Go Unlimited with Magzter GOLD
Get unlimited access to 10,000+ magazines, newspapers and Premium stories for just
Try GOLD - Free
Spinning stories
BBC History Magazine
|May 2022
HELEN CARR assesses a magisterial overview of how people have represented the past, from medieval propaganda to historical fiction
“Before you study the history, study the historian,” said EH Carr in his 1961 lecture series ‘What Is History?’ In these lectures, later turned into a book, he argued that no writer of history has ever been able to recount the past without being influenced by their own present and human experience.
It is Carr’s direction to study the historian – a call against objective history – upon which Richard Cohen expands in Making History. This in-depth analysis considers those who have written about the past, and how their writing was influenced by their present.
This story is from the May 2022 edition of BBC History Magazine.
Subscribe to Magzter GOLD to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 10,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
MORE STORIES FROM BBC History Magazine
BBC History UK
Hymn to life
Scripted by Alan Bennett and directed by Nicholas Hytner - a collaboration that produced The Madness of King George and The History Boys – The Choral is set in 1916.
1 min
December 2025
BBC History UK
Helen Keller
It was when I was eight or nine years old, growing up in Canada, and I borrowed a book about her from my local library.
2 mins
December 2025
BBC History UK
Spain's miracle
The nation's transition from dictatorship to democracy in the late 1970s surely counts as one of modern Europe's most remarkable stories. On the 50th anniversary of General Franco's death, Paul Preston explores how pluralism arose from the ashes of tyranny
8 mins
December 2025
BBC History UK
Just how many Bayeux Tapestries were there?
As a new theory, put forward by Professor John Blair, questions whether the embroidery was unique, David Musgrove asks historians whether there could have been more than one 'Bayeux Tapestry'
7 mins
December 2025
BBC History UK
In service of a dictator
HARRIET ALDRICH admires a thoughtful exploration of why ordinary Ugandans helped keep a monstrous leader in power despite his regime's horrific violence
2 mins
December 2025
BBC History UK
The Book of Kells is a masterwork of medieval calligraphy and painting
THE BOOK OF KELLS, ONE OF THE GREATEST pieces of medieval art, is today displayed in the library of Trinity College Dublin.
3 mins
December 2025
BBC History UK
Passing interest
In his new book, Roger Luckhurst sets about the monumental task of chronicling the evolution of burial practices. In doing so, he does a wonderful job of exploring millennia of deathly debate, including the cultural meanings behind particular approaches.
1 mins
December 2025
BBC History UK
Is the advance of AI good or bad for history?
As artificial intelligence penetrates almost every aspect of our lives, six historians debate whether the opportunities it offers to the discipline outweigh the threats
8 mins
December 2025
BBC History UK
Beyond the mirage
All serious scholarship on ancient Sparta has to be conducted within the penumbra of the 'mirage Spartiate', a French term coined in 1933 to describe the problem posed by idealised accounts of Sparta.
1 mins
December 2025
BBC History UK
He came, he saw... he crucified pirates
Ancient accounts of Julius Caesar's early life depict an all-action hero who outwitted tyrants and terrorised bandits. But can they be trusted? David S Potter investigates
10 mins
December 2025
Translate
Change font size