Secret History (i)

The dividing line between history and current affairs has challenged many of the best minds for centuries. Today educationalists, historians and hangers-on are locked into a major debate over it. No equivocation, however, for Kenneth Clarke, the Education Secretary: current affairs began thirty years ago, when history stops. Would that the matter were so straightforward.

So when exactly does history end, and current affairs begin? Britain has a more conservative approach than many other countries, including the US, France or Italy. History, with a capital 'H', is what historians (preferably from Oxbridge, the genuine ones) do. Historians have only recently begun to discover the inter-war period in earnest. So, grudgingly, they might say that History continues up until 1939. After that? Current affairs, a non-serious subject fit for mulling over by the social sciences, but not yet ready for the attention of historians. Sorry, Historians.