In the beginning of D. Lieven's review, I said a few harsh words about the state of humanities in Britain. However, Mary Beard is a happy exception of the sorry state of humanities on the Isles. Even her extremes: the demand that archeological or paleographic data must come from exactly the same period as the period of study with no conjectures, look amusing. (If, e.g. we have clay tablets with cuneiform from one Babylonian dynasty and then, from the next to next, how probable that Babylonians communicated by the Internet in between? Can a historian definitely assume that Bismark never contemplated conversion to Islam, even that exact contents of his thought are lost forever?)
She goes so far as to propose that Alexander the Great is largely a Roman invention to justify the politics of unlimited conquest. (were the Ptolemaic and Selevkid dynasties controlling gigantic territories also propagandist inventions?) Another fantastic assertion is that Caligula and Nero were normal because she can spot some underlying logic in their behavior (in fact, psychopaths and schizophrenics can be very logical).
But the fact, that her book is mostly series of book reviews written not in a fawning or, conversely, derogatory-condescending style so typical for modern reviews and takes issues with modern portrayals of antiquity as well, definitely finds a sympathetic ear (?) with this author.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
In her hypercritical approach Mary Beard abrogates a general process of obtaining of knowledge in any science. Now wonder she is so critical of R. G. Collingwood. All sciences are based on probable conjectures derived from hypotheses. Good hypotheses are tight and can be justified by a few key facts, as it is said "there is no fudge factor." Bad hypotheses can be massaged in fitting almost everything but that is how science works. The requirement to prove any conjecture by facts (in case of history, archeologic, paleographic or archival) is unobtainable even in astrophysics not to speak of history.
Post a Comment