Cultural Dementia

by David Andress

The author, professor of modern history at the University of Portsmouth, argues that we are suffering from an attack of social and cultural confusion and amnesia.

The former great powers of the historic 'West' - especially Britain, the USA and France - seem to be abandoning the wisdom of maturity for senescent daydreams of recovered youth. Along the way they are stirring up old hatreds, giving disturbing voice to destructive rage, and risking the collapse of their capacity for decisive, effective, and just governance. At the core of this is an abandonment of political attention to history, understood as a clear empirical grounding in how we reached our present condition. Historical stories are deployed in public debate as little more than dangerous fantasies.

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction, Sociology

128 pages, Hardcover

Published February 1, 2018

About the author

David Andress, a leading historian of the French Revolution, is Reader in Modern European History at the University of Portsmouth and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Reviews

[Peter Geyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that you're unaware of, but appears in front of you in a bookshop and captures your mind in some way.

David Andress is an historian writing about the current political and social situation in the West, by which he essentially means France, the UK and the USA and the general themes are populism, immigration and democracy. He presents and discusses relevant examples from Western history to demonstrate that the current crop of nativists don't really know their history, even though they make historical claims.

Andress suggests there are unpleasant consequences for this state of affairs. He does so in a clear style and pointing out contradictions in the rhetoric of these nativist groups, notably the LePens (his specialty isthe field of modern European history, and particularly France.

There is a discussion on what the past is for, how and what history has been taught in particular places. A bonus (and the reason I gave it an extra point) is that at the end he says:

"And now, at the very end you will want me to tell you how it can be fixed. But I do not know....Ultimately, I am a historian, not a prophet..."

Too often, in politics and general life, people who point out problems are also asked to provide a solution, when they are two separate ways of thinking. Someone other than the problem identifier may be better situated to devise a solution; of course there may be no solution, simply something problematic that has to be managed or engaged in in some way.

A few pages before this, he points out several times that getting people to know their history is not a solution. It's convenient to think that knowledge, when offered at least, can change minds in a particular way. But this is obviously not true, as anyone who has taught or been taught knows. There are things forgotten, ignored or not listened to, or misinterpreted. It's there all the time in my main field of interest, populated by educated people and I know I don't have the answer and that the methods I've selected haven't been all that accpted, understood, or agreed with.

This book is well worth a buy.

[Augustine Kobayashi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave it a three star rating but this is still a worthy book people should read. It is really about recent history, i.e. that of the last few centuries or so, which has been cherry-picked by today’s elite to suit their political ends. I was a little frustrated that his discussions on history itself was rather short, while he goes on laying out today’s political landscape and the use of history for political purposes in the middle section of the book. And he does not address the question whether history has always been used this way throughout, well, history, anyway. We have history reinvented whenever new elite rose and built empires since the Roman times, and maybe we are coming to the end of yet another phase in history. Admittedly, to discuss this, you’d need a bigger book. This one, less than 150pp, just thrusts the big problem we face today in our face and then leave it. Thought provoking, but I bet those who do distort history won’t read it in any case I’m afraid.

[Joey Ayoub · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book as a preparation for my episode with David Andress (The Fire These Times, episode 67) and I've been recommending it to everyone wishing to understand the crises in France, the UK and the US, although its implications go beyond these three countries. It's a relatively short book, dense with information, and which will leave you wanting to look up some of the references he brings up, particularly George Orwell's reflections on how the 'domestic working class' (can't remember if that was his terminology) could be used by the State against working classes everywhere else.

[Rhythima · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely a great book on history of events in, let’s say , a fuller perspective. Horrific but important events and details.
Having said that I struggled a little with the book to understand the final message, but it could be just my lack of knowledge on these topics as well.

[SarahK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful, thought-provoking, very informative - and scary as heck - it really does seem like we are all going to hell in a handcart

[Sarchis Dolmanian · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of those books which function as a magnifying mirror.
The older you get - and the more mistakes you've made, the less you like of what you see when facing it.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very fine book which looks at the current political cultural of the UK, France and the USA and the way it is retreating from reality into ever vaguer but uglier simplicities to try and deny - and thus to explain - the realities of a changing world and the changing place of these countries in - by a retreat into an ignorant fantasy of the past and, not surprisingly as Mr. Andress, as a very fine historian, despairs at the grotesque retreat from understanding in so much of the history foisted on both students and the general public today.

This is a jeremiad that is stylishly written and thought provoking and, for a book dealing with very current affairs, one that manages to avoid references that date quickly, the most notable failure is one to Jeremy Corbyn rallying young people to Labour - but the way the major UK parties replace their leaders has increased so much since the 1992 that it is almost impossible to avoid.

I recommend this work strongly as a thought provoking way of looking at and of trying to understanding what is going on, and wrong, with our political culture today.