Word: schama
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...their London press conference. History is the judge the two leaders are relying on to decide in their favor at some indeterminate future date. They may have picked up a few good tips from the clutch of eminent British historians - David Cannadine, Martin Gilbert, Andrew Roberts and Simon Schama - whom Brown invited to Downing Street to join the President and First Lady for a hearty dinner of pea soup and roast beef. Another guest at the dinner, Rupert Murdoch, could also have offered sage advice. He presides over a media empire that has burnished some reputations and savaged others...
...greatest fault of the book stems not from its focus, which adds a fascinating dimension to this period of American history, but the tone with which Schama presents his discoveries. The glee with which he points out the hypocrisy of slave-owning “Sons of Liberty” seems a tad excessive; none of this is particularly new to the American historical narrative...
When describing even the admittedly racist South, Schama uses phrases like “theirs was a revolution, first and foremost, mobilized to protect slavery,” taking revisionism beyond corrective steering, into an opposite view of the standard heroic American myth. Of course the reality is more complex—a fact that Schama fairly acknowledges throughout the book—but several of his contentions aim for catchphrase status at the expense of historical fairness...
...Schama participated in a similar crossover television show for “Britain,” and is currently presenting for a BBC series entitled “The Power of Art.” If reviews of these shows are any indication, Schama looks poised to remain a so-called “Superdon,” in the illustrious company of Harvard’s own Tisch Professor of History Niall Ferguson, for quite some time...
Rough Crossings By Simon Schama Ecco...