spencer
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Re: Gordon Childe
Feb 11, 2017, 21:41
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I think he was a good bloke, glad you're now aware of him : ) He understood that history is a flow, and the importance of comparing timelines of various cultures. Holistic. Now read on, dot, dot, dot... (if you don't want to get bogged down in barbarianism, that is)
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spencer
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Re: Gordon Childe
Feb 11, 2017, 21:42
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Eyup, static's back
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thesweetcheat
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Re: Gordon Childe
Feb 11, 2017, 22:31
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spencer wrote: I think he was a good bloke, glad you're now aware of him : ) He understood that history is a flow, and the importance of comparing timelines of various cultures. Holistic. Now read on, dot, dot, dot... (if you don't want to get bogged down in barbarianism, that is)
He was sadly hampered in that respect by being too early for the revolutions in dating that came later in the 20th century and are still going on now. His timelines were fatally flawed by what he couldn't have known.
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tiompan
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Re: Gordon Childe
Feb 11, 2017, 23:14
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Yep it was Morgan . But when Atkinson used the same term with the same reference there was outrage from the " " Ancient Britons/people were not as primitive as we thought" headliners . Similarly the suggestion that the locals in Britain had to get their skills from the East is now considered outrageous .
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tiompan
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Re: Gordon Childe
Feb 11, 2017, 23:18
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He was good bloke , he was also one of the most important archaeologists of the 20 th C , but we don't use his work as a basis for understanding prehistory any more .It is still useful for understanding attitudes in the early to mid century though .
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moss
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Re: Gordon Childe
Feb 12, 2017, 09:09
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That made me think of the first book I came across on history, and it was H.G.Wells - Outline of History, the linear walking through history laid out chapter by chapter. How much of that book could be discredited today? But all knowledge is built upon previous writing and thought, so we are always in some way fumbling towards a truth....
"Wells was uncertain whether to place "the beginnings of settled communities living in towns" in Mesopotamia or Egypt. He was equally unsure whether to consider the development of civilisation something that arose from "the widely diffused Heliolithic Neolithic culture" or something that arose separately. But between the nomadic cultures that originated in the Neolithic Age and the settled civilisations to the south, he discerned that "for many thousands of years there has been an almost rhythmic recurrence of conquest of the civilizations by the nomads."
According to Wells, this dialectical antagonism reflected not only a struggle for power and resources, but a conflict of values. "Civilization, as this outline has shown, arose as a community of obedience, and was essentially a community of obedience. But . . . [t]here was a continual influx of masterful will from the forests, parklands, and steppes. The human spirit had at last rebelled altogether against the blind obedience of the common life; it was seeking . . . to achieve a new and better sort of civilization that should also be a community of will." Wells regarded the democratic movements of modernity as an aspect of this movement."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outline_of_History
My two 'old' books are Glyn Daniels - The Megalithic Builders of Europe and Grahame Clark - Prehistoric England, and I still love Stuart's Piggotts - The Druids. Flawed or not, initial excitement as history unfolds is something to be treasured ;)
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tiompan
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Re: Gordon Childe
Feb 12, 2017, 10:40
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One of the grandest of historical narratives was from grandad of Polly , Arnold Toynbee . 12 volumes and nearly 30 years to complete .
There was an abridged version but it never caught the popular imagination .
Must admit to a liking for Braudel , not as grand as Toynbee and well within the scope of " incredulity towards " but also full of real people .
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spencer
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Re: Gordon Childe
Feb 12, 2017, 10:51
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Absolutely. Totally, totally agree. If only he was around today, having access to information we have and the internet. Gordon Childe 'came too soon'. And people don't know of him...see June above. Right brain, wrong time. I chanced upon him as mentioned, by a little mention in small print on a semi-obscure album cover, listened closely those lyrics of Harper's - you need to hear the album version of The Lord's Prayer, the declaiming monologue at the start sets the scene - followed up by finding the book namechecked, and treasure it. Someone of huge intelligence, and yes, human therefore sometimes fallible - and we can't have that, now, can we? Me? I forgive honest mistakes and don't beat those who make them into the ground - capable of imparting his 'take' on history with great lucidity in a way that Joe Public could understand. If only he was on television now. An Unsung Great Mind. In my opinion.
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tiompan
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Re: Gordon Childe
Feb 12, 2017, 11:19
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Childe is far from unsung ,he was even being praised here as a great archaeologist long before your mention , and in archaeology in general he is seen as being pre-eminent , that doesn't mean we ignore the problems ,which have mostly been avoided .
Pointing out the problems is not " beating anyone into the ground " .
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spencer
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Re: Gordon Childe
Feb 12, 2017, 12:10
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I recommend Hilaire Belloc if you haven't read some of his perhaps obscure 'history' works on England. More than just a penner of lighthearted or cautionary poetry. Again, old but good.
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