Conservative History Journal

Tory Historian found an interesting posting on an extremely good American blog. Can we learn from history, asks Neo-neocon and gives a rather depressed answer. There is quite an interesting discussion about it.For Tory Historian this is the wrong question. First we must learn history and learn it in some detail. (Yes, yes, those dates are still uncollected. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.) Only then can we think of learning from it. Otherwise, even if people do think that they have learnt from history, the chances are that it is...

Tory Historian has written admiringly of George Orwell before (here and here), despite expressing a certain amount of disagreement with some of his pronouncements and writings. But there is nothing more annoying than watching people reduce this hard-headed and strong-minded writer to mush.The guilty party in this case is the National Film Theatre, an institution Tory Historian is very ambivalent about. It shows many good films from the...

Tory Historian went to the Barbican today (on the Circle Line from Westminster and it did not take all that long – what is the world coming to) but found that the Le Corbusier exhibition, much discussed in the media, does not actually open till tomorrow. Bad planning and an unusual misreading of the programme. Never rely on media write-ups, is a good motto and Tory Historian should have remembered it.So it was off for a cup of tea to the...

Tory Historian rather enjoys reading newspapers of many decades ago but finds the exercise a little depressing, comparisons with the present day not being of the happiest.For reasons too difficult to explain, Tory Historian was reading letters in The Times of March 1939 on the subject of conscription, then much discussed as the Bill was going through Parliament. The letters columns had various arguments for and against, one of the most...

Tory Historian recalls this day in 1975 when a major political party elected its first woman leader who went on to become a spectacular (if flawed, naturally enough) Prime Minister. After years of media speculation as to whether Shirley Williams or Barbara Castle were likely to become the first in the woman leadership stakes, it was, inevitably, the genuinely innovative party, as it has been in history, that got there first.Margaret Thatcher...

Today's anniversary is particularly intriguing. On February 10, 1354 students at Oxford University fought a pitched battle with the townspeople of that fair city. Town and gown, you see, which according to the official account necessitated the creation of some primitive halls of residence that eventually became the first three colleges: University, Merton (the first college with a quad) and Balliol.Some students fled from Oxford and founded...