Több történelem - More history

A few days ago i picked up the BBC History magazine, the 2010 january issue which went on sale in early december 2009 - i just can't get used to this, SimpleKnitting sometimes comes out 2 months earlier, like the april issue will be on sale on february 25th... So i picked it up, and though the articles were less interesting then ever, i did found some really good stuff in there.

First is the bbc radio 4 series "A History of the World in 100 Objects" - my radio can't get any other stations but the local channel, so i'm listening the podcasts. It sounded promising: the objects are picked from the British Museum's collection, probably my favourite place in London; and they try and tell a world history instead of a british/western related world history through "objects that in some way demonstrate a particular trend in global history". Of course the programme does have a western/british bias as all these objects ended up in british hands but how that happened is also part of the stories. The narrator is Neil MacGregor (cool name... :D) director of the museum. He says "The rest of the world only normally enters our history at the moment when Euorpe establishes contact with those places, usually by invading it. It's a very odd way of structuring a history of the world we're now living in. (...) If you want a grand idea for this series, it really is trying to de-centre history from the Mediterranean."
In hungary we've learnt "Hungarian and world history" and i recall studying about cultures all around the world at any given time, of course only in elementary- lower high school level :) So i reckon our history teaching is, or at least was at 10-15 years ago, less western-biased then the british or american history teaching as i hear it from brits and americans and gathered from exam prep books and documentaries. SamuraiJulie really did put the bug in my ear when i read on her blog about all those history stuff last year, like the overrating/overrepresenting of the greecian culture and shunning the chinese and so on. So far nothing greek and nothing chinese :D I listened the first 8 or 9 episodes so far, and i like it. Has a few commerce-sounding glitches though, like naming climate change as a main reason for famines (is it, really? not overpopulation?) and btw who the hell is this Bob Geldof guy anyways?! He's one amongst those british things i just don't get.

The second interesting thing i found in the magazine and it's also a Britsh Museum stuff too: Warriors of the Plains - an exhibiton "about the martial aspects of the Plains Indians' society in the last 200 years". They made this stuff because of me, seriously. I had a very strong deja vu as this happened not for the first time: two years ago when i stumbled upon China following the posts i mentioned earlier and read a lot about first civilisations like China, they had the Terracotta Army exhibition in the BM; later that year when i was into Egypt, there was the Tutankhamun show in the O2; and now that i'm submerged in everything what's native american in the last 2 months, they have this. Ok it's maybe because it is London after all, not some small town in the back of Europe but still... and there's a lots of stuff i miss because i dont like to go out. Well now i will, i'm on holiday today and tomorrow so instead of staying indoors and knitting as usual, i'll go up to London and spend more money on history stuff then anyone i could talk about it would think it reasonable or even sane. Ok maybe not everyone, my cousins like these things too albeit not as much as me, thats why i go now and not with them at the weekend.
And since i'll be there anyways, i will take a look at the Staffordshire hoard too :)

Even if it's snowing outside.

And this weekend is Chinese New Year too. Last year we went out on sunday for the lion dance in the shopping centre and it was totally magical. Both me and my cousin were stunned and grinned and giggled all the way just like the little kids while those tigers/lions were going around - on the afternoon we went back and watched it all over again. This year we wanted to go on saturday already as there were more shows on that day - but i cant find anything about schedule or even a mention anywhere, so i guess this year there won't be any celebrations in the city. Sad.