It is usual for new history books to fall into two broad
categories. One is the history book that has no obvious connection to recent
historical or political events. The second is a book that is very political and
is released to coincide with ongoing historical or political events. It is the
second category that Chris Bambery's new book falls into in that it is deeply
connected to nationalist politics in Scotland.
As the title alludes, this is a history of the 'ordinary
people' of Scotland. According to one writer it "looks beyond the kings
and queens, the battles and bloody defeats of the past. It captures the history
that matters today, stories of freedom fighters, suffragettes, the workers of
Red Clydeside, and the hardship and protest of the treacherous Thatcher era".
I have several problems with this book. To begin with,
Bambery never defines what he means by the people. Bambery's unrefined thinking
lends itself to him making empty generalisations. In the realm of philosophy,
these are known as abstract identities. What is bad about this type of
imprecise thinking is that it presents according to David North an "inadequate
mental representations of reality: The material world simply does not consist
of such internally undifferentiated phenomena".[1]
Bambery promises us "a corrective to the usual history
of kings and queens, victorious battles and bloody defeats." The first
hundred pages or so the author struggles to find any of these ordinary people. The
only ordinary people he finds were people who made the tactical difference at
Bannockburn because they were mistaken for reinforcements by the English
troops.
Bambery's choice of the genre of people's history has become
popular again. This form of historical study was made extremely popular by the
Communist Party Historians Group. The problem is that pseudo-left groups like
the Socialist Workers Party which Bambery used to belong to have unfortunately
assimilated worst aspects of this genre which is a nationalist outlook.
It is especially important when reading this kind of history
that the reader knows the politics of the historian or as Edward Hallett Carr
was apt to say "Study the historian before you begin to study the facts.
This is, after all, not very abstruse. It is what is already done by the
intelligent undergraduate who, when recommended to read a work by that great
scholar Jones of St. Jude's, goes round to a friend at St. Jude's to ask what
sort of chap Jones is, and what bees he has in his bonnet. When you read a work
of history, always listen out for the buzzing. If you can detect none, either
you are tone-deaf, or your historian is a dull dog".[2]
I am not saying that Bambery is a dull dog, but there is a
surprising absence of both his politics and of the organisation he once
belonged to perspective on Scottish history. I find this a little strange
despite his break with the SWP he does not say anything about their position
regarding Scottish history.
Bambery has belonged to several pseudo-left groups in the
UK. He began as a member of the now-defunct the International Marxist Group he
then moved to the Socialist Workers Party. He resigned from the SWP in 2011
having served on their Central Committee and joined International Socialist
Group. The SWP lost a significant number of its members to the ISG who were
politically active in Scotland.
Bambery shares much of the SWP positions on the recent
independence campaign in Scotland. The Socialist Workers Party (SWP)
lined up behind the SNP in the Yes campaign, proclaiming separatism as the only
basis on which to oppose austerity and militarism.
The ISG's latest articles go so far as to call for alliances
with the SNP, asserting that "the Left will look like a backward break on
the movement if it does not initiate the support of the SNP where necessary".[3]
The IMG alongside the SNP believe Scotland is a classless
nation. Bambery ignores the fact that Scottish nationalism and the SNP has
always had a pronounced right-wing element. As a wsws.org article points out "Class
antagonism is a thing quite foreign to the Scottish spirit. It was unknown here
until it was imported from England. In Scotland, there is no such inherent
feeling of separation between classes."[4]
While this is not an academic history of Scotland, some of
Bambery's comments are less than precise, and in many cases, his history
contains an absence of class-based history. Bambery's method has very little to
do with historical materialism.
Given the sweep of history, you could forgive the author for
brevity when it comes to certain periods of Scottish history. But the price he
pays is a lowering of a critical analysis of the movements and figures
portrayed in the 330 or so pages. Perhaps not so forgivable is his repeated
glorification of myths and invention of traditions that permeate Scottish
historiography. This flaw in Bambery's approach is neatly captured by his
statement, 'Legends will appear throughout this book, and in a way, it does not
matter if they are real, because a legend can take on a life of its own and so
inspire a future generation.'[5]
Bambery seems to have uncritically adopted Hegel's advice when
he said: "Every nation has its imagery, its gods, angels, devils or
saints who live in the nation's traditions, whose stories and deeds the nurse
tells her charges and so wins them over by impressing their imagination." [6]
Chris Cassells in his review put it succinctly when he said
that Bambery fails "to explore the complex and contradictory relationship
between the history and the myth, prevents the book from becoming anything more
than the greatest hits of radical – a slippery political term at the best of
times –
Scottish movements ". His decision after twenty-three pages to recommend
Mel Gibson's film Braveheart because it gives "a good account of William
Wallace's life." Confirms this observation.
Bambery's glorification of Scottish figures from history
comes to the fore when dealing with the Scottish Enlightenment. It is
undoubtedly true that Scotland produced some important figures during the
enlightenment period, but even these figures were part of an international
fraternity, and many of them never conceived their views as promoting
nationalism. Bambery's raising them above other European figures is both wrong
and will increase nationalist sentiment.
For certain subjects, the use of the people's History
Genre or narrative history is both useful and enjoyable. Bringing to the
attention of a wide audience, people whom history or historians have forgotten
is both legitimate and needed. However, it is not very useful when dealing with
very complex historical processes.
Bambery sees Scottish history through nationally tinted
glasses. Its ruling elites were more democratic. Its enlightenment figures
better and the Scottish working-class more militant and left-wing. This
relentless populism flies in the face of history.
Bambery's reckless promotion of Scottish exceptionalism
tends to whitewash actual historical events. After all, even a leading
member of the Scottish bourgeoisie Thomas Johnston was forced to describe the
Scottish nobility as "a selfish, ferocious, famishing, unprincipled set of
hyenas, from whom at no time, and in no way, has the country derived any
benefit whatsoever". Bambery for some reason sought to cover up whom
Johnston was first describing him as a "19th-century historian" and
only later identifying him as "Scotland's most charismatic Secretary of
State".
Bambery's nationalist outlook is reflected in the number of
historical events that are not even attempted to be examined within their
proper international context. Perhaps the most glaring one is Bambery's
attitude towards the English bourgeois revolution. Given the importance of this
historical event, it gets very little space in the book.
Bambery given his extensive knowledge of the Communist Party's
use of the history from below genre would have known the tendency amongst
Communist Party historians and other radical writers to portray radicals such
as the Leveller as struggling against foreign invaders.
Ann Talbot believes that a large number of the Communist
Party historians maintained an essentially national approach to the English
revolution, and not placing it an international context.
They had in her words a "tendency to romanticise the
religious movements of the period and to be too dismissive of their rational,
intellectual descendants such as Newton and Locke. In part, these
characteristics arise from the national orientation of his social class and
reflect even in Hill vestiges of the Whig outlook that imagined a peculiarly
English political tradition rooted in millennial seventeenth-century
visionaries like Bunyan that was entirely separate from Enlightenment thought.
More significantly it reflects the influence of the popular front politics and
national outlook of Stalinism".[7]
Unfortunately, Bambery shares the same outlook as the
Communist party. Except his nationalism is not English, it is Scottish. In this
book, Bambery rejects the theory of the English bourgeois revolution. He puts
forward the premise that the revolution was, in fact, a "war of three
kingdoms".
The central premise of this argument is succinctly described
by Jane Ohlmeyer when she said: "the English Civil War was just one of an
interlocking set of conflicts that encompassed the British Isles in the
mid-seventeenth century".[8]
I do not know Bambery that well to say that this has always
been his take on the English revolution, but it certainly was not his former
party. It is not in the realm of this article to discuss at any length the
extent that the SWP has moved away from the central premise of the English
bourgeois revolution, but the fact that Bambery held a revisionist and
conservative position on this seminal event is an indicator of the type of
dissent that has existed in the last decade inside the SWP.
The main theme of this book from the first few pages to the
last is to give the impression that Scotland from a very early period was a nation
slowly making itself through its struggles against oppression. Bambery asserts
that 'freedom was finally won on the field of battle at Bannockburn,' the
concept that Scotland was a nation before 1707 permeates a growing body of work
of both politicians, writers and historians alike.
The different strands of Scottish nationalism believe that
Scotland was a nation before the 1707 Act of Union. Alan McCombes and Tommy
Sheridan brag that "Scotland is one of the oldest nations in Europe",[9]this
belief that Scottish people have been oppressed for centuries is historically
inaccurate and leads to the tendency for workers on both sides to the border to
be played against each other.
Bambery plays very fast and loose with this history. The
Scottish bourgeoisie and aristocracy were in pretty bad shape before 1707.
Before the union, the failure of the Darien Scheme in the 1690s had a massive
economic impact. The plan, which was to build a predominantly Scottish trading
colony in Panama ended in financial disaster for Scotland's aristocracy and
bourgeoisie.
While it true that large sections of the population opposed
the union the bourgeoisie and aristocracy in Scotland saw that their sectional
interests were best served by the union.
Writer Neal Ascherson states that "It is a cliché that
the Scots' punched above their weight' in the empire, and it is misleading.
They seldom competed directly with the English or Irish, but established
distinct and almost exclusively Scottish fiefdoms: the fur trade, the tobacco
trade, the jute industry, the opium business in China, the 'hedge-banking'
outfits in Australia, the executive levels of the East India Company….
Scottish capital was thus a full partner in the expansion of British
imperialism. This embraced deep involvement in the slave plantations of the
Caribbean and American South."
To conclude, this has not been an easy book to review and
given the wealth of history covered and in some cases, not covered further
articles on this subject will appear in the future. I do not feel the need to
repeat my many criticisms of this book. I do like the genre of people's history
when it is done well, but Bambery's promotion of Scottish nationalism dressed
up as Scottish history leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.
[1] A critical review of
Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners By David North
[2] What Is history
[3] internationalsocialist.org.uk/index.php/2011/06/salmonds-majority-in-the-age-of-austerity/
[4] http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/02/scot-f03.html
[5] A People's History of
Scotland by Chris Bambery
[6] Hegel 1795 (Berne) The
Positivity of the Christian Religion
[7] http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/03/hill-m25.html
[8] ://www.historytoday.com/jane-ohlmeyer/wars-three-kingdoms#sthash.vM6OYlyC.dpuf
[9] T Sheridan and A McCombes
Imagine Edinburgh 2000, p180.
