First written in 1937 by a former Chief Inspector of Schools and a former History Master at Warwick School, these books (4 originally, now a series of 8, and shortly to be expanded to 10 volumes) told a chronological story of...
... well, actually, not of Britain; or, rather, not of Britain until after the merger of the monarchies of England and Scotland. Until then it is very definitely a history of England, notwithstanding its imperial use of "Britain".
But it approaches history as a chronological narrative, as a series of stories about how we have got to where we are. And with its muscular style, focussed on kings and privateers, swashbucklers and Great men, they were actually a rather engaging read.
And now, Carter & Mears lives again. The entire series has been gently updated and reissued as a series of, incidentally, beautifully tactile hardback books.
The new editions have been sensitively updated (although there are one or two areas where they seriously lag behind the consensus of modern scholarship), and for the most part they are beautifully written.
They cost a tenner a pop, and the typography is rather fine (sorry, I couldn't find any photos of the insides and nor could I bothered to take any. Just take my word for it).
Today's history "teaching" concentrates on an endless recycling of The Tudors (admittedly one of the racier periods of English (sic) history), and projects on the Romans, slavery, Russia and the Second World War. Not necessarily in that order. And every child studies the Second World War usually three times.
Almost no-one under thirty has anything but the haziest grasp of the history of their own country. I like to think knowing at least some of that stuff is important. Maybe some of those people will be tempted to pick up these Carter & Mears. They could do worse.
7 comments:
Did you come across Our Island Story and Our Empire Story, aimed at a slightly younger audience? I still treasure them, together with several of my late father's from "The Wonder Book of..." (Railways, Electricity etc.) which date from the early 1930s
The dates on the second book's cover startled me!
I think they may have had a bit of difficulty with cutting and pasting...
As a historian I totally agree with John in Australia. Placing Normans, Magna Carta and the Black Death in the period 1603-1714 is obviously a typo, but not very professional, considering these books are to be used in schools. :)
Also I have to confess that to me these books don't look all that inviting to kids. I would probably love them, but that's because I'm a history freak. Then again, it's probably better if I don't judge a book by it's cover. It's the inside that counts!
Don't worry: I have the actual book in my hand and the cover correctly reads 1066-1485. I'm assuming the original showed a publicity mock-up for their website, and it is indeed unfortunate that they have left it up.
I think these books are not now intended for kids but, rather, for adults who realise they have no understanding of the narrative of English (sic) history and want a simple, old-fashioned but easily digestible series. This is that. I've read two of them so far and they work very well (although since I probably know more of this stuff than the average ill-educated unfortunate I may not be the best person to judge).
I certainly wouldn't imagine them being much use in the classroom for today's video-interactive generations.
I also love the shape and heft of this series -- 140x220mm and 150-200 pages, is a brilliant size for a hardback book: it's also very easy to hold (why are so many modern books stupidly heavy?! Yes, I'm talking to you, publishers of Alan Hollinghurst's latest novel!). The tactile experience of reading them is actually very pleasurable.
Old, incorrectly dated book cover now replaced with the production version.
Lovely, punctilious Leduc, thank you for setting things right. I was strangely distressed by the unhistorical wrongness of it all. Much love. x
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