Darren Macey - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
A social historian at the University of South Wales, member of the Llafur the Welsh People’s History Society’s Executive Committee, and project officer on the Rhondda Cynon Taff’s Sporting Heroes Past and Present initiative. I’ve an extensive background in public history and I’m currently leading the authorities’ re-evaluation of memorialisation in public spaces inspired by the Black Lives Matter protest movement. My research interests include nineteenth and twentieth century British social history, the operation of the Poor Law in Wales and twentieth century American social history.
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Oral history, or more specifically the study of memory, reveals not one moment caught in time but... more Oral history, or more specifically the study of memory, reveals not one moment caught in time but rather illustrates the flow of history. The analogy of the ice core offers an interesting opportunity to investigate differing methods of conceptualising and interpreting the past. The geologist methods as described by the melting of the ice cores are rooted in scientific deconstructionism; conversely, the historian’s art is one of reconstruction. A historical reconstruction should attempt where possible to give not just a linear narrative but also a more rounded sense of the lived experience of a period. Oral history offers a useful source in illustrating that history is the study of transition and the processes of change. To understand historical transition - the fluidity of the past - we must investigate how historical evidence exists in differing forms. Just as traditional written sources could be described as fixed and solid - yet open to interpretation, similarly oral history could be described as ephemeral - changing yet by its very nature allowing us to understand the atmosphere of a period through memories. Memory often provides a fresh perspective on how history was lived but it is limited by the frailties and fallibilities of human physiology. Memories are not stagnant in an ice core; they are transient rather than fixed. They offer a tantalising insight into the atmosphere of the past; however, memories are a delicate source of information and can easily be tainted by the researcher or simply lost to future generations. The historical debates surrounding memory, strikes at the very heart of the question: ‘what is history?’
For historians, attempting to evaluate a historical conflict as it unfolds is a little akin to a... more For historians, attempting to evaluate a historical conflict as it unfolds is a little akin to a speeding motorist attempting to write a travelogue of the scenery they pass. The historiography of the Cold War is an almost perfect example of this. Conclusions formed and rebutted in the rhetoric of the Cold War conflict were often based in ideological and archival evidence from a singular perspective. This paper suggests that re-valuating the origins of this conflict in a less politically charged environment twenty-five years after its conclusion offers a greater opportunity at clarity. The evolutionary nature of this conflict is, as John Lewis Gaddis maintained, not solely based in the aggression or expansionist ambitions of either power block, rather its origins are of a reactionary nature, lying in both the internal and external pressures faced by the two main protagonists. As such, it is symptomatic of a ‘crossroads’ in international relations caused by the fractious breakdown of the wartime ‘Grand Alliance’ and has far lengthier historical and cultural ‘roots’.
Oral history, or more specifically the study of memory, reveals not one moment caught in time but... more Oral history, or more specifically the study of memory, reveals not one moment caught in time but rather illustrates the flow of history. The analogy of the ice core offers an interesting opportunity to investigate differing methods of conceptualising and interpreting the past. The geologist methods as described by the melting of the ice cores are rooted in scientific deconstructionism; conversely, the historian’s art is one of reconstruction. A historical reconstruction should attempt where possible to give not just a linear narrative but also a more rounded sense of the lived experience of a period. Oral history offers a useful source in illustrating that history is the study of transition and the processes of change. To understand historical transition - the fluidity of the past - we must investigate how historical evidence exists in differing forms. Just as traditional written sources could be described as fixed and solid - yet open to interpretation, similarly oral history could be described as ephemeral - changing yet by its very nature allowing us to understand the atmosphere of a period through memories. Memory often provides a fresh perspective on how history was lived but it is limited by the frailties and fallibilities of human physiology. Memories are not stagnant in an ice core; they are transient rather than fixed. They offer a tantalising insight into the atmosphere of the past; however, memories are a delicate source of information and can easily be tainted by the researcher or simply lost to future generations. The historical debates surrounding memory, strikes at the very heart of the question: ‘what is history?’
For historians, attempting to evaluate a historical conflict as it unfolds is a little akin to a... more For historians, attempting to evaluate a historical conflict as it unfolds is a little akin to a speeding motorist attempting to write a travelogue of the scenery they pass. The historiography of the Cold War is an almost perfect example of this. Conclusions formed and rebutted in the rhetoric of the Cold War conflict were often based in ideological and archival evidence from a singular perspective. This paper suggests that re-valuating the origins of this conflict in a less politically charged environment twenty-five years after its conclusion offers a greater opportunity at clarity. The evolutionary nature of this conflict is, as John Lewis Gaddis maintained, not solely based in the aggression or expansionist ambitions of either power block, rather its origins are of a reactionary nature, lying in both the internal and external pressures faced by the two main protagonists. As such, it is symptomatic of a ‘crossroads’ in international relations caused by the fractious breakdown of the wartime ‘Grand Alliance’ and has far lengthier historical and cultural ‘roots’.