I have a bad feeling about this...

[winterbadger]

So, I took my last couple of recorded books back to the library (I need to do a write up on each of them, and at least a mention of the other rubbish I've been reading :-) I wasn't sure what to take out next, so I got one book that recapitulates an NPR series about traveling across modern China and another that's a history of Ireland from the 12th century on. I had misgivings about the latter, as it's by Paul Johnson, a historian who, while eminent, I dislike. I can't put my finger on exactly what it is (though now having read his bio on Wikipedia I can see the fingerprints of many things that would cause me to dislike him), but I recall that I have tried several times to read his History of the Jews and foudn it so repellent that I couldn't get through it.

Well, I started his book on Ireland this morning on the way to work, and it's already getting under my skin. I think what stands out right away is that in discussing the Papal bull Laudabiliter (which authorised Henry II of England to invade and conquer Ireland and subjugate the Irish Church to Rome), he doesn't just describe the Papal assertions that the failure of the Irish Church to accept the authority of the Vatican was a source of moral corruption and degeneracy in Ireland, he agrees with it. He doesn't just report the English cliam that the Irish would be better off under English common law instead of under their own (advanced and in many ways more modern) legal system, he endorses it. He states that the Irish were to blame for the invasion and occupation by the English, because they did not develop a strong enough central government. He repeats the Annals of Ulster's condemnation of Edward de Brus as if it were fact without pointing out that the Earl of Ulster was one of the Anglo-Irish lords who fought against de Brus's alliance of Scots and Gaelic Irish lords that almost unseated the English dominion over Ireland.

I'd expect this sort of naked bias from a Victorian amateur historian. I find it distasteful in a modern professional one who has been so highly acclaimed.

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I'll make a note to miss that one.

I don't know any good audiobooks about the history of Ireland to recommend to you, but if you'd like to read a good one, The Course of Irish History is superb. Originally written as a series of essays on Irish history that were published in the 60s, it's been updated three times now to include more recent aspects of Irish history.

[winterbadger]

Thanks for the recommendation! I'll make a note of it.

At the moment my face-to-book (for lack of a better term :-) reading time is pretty full--it's the endless slog back and forth across the Potomac that I can fill with sound. :-)