A case for the history of ideas

As an approach to the study of history, the history of ideas offers a wider and deeper self-knowledge and understanding that can help circumvent what Ball, Farr and Hanson describe as the “little wonder” that there are concerted and ongoing “attempts to control the past [and through it the present] by rewriting history or, failing that, by obliterating memory altogether.” As they further warn, people “adrift in the present and cut off” from the past and the understanding that might be gleaned from it, become more manipulable and pliable subjects”. In a particularly troubled time, such as we find ourselves in 2020, a period over which hangs the shadows of climate change and a global pandemic, both exacerbated by political populism, the risks of remaining lost or blinded, are too great to contemplate. In an age when people speak of “alternative facts” and “fake news”, while at the same time undermining the rigours of the scientific method, we are obliged to reflect and “retrace our steps”. The history of ideas can serve as an invaluable tool in helping us to remove a blindfold or shine a light into dark and forgotten corners as we rediscover the past so that we may understand the present.