Women historians have feminised history by focusing on the 'soap opera' of key figures' love lives rather than their achievements, David Starkey claims.
The TV historian said his female counterparts concentrated on 'big box-office' subjects such as the six wives of Henry VIII instead of major political events of the time.
Dr Starkey, 54, said: 'One of the great problems has been that Henry, in a sense, has been absorbed by his wives. Which is bizarre.'But it's what you expect from feminised history, the fact that so many of the writers who write about this are women and so much of their audience is a female audience. Unhappy marriages are big box-office.'
In an interview with Radio Times, he said the programmes would focus on the monarch himself, adding:
'Wives appear simply to explain or complicate the story of Henry. This is his development, his psychology and, above all, why he matters.'
Dr Starkey said the 'soap opera' of Henry's personal life should come second to the political consequences of his rule, such as the Reformation and the break with Roman Catholicism. And he added:
'If you are to do a proper history of Europe before the last five minutes, it is a history of white males because they were the power players, and to pretend anything else is to falsify.'
[He obviously didn't get the memo: White men are to blame for {fill in 'problem' here}...]
READ MORE
No comments:
Post a Comment