History Men

Certain of history's first drafters appear depressingly behind the times. I learned in primary school in the 1970s that the Vikings were not all rapers and pillagers and that some of them settled in Britain and went native. About the same time I read in a Ladybird book about Alfred the Great, which was probably published in the early 1960s, that some of the Danes converted to Christianity. I knew by the time I was fifteen that the Vikings colonised Normandy, Russia, Greenland, America and points elsewhere and that the stereotype of savage invaders was nearly as idiotic as the idea of ethnically pure Britishness. All of this appears to be news to the Independent, however; which may help to explain why their deputy political editor regards as controversial the idea that the Vicar of Downing Street "'spun' Britain into war" on Iraq.

Update A Bookfinder search reminds me that the Ladybird book was written by one L du Garde Peach; a name I can scarcely believe I managed to forget. It came out in 1956, and thus ended with a panegyric on "English law and English justice", as opposed to British, being known and respected throughout the world.