A doorstop book, at 753 pages including notes and index, with an equally imposing title, published in 2022. The author has an impressive record in leading London publishing houses, as well as writing and lecturing. He is also five times UK national sabre champion!
So this is a book of historiography by someone who is not a standard academic: the subtitle, “The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past”, indicates the approach is not strictly traditional scholarly, the role of fiction and fictional methods in historical representation is given scope.
There are twenty-two chapters which follow a generally chronological scheme, with thematic diversions, e.g. a chapter on Macaulay to von Ranke, followed by one on “Novelists as Past Masters”. Also the individuals discussed are not just professional historians: from Julius Ceasar through journalists like the legendary William Howard Russell to contemporary T.V. history presenters, e.g. Simon Schama, who is a professional, but with a popular storytelling literary approach. The selection of individuals whilst broad is personal to Cohen, who is an assertive writer.
The emphasis is on the biographical detail of each historian, or storyteller. Essentially the book is a long string of potted biographies. The detail is fascinating and comes at the reader in a cascade, associated biographies melding with each other. It is rather like being shown around an interesting art gallery by a guide in a hurry who keeps looking at their watch.
As I understand it, the book was not initially released in the USA as the publisher there wanted more coverage of black history and historians. This led to an extra 18,000 words being added, including a separate chapter covering historians George W. Williams to Ibram X. Kendi. There is also a separate chapter on key women historians clumsily called “Herstory”, covering Ban Zhao to Mary Beard. In contrast many of the professional spats of the likes of A.J.P. Taylor (controversialist), Hugh Trevor-Roper (hubris and humiliation) and David Starkey (cancelled) seem like entitled pillow fighting and comic relief.
This book is full of anecdotes and quotes, there are forty-five pages of index. Work by Hilary Mantel is representative of the current meeting of historical research and fiction, she says, “history is not the past-it is the method we’ve evolved of organising our ignorance of the past…it’s what left in the sieve when the centuries have run through it.”
A notable ramble around people who wrote history and in doing so made it. A good reference source and read.
Mark's Reviews 