Week 7 - learning about History's People - Tyrants, Heroes, Rebels and Dreamers

I gave up history very early on at school - I think in my third year.  I didn't even do it for GCSE.  I'm not really sure if it was because I found history boring or I just found my history teacher a total bore. More than likely, it was the latter because how can anyone think that history is boring.  We are what we are because of history - all of us.  We are shaped by our own history and that of others.  We all have a deep sense of connection to the past, whether we're totally aware of it or not.

So, this week was another lecture and one that I was always going to struggle through because my historical knowledge is pretty pathetic: amateur at best.  But of course, I have to remind myself that this is exactly why I'm doing the blog.  Even if I just learn something each week and it sticks, I've achieved something good for myself.

The How To Academy offers all sorts of innovative courses, experiences, talks and events, loads of which I'd actually like to do, but one that stood out to me was entitled "History's People - Tyrants, Heroes, Rebels and Dreamers".  This was a talk by acclaimed historian Margaret Macmillan about her new book, "History's People", looking at all the great, (not necessarily good) personalities that have shaped our history and who really deserved recognition.

How does one decide who warrants more ink-time on the paper?  Well, I guess thats relative but I would imagine one starts off by thinking who were good leaders and who were bad leaders.  Now, there are the obvious ones that come to mind and of course, they do get talked about later on, but, as Macmillan started off by saying, its the ones who take risks and also the ones who are endlessly curious that she particularly makes note of.  This is because the curious ones are often very observant and so in historical terms, the curious ones wrote down all their observations, thus informing us about history in such a detailed way.

The curious ones, the dreamers, Macmillan talked about tended to be women.  Well, women are, by nature more inquisitive than men and perhaps their antennae to discovery are a little bit more in tune.  Of course, the curious explorers that she talked about were people I'd never heard off - the ones who don't normally get talked about in history class.  Gertrude Bell, Edith Durham and Fanny Parkes were all women that defied the constraints of their own society and went on to do incredible things.

From Co. Durham, Gertrude Bell was the first woman to win a first-class honours degree in modern history at Oxford University in 1886. She taught herself Persian and travelled to Iran to visit an Uncle and from then on, explored the globe on countless occasions.  She spent a large part of her time in the Middle East and essentially founded Iraq, writing its constitution and helped explain the policies of the Middle East to Britain.

Edith Durham was perhaps even more incredible as she had very little education and also suffered from depression after years of taking care of her sick mother.  After her doctor suggested a foreign break, she travelled down the Dalmatian coast and from then on, spent her entire life specialising in the Balkans, doing significant anthropological research and writing extensively, particularly on Albania.

The funny thing is, there is sort of a reason why people like these women don't get as much talk-time
as some of the great leaders in history and some think that that is because of "Dead White Men History" - it was something I had never heard of but Macmillan told us about it.  And when I think about all the historical figures I know and was taught about: yep, all dead, all white, all male.  I wonder what is taught in history lessons these days in schools? Can anyone verify?

That being said, I'm now going to talk about some dead, white males.  But, some of the ones, I really didn't know that much about.  Like for example Napoleon.  He was someone that wasn't necessarily destined for greatness - he wasn't born into wealth, his family weren't powerful and he didn't have any real opportunities.  But, as Macmillan pointed out, a lot of leaders were just born in the right place, at the right time and had luck on their side.  Napoleon had big ambition but he probably would have come to nothing if it wasn't for the French Revolution.  Suddenly, the military was in a state and had to be cobbled together quickly.  Napoleon, the rebel, saw an opportunity and took his chance and rose very quickly.  He was ruthless and he became a master of Europe, being highly motivated by a cause.

Someone else who created a lot of change in an unstable and volatile time was President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Here is someone who had an ambition to get into politics but had been born into privilege and was totally spoilt by an overindulgent Mother.  Then catastrophically he got polio, but he survived and no longer wanted to be indulged - he couldn't bear for anyone to see his disability or for it to hold him back and he became a different person, putting the work in.  He became President when the U.S.A was in the worst state of the Great Depression.  Half the men in the entire country were out of work and the nation had no hope.  Roosevelt restored the faith in the American people and talked to them in a way that they could understand.  He communicated very well that there was hope and he did so by talking to people through the new medium of radio and would have "fireside chats" with the country's families.
As the country became a darker place, Roosevelt used his powers to make the Americans understand that they would need to go to war.  He prepared people when they didn't think the U.S would ever have to go to war.  He educated people and encouraged congress to spend more money on the air force and the army etc.  He also was instrumental in helping the British win the war by lending them machinery and giving them extra tools.  Roosevelt taught people about helping to "put out the fire".  He was very persuasive and also effective.

Finally, we need to talk about the leaders who were definitely effective, but ultimately went off the rails.  Its what the Greeks called "Hubris" and there were plenty of leaders who just stopped listening and believed more in their own self-importance.  Maggie Thatcher is perhaps an unfair first example as she wasn't all that bad in this context.  The Falklands was of course, her greatest moment but also her undoing.  She was told that she shouldn't take them back but she kept on and persisted and ultimately stopped listening to her advisors.  Eventually she proved very unpopular as she started to get rid of the people in her cabinet that didn't agree with her.

The real tyrants in history, the ones who believed so fervently in their convictions to the detriment of millions of people, were Stalin and Hitler.  Stalin believed so unwaveringly in Marxism that thousands were executed in his ruthless endeavour to make Russia a classless society.  His introduction of collectivisation was at a tremendous cost to the people of the Soviet Union and it is believed that during his reign of terror more people were killed than in both the First and Second World Wars combined.

There is very little for me to say about Adolf Hitler.  He is without doubt, the most infamous dictator of the 20th century and in my mind, was certainly the worst.  He is a true example of the saying "the greater the power, the greater the insanity".  In the end, for him, he couldn't even contemplate that his demise was his own doing and apparently made an outrageous order for the destruction of Germany and its people whom he thought had not stood by him, nor saved him.

Its interesting to think about such game-changers as Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt etc.  Would the 20th century have been the same?  If Hitler had died in the trenches as he almost did, would others have gone as far?  Decisions aren't always inevitable in this life.  It makes me wonder about post 9/11 - of course we would go to war to destroy Al-qaeda but would we have gone into Iraq if Blair and Bush hadn't have been in power at the time?  What if other people ran our countries?  Its that horrendous question that we can never, ever answer.........What if?