A preliminary punt!

We have a market twice a week in Sherborne.  It's not very big but has some excellent stallholders - and I don't just mean the cake lady whose fruit cakes are to die for - if they don't kill you first!  There is a paper-back book-seller who keeps me supplied with pulp fiction - incidentally, the 'Memsahib' gave me the very latest Jack Reacher book as an anniversary present, absolutely terrific tosh of the first order, the best for a while!  Where was I?  Oh yes, there is also a chap who sells odds and sods of furniture gained, I guess, from house clearance sales, and on one of his tables he displays various esoteric hard-back books.  I always look, just in case, and I have from time to time picked up odd-ball books I would never have found in a proper bookshop.  Yesterday, I bought a slim volume called Nobody's Perfect: A New Whig Interpretation of History by Annabel Patterson.  This brainy lady is Sterling Professor of History at Yale and I gather that in this book she is attempting to rescue the whig(*) theory of history from the dreadful old Tories who have highjacked it for the last hundred years or so.

In so far as I understand it, which isn't very far at all and is the reason I bought the book in the first place, the whig theory of history proposes that a true analysis of history shows a more or less steady progress to a better and better society.  The re-actionary view, on the other hand, simply describes history as a series of accidents occurring through the competition for place and power.  My head tells me the latter is true but my heart yearns for the former.  Anyway, this is by way of a provisional, introductory post on the subject whilst I try to think a little harder on the subject.  Also, it is to let you know that I'm back in business - so that should see my reader stats drop!

 

 

(*) Prof. Patterson is eager to differentiate between small capital 'whig' and large capital 'Whig'.  The former being the general philosophy which today we would call 'progressive, and the latter indicating the political party whose leaders and members would hold a variable belief in progress dpending on the circs - well, they're politicians, after all!

 

Comments

[dearieme]

I am moved to treat you to my Whig Theory of African History.

When I was a fresher I knew the sons of Tubman, then President of Liberia. So I said to young Bill "What's your Dad's political party called?"
"Man, we's de True Whigs."
"Oh, so you've still got Whigs and Tories, then?"
"No, just Whigs".

Got it in one, if I may say so.

[dearieme]

Bloody Hell, it seems that young Bill is still with us.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_V.S._Tubman,_Jr.

[David Duff]

Oh, pity poor Liberia! When I first came across the absolutely excellent 'Mercy Ships' people that was the main target of their operations. The place was a charnel house after two civil wars.

If anyone reads this go here:

http://www.mercyships.org.uk/about-us

and watch the video. Remember, that no-one gets paid, they're all volunteers, so i fyou can send them a fiver - or a tenner - or whatever you can - there is no more cost efficient charity anywhere.