History and the Media

MELVYN BRAGG Novelist and BroadcasterTAYLOR DOWNING Writer and Independent Television ProducerMAX HASTINGS Writer and HistorianTRISTRAM HUNT Writer and Historian, Queen Mary College, University of London, UKJEREMY ISAACS Independent Television ProducerIAN KERSHAW Professor of Modern History, University of Sheffield, UKDAVID PUTTNAM Film ProducerSIMON SCHAMA University Professor of Art History and History, Columbia University, New York, USAJEAN SEATON Professor of Media History, University of Westminster, London, UKROGER SMITHER Keeper of the Film and Video Archives, Imperial War Museum, London, UKJOHN TUSA Managing Director of the Barbican Arts Centre, London, UK

• Notes on Contributors Introduction; D.Cannadine Bringing the Past to the Small Screen; T.Downing Television and the Trouble with History; S.Schama All Our Yesterdays; J.Isaacs Why is so much Television History about War?; R.Smither The Adventure of Making 'The Adventure of English'; M.Bragg How Does Television Enhance History?; T.Hunt Hacks and Scholars: Allies of a Kind; M.Hastings The Past on the Box: Strengths and Weaknesses; I.Kershaw A Deep and Continuing Use of History; J.Tusa Writing the History of Broadcasting; J.Seaton Has Hollywood Stolen Our History?; D.Puttnam Index

'This book brings us the thoughts of Ian Kershaw, Tristram Hunt, Melvyn Bragg, Simon Schama, John Tusa, Jeremy Isaacs and others, in pieces that build up into a surprisingly penetrating look at what history can do for the media, and - this is the surprising bit - what the broadcast media can do for history...History made and in the making, and the time-loops it both creates and follows, prove endlessly fascinating in these writings. There is something here that will make anyone think more deeply about the interaction between a new and apparently instant medium and an old and apparently time-enhanced discipline. It is unlikely, after this, that anyone can continue to accuse the best of TV history of being nothing byt a pageant of kings and queens.' - Financial Times Magazine'interesting and illuminating essays on diverse aspects of this recent cultural and intellectual revolution [the flourishing of history in the media]. - The Sunday Telegraph'Simon Schama and Jeremy Isaacs offer particularly eloquent apologia for the sort of period dramatics that have happened on television' - The Spectator