History in the faking

A people's history of britain by rebecca fraser(chatto and windus, (pounds) 25) Rebecca Fraser's massive yet highly approachable volume of British history is just what traditionalists have been waiting for. A great fat book that begins properly at the beginning - the Roman invasion of Britain - and not with some left-field, feminist/ Marxist/post-colonial approach. It is an account that, unsurprisingly, has found its highest praise from right-wing writers and historians: Andrew Roberts and Paul Johnson both offer their effusive endorsements on the cover, dismissing postmodern takes on history as they declare the book's appeal to "family", "truth's superiority over fiction" and "the sturdy people whose energy and genius made it all possible".

And yet, as she painstakingly takes us through some of the earliest history of Britain (that is Scotland, England and Wales), through Roman, Viking and Norman invasions, to Tudor dynasties, Stuart tragedies and Hanoverian handovers, Fraser's account rather ironically highlights the extraordinary fluctuation and mutability of a kingdom.

Far from giving an impression of "sturdiness", ordinary British people (inasmuch as they appear in a volume told entirely from the point of view of the ruling powers) appear to be a thoroughly con- tradictory lot, chopping the heads off their kings one minute, bowing down before middle-aged German electors the next. Poor old Boudica couldn't even rely on British help against the Romans because we actually quite liked the benefits they brought us. What a bunch of traitors and turncoats we are revealed to be.

The superiority of truth over fiction that Andrew Roberts claims in his endorsement is also highly contentious - as Fraser admits in her introduction, she has repeated anecdotes which have found their way into our culture and remained there through the centuries and she has repeated them without questioning their validity. Alfred, then, is indeed the king who burns those cakes and Edward II is the mincing fop who was murdered using the business end of a hot rod poker.

Her argument - that such tales deserve repetition as a sort of respectful nod to their longevity - is a troubling one, particularly with regard to this last example. Archaeologists and historians have shown that Edward II might have been less well prepared than Robert the Bruce at Bannock-burn, but that he bravely led his army into battle just the same, hardly the popular, emasculated image of him that we have had handed down to us. One cannot help wondering if subsequent tales of Edward's effeminate nature were more infused with English desires to denigrate the great achievement of the Bruce, than with concerns over Edward's apparent preference for the company of young men.

This might sound like petty point-scoring and nitpicking were it not for the equally troubling notions Fraser seems to have of what constitutes a "people's history" and a "British perspective". These are central to her thesis, the title tells us. Yet how can a volume which is divided into chapters according to the reign of kings and queens be called a "people's history"? Or a history be described as British when it has an entirely Anglocentric focus?

When she comes to the union of Scotland and England, Fraser makes no mention of the Darian experiment; her volume might teach us that Henry VII of England didn't come straight after Henry VI and that the devilish Richard III got in the way (she does at least refuse to see him as Shakespeare's deformed hunchback), but we will search in vain for the right order of Scottish Duncans, Macbeths and Malcolms (of family trees at the back of the volume only the Stuart House appears, showing therefore only the descent from Robert the Bruce to Bonnie Prince Charlie).

Angled views of history - whether Marxist or feminist or whatever - exist in order to focus on what has been left out of precisely this kind of "objective" account. Fraser is not ignorant of what these approaches provide, and to her credit she does touch on the suffragette movement when it first appears; on issues of slavery when William Wilberforce comes into the picture; and on the Luddite rebellions. But her title is a misleading one to those who might be expecting some kind of workers' account of the past 2000 years.

Many years ago, at the age of about 12, I indulged my love of history by reading the novels of popular historical novelist Jean Plaidy. I did not learn anything from Fraser's volume that I did not learn from Plaidy's novels, and I had a lot more fun reading them. It is not Fraser's fault that others claim her volume to be un- prejudiced, and a reaction to what Johnson calls "dubious history presented on TV". But an all-encompassing, user-friendly volume has been her aim. She must take responsibility when that aim falls short.

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