History – It has changed and I love it

I have a confession to make – I love history. Ok, this might be fairly obvious - I mean this is a post on a blog called the Nerd Historian – but I simply have to say it. And I am not the only one.

 History is currently experiencing a great resurgence. The Game of the Year Award 2015 went to “The Witcher 3” – a role playing game set in a realistic medieval world. Also in 2015 the Anime “The Heroic Legend of Arslan” aired which’s story is based on an old Persian legend. The TV show performed well and a second season was announced. Not one but two dark ages TV shows aired on British television in 2016 with “The Last Kingdom” based on the bestselling historical novels by Bernard Cornwell and a remake of the classic “Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands”. In American television both “Vikings” and “Game of Thrones” are getting another season this year. Currently there are four (!) videogames in development that focus on realistic medieval warfare “Mordhau”, “Mount and Blade Bannerlord”, “Kingdom ComeDeliverance”, and “For Honor”. Also renaissance fairs are springing up everywhere and more and more international universities feature medieval history. And last but not least history is getting a larger online presence as well with more YouTube channels and podcasts about history growing in number. Yes this doesn’t mean everybody loves it as much as I do, but it shows that at least interest is growing in history. But why is this happening and why now?

The Nerdwriter1, a YouTube channel which creates weekly essays, made a great video on this: “Atemporality: Our Relationship ToHistory Has Changed”. In this video the Nerdwriter1 argues that because of the replacement of the book through the internet our values have changed. There isn’t one master narrative in our values simply because there are so incredibly many narratives due to the vastness of the internet. One thing this generation has been often accused of is it’s in ability to define itself. But the Nerdwriter1 thinks this is a good thing: “As Sterling notes, historians really used to worry that their interpretations of the past were clouded by their own values. Maybe the good news is for us right now we just don’t know what our values really are.”

 I could not agree more. When I read history books I often see values influencing the writer. For example, a modernist would write that knights were a great step forwards for medieval societies in that they would fight only with their ethnic code in mind for order and justice. A postmodern writer would on the other hand write that knights were a symbol of the oppression by the monarchy and they were only after land, money and plunder and would rape, pillage, and burn as much as the Vikings. But today we are in a position to see them not as a symbol for anything, but as human beings. Today a George R.R. Martin can write a novella like “The Hedge Knight” where a knight is portrayed as complex human being in a realistic world making the choices he thinks is right at that time. Without values we can see the people in history how they were and judge them not by our standards, but by theirs.

 This gives us not only a more accurate view of history but a more interesting one because now we can emphasize with the peoples of the past more easily and imagine how it was to live like them. A great example of this is the TV show “Vikings”. In it we follow the exploits of the legendary Viking Ragnar Lothbrok (or Lodbrok) and his brother Rollo. He is not portrayed as great hero or as a villain, but as a human being. In the second episode we see him and his band landing on Lindisfarne Island in England. There they find a monastery filled with unarmed monks. What do the Vikings do? They start killing the monks and plunder the monastery. But not because they are inherently evil, but rather because it is what they did in real history. It was part of their culture. And in the series Ragnar is still a likable and sympathetic character because that’s who he was as a human being. He just lived in a warlike culture where mercy was considered weak and you were had to kill other people to be accepted. In this TV-show they manage to create an accurate depiction without pushing modern values on the characters and this makes the show so much more interesting.

And I love this development not only because the history itself becomes more accurate, but because much more people are getting drawn into it and history is very important. It shows us where we come from and why current day problems exist. If more people learned about history we would many of today’s political discussions would be less complex or would even vanish altogether.

I am with Bruce Sterling when he says: „History is not a science. History is an effort in humanities”. History shouldn’t be about values and policies or great leaders and battles it needs to be about the humans. Yes humans have great leaders and battle and have values and policies and we should see them in context with and through the human being.

History has radically changed over the years and it has changed for the better. History is by definition about the humans and it always should be.