British history 'needs rewrite'

[kyser_soze]

So wrong, yet so right...

 

[Belushi]

It's her screechy, nasal voice...

 

[butchersapron]

I think it may have been in Tom Hollands 'Rubicon' that I read about the conditions of agricultural slaves in the Roman Empire, the Republic had started out with many small farmers but gradually the land had been bought up by large landlords who farmed it using slave Labour living in barracks and literally worked to death, reminiscent of the plantations of the deep south.

Worth remembering when dealing with the Rome, or the wider ancient world in fact, that formal chattel slavery wasn't the only form of unfree labour and that slaves were as a matter of course placed in the role overseers of people in debt bondage or other forms of involuntary labour that wasn't defined as slavery - it wasn't just slaves and freemen as some historians have attempted to portray it. Of course, this also applies to the north atlantic slave trade as well.

 

[Idaho]

History is continually being rewritten for the current audience. History is merely a story or version of the past that we find interesting/politically useful.

 

[subversplat]

Incidentally, this reminds me that a generation or so ago, Peter Fryer wrote a very good book, Staying Power, about the part that black people had played in British history. I assume what Phillips really means is that there should be more stuff like this and it should be more widely read.

Anyway, the book begins with what Fryer believes to be the first recorded instance of a black person in British history, a Roman soldier who speaks to the Emperor, Septimus Severus, who was at that time in York.

What Fryer obviously didn't know when writing this is that in that conversation, both people, in fact, were probably black.

Erk. I didn't realise quite how racist wikipedia could be until looking up that emperor

(look on the discussion page)

 

[Kid_Eternity]

So wrong, yet so right...

*nods*

 

[kyser_soze]

It's her screechy, nasal voice...

She's just filth...I mean come on, she shags Peter...

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Some derails are more erudite than others.

 

[Belushi]

Some derails are more erudite than others.

You would though, wouldn't you?

 

[Ned Pointsman]

phillips is quite possibly an agent of the far right, his entire job description seems to be 'play into the hands of express readers.'

 

[Dhimmi]

And who gets to do the rewriting?

That's the part which worries me. Historians making fresh discoveries is fair and acceptable, like how Boadicea became Boudica via academia. Politicians or political quangos doing it to meet current agendas is in my view totally unacceptable.

 

[muckypup]

The rewritten version may broaden our liberal horizons a smidgen, as a nod to the humanitarian nature of western democracy. But truth, in the form of a complete historical picture will always be a rare commodity.

Besides, Trevor Phillips is the establishment puppet The man has no integrity.

 

[shagnasty]

I read somewhere (forgotten where) that the annual mortality rate for slaves in Jamaica was around 1-in-15 to 1-in-20. Was surprised to learn recently that some of the earliest slaves in Jamaica were Irish. We weren't told either of those things at school.

judge jeffries sent quite a few britians to the west indies as slaves as a punishment they had it even worse than african slaves