So will Sarah Teather and the rest of the Lib Dems sign up to this?

[non sociopath skin]

... our very own version of the Texas textbook rewrite? Of COURSE they will.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/30/niall-ferguson-school-curriculum-role

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

1. Niall Ferguson?

:puke:

I suspect (or at least hope) that other people will also be involved in the committee; and there will be stalemate, without much actually getting done.

If Ferguson does dominate, then may I suggest that they could save plenty of taxpayers' money by simply using an already-existing 'textbook': '1066 And All That'.

[non sociopath skin]

2. "1066 and All That"? Naa, far too radical and subversive.

This is far more likely to be The Textbook

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Our-Island-Story-History-Victoria/dp/1902984749/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275260834&sr=1-1

Rejoice! Rejoice!

:evilgrin:

The Skin

[enlightenment]

3. Awk.

I'm all for narrative in history - but couldn't they find someone who didn't spend most of his time mired in the 'what if' this happened (counterfactual) mythologies because he just can't stomach the reality?

gads.

I teach history - narrative is helpful but you need to offer more than one for comparison, because having only one does nothing to enhance the runny watercolour of the past.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

4. I'm all for narrative, but the Whig history of the Ferguson kind is the worst

Ferguson and his kind just output the kind of arse to reassure the nationalists who are nervous of reality, i.e. pop pseudohistory for the right.

Any suggestion for Ferguson's school history book?

'John Bull gives Johnny Foreigner a Thrashing: A Narrative History 1066-1997'

'How Great Britannia freed the Filthy Sambos: Empire 1603-1950'

[non sociopath skin]

5. Money. How white people acquired it all 1500-2010

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

6. 'How England Has Always Been Top Nation'

'Rule Britannia! Britannia Rule the Waves! Britons Never, Never, Never Shall be Pinko Commies'

Perhaps it could open with the first verse of the 19th century hymn:

'I thank the goodness and the grace
Which on my birth have smiled
And made me in these Christian days
A happy English child.'

[non sociopath skin]

7. Or, with a wink and a nod to the Bullingdon Club ...

... a bit of Arthur Hugh Clough:

They may talk as they please about what they call pelf,
And how one ought never to think of one's self,
how pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking,
My pleasure of thought is the pleasure of thinking
How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!
How pleasant it is to have money.

The Skin

[enlightenment]

8. ouch.

But if he could get away with it, he'd probably love the titles . . .