History?

[chickenfeet]

This is a post that has been kicking around in my head for a while but has been dragged kicking and screaming to the surface by this post from the lovely and thoughtful frumiousb. My reaction to the post was that it was curiously detached. It could have been written about the Peloponnesian War. I couldn't write with that kind of detachment about the Somme or Ypres. It's too close. My grandfather was there. The chapel at school was filled with tablets commemorating the Old Boys who died there.

So, my broader question is "when does history start (or end, if you prefer)?". Is it a matter of time or more to do with some sense of personal connection? There's certainly a sense in which, for me, the Vietnam War is "further away" than WW1 So what says the blogosphere?

Comments

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Went clear over my head that one, whizzing by. More recently, we had dynastic echoes with the Légitimistes French Royalists championing Luis de Borbon, son of Alfonso, against the Comte de Paris who, my dear, is an Orléans, i.e. descended from a Conventionnel Régicide. Bet you were exposed to the whole rigmarole when you were at Versailles.

You complain about your Royal family, you don't know when you have it good, I tell you. You could have our bunch of degenerates, or Tone4Evah.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Your problem is you want a native royal family instead of doing what everyone else does, buy one off the shelf from Germany. Thay don't just make good cars and sausages I tell you.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

I kneeeooooowwwww [/Sybil Fawlty], but whenever we got some free samples *cough**cough* Marie Louise of Austria *cough* the upshot was not at all conclusive.

Danes. We should get Danes. Or Dutch.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

The Danish dynasty is originally German. You could go for the Swedes. They are French.