripped, wouldn't he? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He'd start the day with David Lloyd because it clears his head, and then he'd write about how late-stage capitalism, and then he'd probably go back to the gym again.

It's hard to imagine Karl Marx playing five aside in his local power league. Mason- Well, I don't think he would have. I've got some Karl Marx facts that I'll tell you a bit later on that suggest he may not have been the power league sort. Karl Marx's view of history was that the modern drapes itself in symbols and language of the past. The French Revolution borrowed from the Roman Empire, for instance, and the Russian Revolution from the French, etc. Karl Marx's view on history is rooted in historical materialism. This is a theory that emphasizes the role of material

conditions and economic factors in shaping human societies and their historical development. I'll run through the bits of this theory just so we can wrap our heads around it. But I have to say, I wouldn't consider myself a Marxist, but I read this and I was like, I can see how some of this makes sense. Okay, just to throw that out there for the feds that are listening. Materialist conception of history. So Marx believed that material conditions such as the production and distribution of goods form the foundation of society. Yeah, okay, I'm going to tick that one. Economic systems, modes of productions determine the structure of society, including its political, legal and ideological aspects, referred to as the superstructure.

So far so good for me. Yeah, I can see that. Changes in the economic base lead to transformations in the superstructure. Okay. So far, I would say so far so good. Okay. So far, you're a Marxist. Is that what you're saying?

At this point? So far, I'm a Marxist. Okay. And now he says that historyist. Is that what you're saying? At this point. Now he says that history is marked by conflicts between social classes with opposing interests. So in feudal age, the nobles versus the serfs, but in the capitalist society, you've got the bourgeoisie, the owners of production versus the proletariat, the working class. And the struggles are arriving because the ruling class is exploiting the working class, creating tensions that then drive historical change. A lot of those revolutions I mentioned earlier. Again, having just read a lot about the French Revolution, yes, I can see how some of that is true. I kind of thought some of this was controversial. Maybe it is, but it

seemed like so far I'm like, okay, I get this, I get this. This is the controversial stuff. So Karl Marx outlines what he described as like distinct historical epochs that were all based on economic systems. So these are the history of man effectively in different eras. So you've had firstly, primitive communism, classless society where property was communally owned. I guess this would be kind of like hunter-gatherer age. And then you could move into the slave society, which is the emergence of private property and then slave-based production. And then

after that feudalism, so land-based economies dominated by nobles and peasants. And then capitalism, I would say we're probably in now, industrial economies dominated by nobles and peasants, and then capitalism, I would say we're probably in now, industrial economies characterized by wage labor and private ownership. He saw the future stage of historical development as socialism and communism. When he wrote, it was a future stage where class distinctions are abolished and society would be collectively organized. And then he had these ideas around revolution and social change. So Karl Marx argued that each historical

stage contains contradictions that eventually lead to its downfall. So for capitalism, he thought, do you know all this, Al? This is all news to me. Al-Khalili Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I did approaches to history at university, I could grasp this. And then I did it again. So, this is all... I'm aware of this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, he thought that historical stages collapse because there's contradictions within them. So, for capitalism, he thought the drive for profit leads to exploitation and eventually economic crisis. The proletariat, the majority, becomes conscious of its exploitation

and overthrows the bourgeoisie, ushering in socialism. What's interesting about this is, he's writing this before the Russian revolution, before the dawn of communism really. And he didn't think that Russia was ready for a communist revolution, from what I remember. Interesting. From what I remember, he looked at England and was like, well this is where it's going to happen. If it's going to happen anyway. A big exploited working class. If they get together then the middle classes and the upper classes are in big trouble. Mason- When is this? What year are we talking?

Well, Karl Marx died in 1883. And the Russian Revolution was in 1917. So capital came out in 1867, but it was three different volumes. So they came out, they didn't come out all at the same time. And the Communist Man Manifesto came out in 1848. Here are Karl Marx's ideas on the role of ideas in ideology. Karl Marx viewed ideas and ideologies themselves as being shaped by material conditions. So the ruling classes' ideas dominate society, legitimising their control. He wrote, the ideas of the ruling class in every epoch are the ruling ideas.

Interesting. Again, I don't think that's controversial. Yeah. Maybe. Exactly. Look at TV commissioning. Look at the way they treat darts, which is clearly very, very popular. Yeah. Well, it's at least the ideas that have weight and have the ability to have an effect on

society, I suppose. Is that what he's basically saying? The ideas that society is run by are the ideas of those at the top? Is that what he's basically saying? Yeah. You've nailed it. You're a Marxist now. But he says revolutionary ideas emerge from the oppressed classes as they begin to challenge the system. And that's what leads to revolution. Yeah, this is interesting stuff. And it's not as impenetrable as I thought. In the way that you might have, let's say, there's a sea of quite straight history podcasts.

That's the world, okay? We understand there's hundreds of quite... And then a little interloper comes along. One with a comedy spin, one with three guys who aren't actually historians. Revolutionising. Who? Revolutionising slash essentially learning about historical concepts for the first time. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. But here's some stuff about Karl Marx that I didn't know but I was quite interested in. He's obviously writing a lot about economics and capitalism, etc. But personally, he was terrible with money. He lived almost in constant perpetual debt and relied for financial support from his friend Frederick Engels, who funded most of Karl Marx's lifestyle using profits from Engels' family's textile business. Oh wow.

It's funny though, like so many talented people in history have been shit with money and someone has had to help them out. Like I read a biography of Dylan Thomas and he was notoriously crap with money. So like he'd get a gas spill and he'd have to write a letter to AJP Taylor, the historian's wife and say, lend us a quid. I can't pay him a gas spill. I haven't written a poem for ages. So sort me out. People like this, they often have patrons. That's what we need. We need some rich idiots to be like, let's keep paying them. Keep paying them to make these podcasts. Mason- McCormack's was one, to one point, he got so to death that he had to pawn his

wife's silverware. Will Barron- Yeah, a jerk, he was on the phone to his wife and he was like, listen, I am spending ages writing a book about how eventually the working classes will understand they're being exploited and then they'll revolt. This book will be the guidebook to that revolution. However, until it's published and I get a decent advance, I am going to have to sell your stuff because we're skint. Okay, Karl. Mason- If you wouldn't mind, stop eating and hammer your knife and fork. I will be taking all our cutlery down to the pawnbroker.

Another thing about Karl Marx is, when he's discussed, you know what he looks like. He's got really unkempt hair, like a wild beard, like really messy hair, like notoriously scruffy. His landlord referred to him as the terror of the neighborhood because he had such an unkempt appearance and he had a really noisy household as well. For a brief time as well, Karl Marx worked as a journalist for the New York Tribune and he wrote really thoughtful and analytical articles, but he was notorious for missing deadlines or coming really close to deadlines.

But the editors and the New York Tribune were really frustrated working with it. Wow. El touched on at the start, another thing about Karl Marx is he loved the pub. Absolutely loved pubs and had spent a lot of his time drinking and debating with friends his ideas in the pub. Sometimes leading to really infamous heated arguments with his mates. He does look, I want to say pub bore, but that's not necessarily the right term.

No, he looks like he works in the Apple shop. He looks like he can fix your iPad. He looks clever, even though it's really unkempt. The Apple shop is exactly right. I'm imagining him telling me that there's nothing they can do because it's water damage. So that's not covered. Have you thought about getting an Apple Watch as well? No, I'm not. Now is not the time. Basically my phone has broken. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. sure, sure, sure. Mason. Yeah. So he was also involved in a bit of a scandal. I don't know if we knew this. He's rumoured his maid, Helene de Muth, he was rumoured to have fathered an illegitimate son with her, Freddie, though Engles took the blame for it. Will. Bloody hell, what a working relationship that was.

Mason. Wow. Will. I know. Will. I'll finish the book and I'll take the blame for your illegitimate son. Cheers, Freddie. Yeah, and Engels as well. I touched on this at the start, but he helped him finish Das Kapital because Marx had left it incomplete, famously. Marx also had various ailments. He had a lot of boils. Boils? He wouldn't work from a desk. He would work from the couch and he referred to his couch as

the chair of reflection. Oh, nice. Right. So next time you're working on the sofa, just call it the chair of reflection. And also he did have a cut. He had a failed business once. He tried to, he gave serious thought to launching a desk lamp business, but abandoned the idea after realising that he didn't really have the entrepreneurial skills to do it. That's such a hilariously different direction to the one he ended up taking, isn't it? One of the fathers of revolution.

Also, he worked to realise he wasn't an entrepreneur. He's like, oh yeah, I'm a Marxist. Shit. Also, if you're working on the sofa, why are you setting up a desk lamp? It doesn't feel like this isn't your world, is it? What do you know about desks? You've never seen a desk in your life. Remarkable. I will end on facts about Karl Marx that I knew ahead of this, which is that I know Karl Marx is buried in Highgate Cemetery, he died on the 14th of March 1883, but Highgate Cemetery

I've never been. It's on my list of things I really want to do. We should go one day. Interestingly, it's strange to think about Karl Marx is buried in the same place as the following people. And I think about this because I remember going to Westminster Abbey when I was a kid and there's like Poets Corn and you've got Dickens in there and Chaucer. buried in the same place as the following people. And I think about this because I remember going to Westminster Abbey when I was a kid and there's like Poets Corn and you've got Dickens in there and Chaucer.

It's like they've put the bodies of all these great English writers together. Really? I don't really know why and the hope that maybe they meet up in the afterlife. Not like the human centipede. You don't know. You mean they just, the graves are next to each other. But it's interesting to think about all these people meeting up in the afterlife at High Gate Cemetery because they're all buried there. The graves are next to each other. But it's interesting to think about all these people meeting up in the afterlife at Highgate

Cemetery because they're all buried there. You've got Karl Marx, but also Jeremy Beedle is buried in Highgate Cemetery. Bruce Reynolds, the mastermind of the great train robbery. Roger Lloyd Pack, who played Trigger. No. Bob Hoskins. Trigger. George Michael. Wow.

I just pulled the ones that I knew. But last, I just want to check one name stood out to me, a name I hadn't heard before I'll end on this also buried in Highgate Cemetery is Tom Smith who is the inventor of the Christmas cracker. Ah! Mad to think of that having its own inventor. Wow! But there you go Highgate Cemetery got to go. So to finish today's episode on history and the study of history, I'm going to be talking to you about postmodernism. And I don't get it! Well hopefully the next 10 minutes will…

I've been struggling with it for years! This is going to be a moment of change in your life, Ellis. Yeah. You're going to leave this podcast awakened. I can't wait to see if the combination of you and Darryl O'Historian can finally put to bed some questions I've had since 2001. So postmodernism and the idea of truth and history is what I'm going to be talking about today. Now, I agree with you, Al, it was quite a complicated thing to get your head around. I remember in A-level history being a thing that was talked about and it would be one

of the things where I just couldn't quite get my head around it. I slightly tune out and then I think about my Championship Manager team. I'd be like sat there just thinking about that instead. That's why we're not great academics. Exactly. I'm trying to think of the sort of famous public intellectual, I think Noam Chomsky zones out and thinks about his Championship Manager team. Whether we should be playing the Christmas tree formation, the final against Real Madrid

that evening. Well, Karl Marx is another famous procrastinator, but if he'd have had Championship Manager 97, 98. Oh, absolutely. He wouldn't have done a thing. There'd be no Russian Revolution. It never have been in the pub. No pamphlets.

Oh my God, the purges would never have happened. Championship Manager, would it be 1886, 18... Whatever it would be. Really, only... Notts County are the only team on the go. Yeah, Preston North End. As I say, I learned about it a bit in A-level, but it was just quite a complicated thing to get my head around. I never really managed. But had I been listening properly and actually taking

some time to stop and read about it, I'd have realised that actually it wasn't that complicated. Oh, all right. Post-modernism, for those who don't know, it was an intellectual, cultural, artistic movement that emerged in the mid-20th century. And it emerged essentially in response to the failures of modernism. Now, modernism sought to impose a single universal truth or ideology on society. And that was emphasised really through an idea of rationality, the idea of human progress, the Enlightenment project. It was this idea basically that there was one clear truth that could be observed on everything. That's in essence what modernism

was framed around. Postmodern historians, very simply put, argue that the study of history and writing about the past is actually subjective. Will Barron Yeah, well, I mean, if you take it to its sort of logical conclusion, basically pointless, because they're like, history is meaningless and it's shapeless and you can't ascribe meaning to it. Will Barron Completely. And that what one historian has to say has equal weight to another because nobody is right.

Will Barron That was what I really struggled with. And I used to think to myself, you say it's meaningless. You know, I'm the first cohort of students who have to pay tuition fees. So please don't tell me that my degree is meaningless. I'm two years in already. I can't. Yeah, I've committed to this. Please tell me this matters. Yeah. I think in a way we're quite a postmodern show. We have equal weight to our sections. All voices are heard. We're postmodern pod. That's what we are. Postmod pod. Postmod pod,

yeah. Postmod pod. Exactly. So the reason that postmodern historians felt and still feel this because they believe that what's really going on in history isn't an analysis of the truth or the past, but it's the construction of a narrative about the past. So basically, the historian is almost closer to a novelist, if that makes any sense, than a scientist. Yes, I remember this argument. Yeah. So that, well, you talked early at the beginning of the show, Ellis, about the ancient Greek historians and how they're wanting to reflect the glories of Greece and it was all very

Greek-focused and That sort of attitude is exactly it. It is inadvertently shaping the stories that are told because of the person who's writing it. Yeah. I'm a sucker for this. Every single theory so far I've heard on this podcast I'm into. Very easily convinced. And you can see that even like, I went back to see my mum at the weekend. She's got a history book on the British Empire that she read when she was at school. All the kids read. And you read it, it really is just sort of like, it's so skewed. It's the idea of the Empire being wonderful, the heroism of the Crusades,

all this sort of stuff, kings. It's that idea. It's basically trying to sell a story of England and Britain. Will Barron Of course. I remember the argument from when I was doing my degree that basically all history is fiction was a phrase I remember. I mean, I was doing my degree that basically all history is fiction was a phrase I remember. I studied this 25 years ago, but I also remember the whole, you can't really think that one historian's account is better than another. But surely you have to take into account how hard someone has worked on something. But yeah, can I say that our podcast on

the French Revolution a couple of weeks ago is better than Simon Sharma's book on the subject? We are both the same. Tom Bilyeu We could say that they are both of value, and also not of value at the same time. Will Barron We can look each other in the eye and say we have both contributed to this subject. And let's leave it there.

Tom Bilyeu Exactly. I think you should stick to Darrell's script, Tom, because we're now entering... It is like I've gone back in time and I'm in a seminar and I'm going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So continue and I won't interrupt. Well, I'm afraid Daryl's script has already been shuffled by me pre-record. Oh, nice one. Oh yeah, because as a historian you have equal value to Daryl, who studied at history and who studied at history and has got a PhD and has got lots of books. Yeah, nice one, Tom.

I just put it in my language, Ellis. You're a modernist, I get it. Exactly. So postmodernism, this is what it is, but it's not without its problems. I think that's fair. Especially when it is replied to themes that are regarded as unequivocally true. So notably, events from the Second World War were including the Holocaust resistance collaboration. So Holocaust deniers like David Irving and his supporters basically seized on postmodernism as allowing room for their point of view, even to the point of going to trial to try and prove that. But then postmodern

historians hit back. They insisted that their point was not, for example, those events did not take place, but rather that there was no single history of the event, since in the word of one such historian, I think it's a really good quote, this, no single all-embracing narrative could ever comprehend it. Mason- Yeah. And, you know, it doesn't mean that you can argue that Thatcher was first elected in 1980, because the election was obviously in 1979. It doesn't mean that. It doesn't get in the way of chronology. You know, another way of looking at it, I suppose, would be I took my daughter to Wembley to watch the England women play the US women on Saturday, and there were over 78,000

people there. So that's 78,000 different stories about why they go into the game. And when you think about it like that, it is obviously impossible to write a piece of history that covers everyone fairly when it comes to just a tiny event like one football match. Also, not even a competitive game, a friendly. Mason- Absolutely. And so obviously something like the Second World War, so vast, so you're cherry picking and you're choosing to omit and what you're choosing to omit and exclude says an awful lot about you and your biases and your upbringing etc.

Completely. 78,000 people reading a Guardian article in which… Incorrectly claimed that Bobby Gould was the manager when we lost to Moldova was obviously it was Mike Smith and I know that now and I will never make that mistake again. Tutted by 78,000 people as you went for your half-time beer. Bloody loud tut. Yeah. So interestingly, at the start of the 2000s, a variation on this point of view found its way into a BBC landmark television series which is fronted by the aforementioned Simon Sharma, which was intentionally named A History of Britain rather than The History

of Britain. Basically, Sharma saying it was his take. Will Barron Yeah, when I did my history degree between 1909 and 1902, it was massive. So I'm right in the nexus of this. I was right at the apex of this being a big deal. Will Barron Well, there's a reason that post-modernism is a big deal, Ellis. And that's really because of two particularly influential theorists. In fact, his argument wouldn't have got anywhere if it wasn't for these people. I'll just tell you about them. I'm sure you know about them already, Ellis. There's the American Hayden White and the Frenchman Michael Foucault. Now, Foucault, he began life as a communist

and a Marxist, there's our friend again, and regarded objective history as an attempt by one group to secure power over the other. A lot of this actually reflected his own experience with the French Communist Party, which proved completely inflexible on matters of gender and sexuality, insisting instead on the objective truth of social class as it was understood within a Soviet framework. Now a clear example of this being the Stalin era short course, which was a notorious brown leather history book, which covered the rise of the Bolshevik party in the USSR, which was first published in the 1930s to mark the 20th anniversary of the revolution.

This book, okay, it was designed to be objective, but it stated the truth as befitted Stalin's position in the mid 1930s. It manipulated the contribution of his rivals to make him appear more important from the beginning when he was not. Which I think is funny because you'd imagine he'd be such a sort of honest, self-deprecating guy. Oh yeah, chilled out guy. Exactly, yeah, yeah. Imagine his notes would be so... No, that's not why I'm like, no, don't beat me up like that. So, Stalin himself was a noted student of history. And this is interesting, it shows partly why he became so powerful. He maintained a vast library

of books on the subject and he fully understood how to manipulate historical variables on the page. He was almost like a master of creating the story that suited him. A lot of this came from his understanding and his thirst for knowledge in terms of Russian history, USSR history. I mean, that's interesting. I think you're onto something there in that to be a, I mean, good dictator is not the right word, but to be an effective dictator, you have to have a grasp of history, your

role within it, what the past, what people think, and you have to know how to construct a narrative around who you are that people are going to buy into and how to control that. And creating a narrative that appeals to people. That's what the populists have done. Yeah, exactly. Because obviously we're now sort of living in the age of the populists. That's what the populists have done. Yeah, exactly. Because obviously we're now living in the age of the populists. It's what all banners done and it's what a lot of… even Trump does it. Yes. And it's really frightening. That's why good historians are so important. That's

why history as a discipline is so important. Absolutely. Hayden White, on the other hand, he was less interested in the dynamics of power than in how history was put together. In 1973, in his book Metahistory, he asked questions such as, why does a historian use this adjective? Why do they use that form of narrative plotting, those sorts of characterisations, so on? And what might that mean about the way history operates as a form of literature, basically, or art. Both Foucault and White were accused by the detractors of wanting to destroy the historical profession, rather than open it up to new perspectives and so make the historian as a writer stop and think

about what they were doing, which is what they argued they were really trying to do. Mason- That's what I used to say in my seminars. I used to say, why are they f***ing this up for everyone? I might want to be a historian. Jesus Christ, can someone shut Foucault up, please? Mason- And also it's too complicated. As White wrote, and I think this is a really interesting way of seeing it, readers of histories and novels can hardly fail to be struck by their similarities. There are many histories that could pass for novels and many novels that could pass for histories. The aim of the writer of a novel must be the same

as that of the writer of history. Which I think is a really interesting way of seeing because it is storytelling and there is a real overlap there, isn't there? And the question is, what was that aim? It could quite simply be to entertain, to inform, to educate, to illuminate, to make us laugh. Oh, what a time pod. Which quite simply be to entertain, to inform, to educate, to illuminate, to make us laugh. Oh, what a time pod. Which leads us then to ask, and this is by extension, for example, is the Thomas Cromwell of a Hilary Mantel novel any less historical than the Thomas Cromwell of an academic biographer?

That's interesting. That's a very interesting point. So that is basically what postmodern historians were asking us to think about all along. To what extent is our sense of the past framed not by the actual past it was lived, but the literary and artistic representations of that past, which may or may not get close to the truth. So you can see that it's like the types of history that the readers that you have access to completely affects your impression of the past. And also the art that you consume on that subject has a direct impact on the way you view the past. And this is basically what the

postmodern point of view was. So there you go. Ellis, do you have any further clarity on postmodernism now after that? I just thought they were wankers. Like I really did used to think that they were wankers. Sitting in seminars thinking, yeah, but that is what a wanker would think. Yeah. This touches on something that frustrates me about history, which is that, as I've understood the postmodernist view, is that it is fundamentally unknowable, untouchable, unreachable. You can't really understand it because there's just so many sources. It's

just impossible, isn't it? Everyone's got an opinion. That opinion is subjective. You can't go back, you can't witness any of this for yourself. You've just got to try to wrap your head around it. Will Barron Yeah, yeah. And make the best sense of it that you can, knowing what you know. And yeah, it's... Jason Vale Just piecing together the bits of Mike Newell's life as best you can from his unauthorised biography. Mason- But you know, as an example, if you were to write an authorised biography of ex-Blackburn

Rovers footballer, Mike Newell, so this is being commissioned. Jason- Okay. So just so, in this situation, all my dreams are coming true. Yeah. So when I wished upon that star, it wasn't for nothing. Yeah. You've thrown enough pennies into enough wishing wells that you've been called by Penguin or Macmillan or Orion.

And they said, Tom, he's agreed. Let's do this. Newell has agreed. You get to write an author authorized biography of Mike Newell. So say now you have interviews with Mike Newell. You say, write them, Mike Newell. What, referring to by his full name? Write them, Mike Newell. Will Barron You can't do that consistently. There's got to be a point where you say Mike. You have to drop just Mike. Because you get grating

after three weeks of interviews. Mason Hickman But you know, you'd say, okay, what's your earliest memory? And you know, what's your earliest memory? And, you know, what's your earliest memory playing football? And he'd say, I headed the ball a lot, so it's actually more recent, you'd think. He would tell you loads of stuff that you would immediately dismiss based on your word count and based on the reader. Because you're like, well, the reader's not going to want to know about that.

And based on your knowledge of the unauthorised biography of Alan Sheeran, which contradicts most of what happened at Ewood Park. So you are putting an enormous amount of responsibility onto the historian. And so that's where the postmodernists come in. I just think with that stuff, if you follow it to his logical conclusion, it just means that it's all pointless. And I don't think it is pointless. And that's what used to bother me. I don't think it's pointless at all. No, I'm very much not. I think there's a real responsibility. There's a real art and it's just, yeah, it's an invaluable resource. I really do think that. And I think history podcasts are part of that tapestry.

There you go. Well, you're a historian now. Thank you. Great! Thank you for listening to this episode on Historiography. It has been a meaty one. My brain is absolutely fried. It's brought back a lot of quite bad memories. I'm not joking. We all need a walk in Highgate Cemetery. I've really enjoyed it actually. I was slightly concerned it would be too serious an episode, but I've really enjoyed it.

Oh, I've enjoyed it. It's been really interesting. It's been a lot of fun. That approaches the history rather than say, you know, I don't know, I remember doing Britain Between the Wars and the more philosophical theoretical stuff really did put into sharp focus the limits of my brain and the limits of my intellect. Shall we get back to something much lighter for our next one? Our next one will be like funniest apes in history or something like that. Well, if you want to be further enlightened on the limits of Ellis's mind

you can get extra bonus content, two bonus episodes every month if you become an Oh further enlightened on the limits of Ellis's mind, you can get extra bonus content, two bonus episodes every month if you become an O What A Time full timer. If you want the options for how you can do that, you can do that by wondering plus or another slice, you can go to owhatatime.com where you also get ad free listening and lots of other benefits too. And it's worth saying it really does help support the show. It means a lot.

It allows us to do this. We really do appreciate your support in whatever way that is. There's also loads of brilliant subscriber episodes now available to you if you join as a new subscriber. There are so many waiting for you that you will not have heard, a lot of which are some of my favorites. If you want to sign up, you can go to owattertime.com. Don't forget, if you have anything you want to email us about for the next correspondence section, you can do to owatatime.com. And don't forget, if you have anything you want to email us about for the next correspondence section, you can do that at hello at owatatime.com. Brilliant. We'll see you next week. Thanks so much. Bye. The Follow Oh What A Time on the Wondry app, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

And you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.