If you found a time machine, many of you may travel to ancient Rome, or travel back to Venice during the renaissance, or you may choose some war, revolution or more relaxing period in history. But I know without doubt, that I would travel back to Georgian London. You may wonder why I would travel to a time of booze, bawdy houses and bad stinks. But my answer would be, 'I am an historian, and the period we choose to study in history would always be the first point of call for any historian'. As it is unlikely I will ever find a time machine, the closest an historian can get to their subject, is by discovering as much about their period as possible But just because I specialise in Georgian London, I still do not know everything there is to know about the period; the historian who believes they know everything about their specialist period is not a very good historian, as there is always something new to be discovered. This is why I subscribe to the posts of 'Georgian London'. This blog is written by Lucy Inglis, a writer and historian on Georgian London, and contains regular academic posts on the period. To be a good teacher, we need to keep on adapting our knowledge. The 'Georgian London' blog assists me in doing this, by keeping my knowledge of the period fresh and up to date. It is an excellent academic source for anyone interested in Georgian London or the Georgian period, and the articles are often interesting and well written; it is just a pity that there are not many other blogs available that are written by academics in this style.
I would go to Imperial Russia (towards the end of the period, revolution is near!). If not there, then I would go to the early period of the Ottoman Empire. Evidently, I am fascinated by the rise and fall of empires!
ReplyDeleteI love how you've written this. Hope you find that time machine one day ;-)