I have nothing to contribute on the subject of the "anti-biographical" biases of professional historians, but since you're interested in life in the 14th century I thought I'd recommend a biography I recently read on Thomas Malory (author of Le Morte d'Arthur). It, too, is essentially reconstructed from events and other odds and ends of source materials, since with the exception of his famous novel Malory seems to have written essentially nothing. But the book gives a fascinating glimpse into the life of the "lesser nobility" (I think that is the correct term) and knight errant in the time of Henry IV.

I know that Marxist historians do indeed think in terms of the inevitable forces of history. That does not necessarily make it wrong to say that history has a momentum. It also does not say that a powerful individual, in the right time and place can redirect that flow.

I like to think of it in terms of chaos theory. There are points when an entire complex system can be pushed into one state or another, or one of a large family of possible outcomes. Those pushes can come from individuals or groups who 'carpe deim'. A particularly single minded and powerful individual can even kick the pins out from under the whole enterprise and send it roaring off in an entirely new direction. Take Alexander for example. He rather changed the whole of civilization of his time. It is difficult to imagine that he was just a tool of history. He was an outlier and history was his tool instead.

I don't think a serious historian can afford to ignore either element. The complex interplay of trends, culture, technology, beliefs and individuals are what make thinking about tomorrow so fascinating and reading about yesterday so absorbing.

Brian: I am as implacably opposed to moral relativism as most of the posters and commenters here but I must take issue with the confidence with which you label the author of that Penguin history of Soviet Russia evil. For all that I know it may be a true description. I think though that the question of what motivated the historian in question is somewhat relevant here. Did he secretly believe that lots of people had indeed been killed but didn't consider that fact important? Did he seek to airbrush Stalin's terrible crimes out of the historical picture because of his sympathy for his 'larger goals' ? If the answer is yes then I will agree that the author is indeed evil.
If he was merely a deluded incompetent, one of Lenin's 'useful idiots' then I really think its the wrong adjective to describe the author. His failing is an intellectual rather than a moral one.

I actually consider this distinction a very important one. The adhominem is the favorite tactic of the left. They use it to circumscribe the terms of political debate, by labelling those who refuse to accept their starting assumptions morally defective. I really don't want us to go down that road.

If holding absurd historical opinions constitutes evil then a whole lot of otherwise very pleasant agreeable people will have to wear that label.

Is every dumb college kid in a Che Guevara T-Shirt evil? What about the vast numbers who believe in absurdities like 911 conspiracy theories? What about all those people who voted for the labour party at the last election?

In each instance I consider them profoundly misguided and find the reasoning that leads them to their conclusions incomprehensible.

But if we are going to admit all of them into the club the ranks of evil people will become very large indeed.

In my own life I am sure I have been profoundly wrong on many issues and I will undoubtedly be so again at some point in the future. I hope that doesn't make me a de facto bad person.

In discussions of history and politics there is already far too much 'you disagree with me therefore you are a bad person' type posturing

Jay, given the enormity of what happened in the former Soviet Union, the word "evil" to describe persons who chose to suppress or shrug off such horrors is entirely justified. That old US journalist fraud, Duranty, being a case in point; ditto, those Fabian idiots, Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Curses on them.

If the answer is yes then I will agree that the author is indeed evil. If he was merely a deluded incompetent, one of Lenin's 'useful idiots' then I really think its the wrong adjective to describe the author. His failing is an intellectual rather than a moral one. I actually consider this distinction a very important one.

A well expressed view and I completely disagree. I actually do [I]not[/I] consider this distinction a very important one because what you describe as an intellectual failing is wilful blindness.

To use an analogy, I do not care if a soldier fighting to preserve tyranny is doing so out of ideological sympathy for tyranny or some sense of misplaced patriotism, I am quite happy to blow his brains out regardless as both motivations make him a willing accomplices of that tyranny. Bang.

Yes Brian - I can remember such books (and films) as well.

Indeed the two representatives Britain sent to help draft the world "human rights" declaration in the 1940's were both vile abologists for the Marxists. E.H. Carr and Harold Laski (of course E.H.C. had also been an apologist for Hitler) - both of whom denied the Marxist socialists had murdered the tens of millions of people they had murdered.

This was in spite of the fact that the information on what was happening in Russia had been available for decades - for example my father (Harry Marks) an "uneducated" East End boy knew that the Soviets had murdered many millions of people and so resigned from the Young Communist League. People who say "we did not know" are really saying "we did not want to know".

As for the period of the Middle Ages you mention. It could be argued that the characters acted as they had to.

Edward II was a useless King and had to be removed. If a King would not go voluntarily (and go off to some remote monastery, best in some distant land) then he had to be removed by force. This was not a time when the House of Commons could rule using the King as a powerless figure head (as was done when George III went mad, centuries later)

Roger M., may have had base motives (or he may not have done), but if he had the most noble motives he would have acted as he did.

Having removed (and killed?) the King Roger M. had to rule - had he given up ruling he would have been put on trial for treason and executed. But has he killed the young boy (Edward III) as well, the Lords and Commons of England would have risen in savage revolt.

And Edward III had to revenge his father (even if Edward II was not really his father) and overthrow the rule of Roger M. - and that meant he has to have him executed (if he had been allowed to go overseas it would have been seen as a sign of weakness - later Richard II tried exiling powerful people, and that mercy killed him).

So the main players acted as they had to - like flies trapped in a spiders web of history.

Of course legally Edward III was in the right (and being in the right legally DID matter to him).

French lawyers just made up the thing ("Salic Law") about a claim to the throne could not be made via the female line - this had never been mentioned before the English claim (oddly enough Edward III is the first Norman King who can really be called "English" as he is the first who we know spoke English in his court - we know this because he paid English language poets).

Also at this time no one suggested giving up the Royal lands in what is now France - and so they had to be defended from claims of French overlordship.

Either by defence alone (which would have meant leaving the south coast of England open to French raids) or by the radical step of trying to become the main power in France itself.

We snear at the efforts of Edward III and Henry V - but they came near to success. Indeed had Henry V just lived a few years more (and not left the young Henry VI a child King - under terrible pressure) the aim of uniting England and France would have worked (for good or ill - for France, being the larger population, would have dominated Enland culturally).

We must also remember that the French had tried it first - before Edward III was even born.

After the death of King John, the French tried to overthrow the boy King Henry III and unite England and France under French rule - and came very close to winning.

Brian:

Although, I have not read the history that you are talking about, I can relate to what you are arguing about the "Penguin book." It is hard for us to fathom how a historian could dismiss the atrocities of the Soviet government during World War II. However, we cannot, as Jay states it is hard to generalize about his intentions.

As for why you enjoyed reading Mortimer's book, I will hazard a guess that it was probably written as a narrative history. Since most medieval historical facts and documents have not survived the time, a lot of these types of histories have to tied together with the historian's 'best educated guess.' Sometimes the historian is able to weave their ideas and documented facts into a good story.

If you are looking for other good (but not exactly medieval histories) check out The Return of Martin Guerre by Natalie Zemon Davis and The Cheese and the Worms by Carlo Ginzburg.

"Although, I have not read the history that you are talking about, I can relate to what you are arguing about the "Penguin book." It is hard for us to fathom how a historian could dismiss the atrocities of the Soviet government during World War II."

We do not need to go as far back as the 1940s for this kind of sloppy history. The section on Stalin in Mark Arnold-Forster's "The World At War" (Pimlico 2001, pp 7-9 (orig publ by Thames TV 1973)) is as perfect an example of the kind of euphemistic language that Orwell discussed in "Politics and the English Language" as you could wish for.

"The World at War" was, of course, TV at its very, very best, but this accompanying book was woefully inadequate - poorly written, and poorly edited.

When I showed the Stalin passage to a Russian friend (who'd grown up in Soviet times) he asked, "Where did you dig out this astonishing specimen of stupidity?"

However, the very best book on the general subject of historians - and other intellectuals - glossing over Soviet atrocities is David Caute's "The Fellow Travellers"; and with reference to an earlier commenter, I'm pleased to say that he reserves a special venom for the loathsome Webbs.

Lion Feuchtwanger's historical novels were very much of the biographical kind to which you refer, Brian, and his books were almost impossible to find in the SU. When they occasionally printed a very limited number of copies, the lines in bookstores were similar to those for nylon shirts. They still printed his books for the obvious reason that he himself was a Stalinist apologist. Some irony there, I think.

Marxism has a very detailed and well articulated approach to history: it's called "the materialistic interpretation of history". It's a fundamental part of Marxist dogma.
It says that the exclusive force that moves history is people's desire to improve their physical well being, and the struggle of the masses against the ruling classes that exploit them economically.
Beliefs, ideologies and religions are inconsequential (except the one true ideology). Individuals don't matter either, except Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. All other prominent historical figures were just pawns in the inevitable, materialistically driven, flow of history. Spiritual things, such as religion, are irrelevant, they are just veneers behind which the true, materialistic motives, hide.
As far as I remember, there is only one historic figure they lionize: Spartacus, the leader of a slave revolt in ancient Rome. Many sport clubs were called "Spartak" after him.
The idea of the materialistic interpretation of history is very strong, and accepted or unconsciously believed by many, who are not Marxists at all, and don't even know the origin of this concept.

"I actually consider this distinction a very important one."

When, and with regard to whom?

Books on history may have been (badly) written out of malice or stupidity, but in either case it is enough to say to other readers that such and such is wrong and to explain why.

But the distinction does matter in the case of say, a friend who is considering whether to switch from a job in the private sector to a job with Christian Aid. Is this because he is (a) evil, (b) daft as a brush (c) inadvertently ignorant, or (d) a willfully blind little Eichmann?

If the answer is (b) or (c) then it might be possible to persuade him otherwise, if it's (a) or (d) then certainly not. Of course it may be another question altogether as to whether such persuasion is worth your effort in the first place.

Brian, it's a shame you weren't able to find much about Bruce McFarlane, especially in light of how Ian Mortimer chose to quote him. McFarlane wrote history as prosopography - that is, examining systems, social trends, etc. through the medium of specific individuals, often very minor historical figures, whose lives he researched in enormous detail. It is a shame that Mortimer presents him as a historian uninterested in the individual, as nothing could be further from the truth. You might in fact call McFarlane's writings case studies - he shows how systems and practices affected the individuals and families about whom he writes, and he is able to bring such people to life in a way that many biographers, writing from an unsympathetic intellectual distance, fail to do.

But you needn't take my word for it; this link should take you to a list of his publications.

Although in theory most land was "held" rather than "owned" in most Eurpean lands during the Middle Ages and later it was still a very big thing to take land.

Even a King who had proved treason would sometimes only take the traitors head, rather than the land as well - as taking the land might stir great trouble (as Richard II did by trying to take various estates - he would have caused far less trouble for himself had he executed his foes but left their estates alone). As for taking land without proving treason (in a biased court perhaps - but still a major act), this would have been considered an outrage.

In other civilizations (Islamic, Chinese and so on) taking property was much less troublesome. No more of a problem that it would be for a "modern" government now.

This is the essential difference between the West and other civilizations - and, due to their "modern" (i.e. statist) cast of mind, many modern historians find it hard to grasp. The minds of many historians are closer to the "reformist" postion of the "enlightened despots" who (from the 16th century onwards - and ending up with many of the rulers of the 18th century) tried to push the role of a European Prince closer to that of a Roman Emperor or an Ottoman Sultan or a Chinese Emperor (of course we have moved from the "divine right of Kings" to the "divine right of the 51%" with elected governments considered unlimited by any "feudal" concept of law).

However, these despots never fully succeeded - the difference between the civilizations still existed, but many modern historians (as I say above) simply do not grasp it.

This was brought home to me on hearing a group of historians discuss the Ottoman invasion of the Hapsburg lands in the late 17th century (ending in the Great Siege of Vienna).

To the historians there was no great difference between the Empire of the Hapsburgs and the Ottoman Empire - accept that the latter was more tolerant in religious matters.

The historians were far more learned people than I am - they spoke many languages and had read vast numbers of documents. But they did not have a clue - they were ignorant of the most basic factor, even though it was staring them in the face.

For all its faults the Empire of the Hapsburgs was still a land where the rulers were to an extent limited in their powers - they could not casually take the land and other property of anyone they felt like.

This was the same (to a greater or lesser extent) in the other Western lands - it is what makes them "Western".

The depressing thing is that the mainstream historians would not even think to research such matters. The founding principle of their own civilization is alien to them.