Lives Of The Historians - Terry Deary

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Deary offers a welcome healthy counterblast to dull, dreary school history text book teaching of history. He recognizes that children get interested in history through the gory bits, the sordid details and the outrageous extreme differences it shows to life in our times. In many ways his excellent, funny yet entertaining Horrible Histories books are very much in the spirit of Suetonius. Horrible Histories titles spell it out plainly, ‘The Cut-Throat Celts’, ‘The Vile Victorians’, and ‘The Rotten Romans’, to name but three. Deary doesn’t forget the facts. For all his humour he never forgets the horrors of war, plague and famine. From rats in trenches to amputations without as yet un-invented anaesthetics, and kings rising to power through poisonings, intrigue and corruption. Deary suggests our children do not believe everything grown ups would have them believe, his work is quite subversive. Deary makes it clear that he despises the education system, seeing it as merely there to keep kids corralled and off the streets. He sees other historians as charlatans claiming to be objective while trying to find their own unique subjective twists and make a reputation for themselves. He even hates his own books being used in schools. He sees his work as entertaining while teachers use the books to hook children and then start analysing and dissecting their meaning as a springboard to heavier history. Deary fails to see that without the more detailed serious histories, his riffs and casual humorous gory bits approach would not be possible. Youtube – Horrible Histories TV sketch Arthur Chappell