tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post2411749686782111648..comments2024-02-11T19:28:27.997+11:00Comments on Personal Reflections: Donna Leon and the importance of textureJim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-4013657887171680832010-08-19T09:51:04.131+10:002010-08-19T09:51:04.131+10:00Hi kvd. I hadn't heard of the Beliot College m...Hi kvd. I hadn't heard of the Beliot College mindset list. I browsed it with interest. Things do get quickly assigned to the archive, more so now because there is a greater focus on the immediate and current.<br /><br />This does create a compensation problem. So much of the history I grew up with has in a sense been lost. In a lot of cases, you now have to assume zero knowledge, a problem I have written about before.<br /><br />In compensating, if you provide too much background the history becomes over-laden and turgid. Too little, and people don't know what you mean. As you say, hard.<br /><br />Part of the writing challenge, and this is why I referenced Leon, lies in the way you provide the information, the back story. I went through something I wrote the other day and just listed, a bit like the Beliot list, the things that a younger Australian was not likely to know. It was a long list.It certainly makes the writing of my type of history harder.<br /><br />The wool industry is a classic case. The days when Australia rode on the sheep's back are now so distant to the modern urban Australian that wool has been dropped in the dust-bin, along with all the surrounding history.Jim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-6404710762658219332010-08-19T07:58:26.256+10:002010-08-19T07:58:26.256+10:00Jim
Just a general question for you: how old, set...Jim<br /><br />Just a general question for you: how old, settled, and recognised does something have to be or become before it is agreed "history"? The papers this morning are mentioning the Beloit College Mindset List, which I've browsed with increasing bafflement over the past few years at just how quickly something which was seen to be important gets consigned to the dusty archives, and maybe even thought to not exist at all..<br /><br />I would think this makes your job even harder, where you try to bring some sort of "environment" to the significant events in the area of history you are pursuing. I do not envy you the task.<br /><br />kvdAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com