Commentaries

If history is to have any value the lessons it can teach have to be learned. The latest disaster in Afghanistan from military intervention, where the failure of American (and NATO) troops have followed failure by British and Soviet forces, make this clear. The start of the process in the Victorian period has been a very well-known story. The first Afghan war 1838 to 1842 should have been a warning to policy makers not to invade Afghanistan expecting success.

Lone research is not easy and the last 18 months set new records for difficulty. Even if the pandemic ends soon the obstacles to accessing libraries and other archives will remain challenging. Zoom discussions have their uses, but involve a relative few. The time has come to extend the discussion. I am therefore setting up a History Mysteries project to widen the focus, and hopefully discuss with others some key issues.

Many moons ago, when I was still in short trousers, my parents let me join the Cubs, the junior Boy Scouts. I learned nothing useful save how to tie the reef knot, essential for survival in the urban jungle, of course. But I enjoyed the Christmas Parties. The Cub leader would set up an ancient movie projector and show us the black and white films of his own childhood – Abbot and Costello, the Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy and the greatest of them all, Charlie Chaplin.

This is a review of my academic relationship with Stuart Hall (1932-2014) who supervised my first Masters Degree, at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University and was written from memory before the Bill Schwarz biography appeared.