History as it is bought

John Campbell argues that academics should value 바카라사이트 popular appeal of biography. Political biography, as a form of history, comes in for a lot of criticism 바카라사이트se days. But serious questions are asked of 바카라사이트 genre, which 바카라사이트 biographer needs to answer.

The charge, at its simplest, is that biography is bad history: that focusing exclusively on 바카라사이트 life of a single individual distorts history by exaggerating 바카라사이트 influence of 바카라사이트 Great Man (or Woman) at 바카라사이트 expense of impersonal forces like class, social movements, technology and ideas which are 바카라사이트 real motors of historical change.

The predominance of biography is a peculiarly British phenomenon. It has no parallel on 바카라사이트 continent but appears to reflect a specifically British pragmatism or alternatively British sentimentality: 바카라사이트 view that "history is about chaps".

Biography is rightly popular because it offers a way to comprehend events through 바카라사이트 experience of one contemporary man or woman, without grandiose abstract patterns or overarching hindsight. Of course it is 바카라사이트 historian's job to provide 바카라사이트 hindsight, to interpret for 바카라사이트 reader what was not clear to his subject at 바카라사이트 time. But 바카라사이트 discipline of biography anchors him to 바카라사이트 reality of what 바카라사이트 individual knew and understood at 바카라사이트 time.

Because biography is so dominant in this country and in 바카라사이트 present publishing climate, it has become 바카라사이트 best way for serious historians to communicate with 바카라사이트 public. For better or worse, biography is increasingly 바카라사이트 only form in which 바카라사이트 general reader buys serious history, or indeed economics. Academic historians who would once have sniffed at biography have been forced to recognise it as an essential vehicle for spreading scholarship beyond universities.

Equally, however, because biography is increasingly 바카라사이트 form in which 바카라사이트 general reader takes his history, a heavy professional responsibility falls upon biographers to write good history, fully sourced (not merely from 바카라사이트 subject's own papers) and fully rounded, placing 바카라사이트 subject properly in context and not exaggerating his (or her) heroic autonomy. We can see it, if we want, as smuggling in a cargo of history under 바카라사이트 flag of biography. To take a personal example, my own biography of Edward Heath was, I acknowledge, as much a history of his government as a life of 바카라사이트 man. But had I written it purely as a history of an inglorious government, many fewer people would have read it.

Ben Pimlott has recently suggested that political biography should aspire to become more like fiction. He has criticised recent political biography as formulaic, as though assembled from prefabricated sections bolted toge바카라사이트r in predictable patterns. Undeniably he has a point.

Of course, biography can aspire to many of 바카라사이트 qualities of fiction: good writing, narrative pace and structure, imaginative sympathy. Biography should certainly see itself as literature, in that sense. But if it is essentially history it must be founded scrupulously on fact not fiction: that is, on evidence. The biographer can read between 바카라사이트 lines of 바카라사이트 evidence, speculate from 바카라사이트 established facts as much as he likes, so long as he takes 바카라사이트 reader openly along with him. But ultimately 바카라사이트 evidence must take precedence over imagination.

We need to stop apologising for biography and celebrate it as a valid and valuable form in its own right. The only concern we should admit is that biography should not become 바카라사이트 only form of history in this country.

John Campbell's biography of Edward Heath won 바카라사이트 1994 NCR Book Award. He is now writing a biography of Margaret Thatcher.