On the Disappointment of Revolutions - Professor Sir Simon Schama, Columbia University

Do revolutions matter? Do they sharply change the course of history or are they programmed for disappointment, or much worse outcomes? Are they mostly a state of mind pumped up with utopian rhetoric or do they profoundly alter the structures they claim to demolish and replace? Are they the necessary engines of progress or a deadweight on its advance? And does the revolutionary temper have anything to say to the existential problems of our own time - environmental, biological, demographic and digital? Or should revolutions and their histories be laid to rest in the museum of exhausted illusions?
Sir Simon Schama is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University. He is a contributing editor of the Financial Times, author of 20 books, and writer-presenter of over fifty documentaries on art, history and literature for BBC television. Most recently his History of Now series aired on BBC2 in 2022. Sir Simon has been awarded numerous prizes and honours including the NCR prize for non-fiction for Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, the W.H. Smith Literary Award for Landscape and Memory, and the National Book Critics Circle prize for non-fiction for Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution. His work has been translated into 23 languages, and his 20th, and most recent book Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines and the Health of Nations, was published in the UK in May 2023.

[@kforest2745]

That is an excellent description I must say. I look forward to hearing this later.

[@dosesandmimoses]

Well said

[@dionysianapollomarx]

Lost causes are always worth rescuing. Failure is often a point of reflection, not always of surrender.

[@adan2]

Précis of Talk for Watchers: Sir Simon Schama follows a classical liberal interpretation of revolution. It begins with transhistorical claims drawn from facile etymological claims to the 'original' meaning of revolution. His contenders are directly English-speaking historians and Anglo historiography, such as Christopher Hill. These are the parameters and the theoretical space of investigation. To be sure, Schama rightly sees the limits of semantics and pedantic observations. To use a concept internal to his observations (which they seem to seldom go into analysis), which may be useful to characterise Schama's general posture toward revolutions- namely include, interpreting transhistorical revolutions in relation to "tactics of incrimination" and the "ritualized hunt of culprits" (~12:30). These heuristic pairs are both Schama's parameters of revolutions. This is a liberal interpretation in that it heavily relies on lamenting rather than clarifying; specifically, as it relates to empirical-historical conditions. Schama's expertise may be squarely in the English revolution. This is both its geographic delimitation as far as it can claim relevance to revolutions of the rest of the world, though the title attempts to fight above its weight-class. This is a talk of the 19th century of the English empire, nothing more - nothing less. It is conversational with the French revolution. This talk runs the risk of being a prolonged bemoaning on the part of Sir Simon Schama. His work is not a scholarly betrayal of conventional literature as Schama claims. It is tangential and derivative at its best (~24:00). His beef with Roger Chartier is entertaining. This talk would have been better if it engaged the ritual of violence (mentioned in 27:00). His self-reflection of the presence of English chauvinism and ironic condescension in the discipline of history is appreciated. It is mentioned in passing, neither theoretically nor epistemically confronted. This talk would have done well to draw on the intellectual history of the idea of oppression (as mentioned in ~32:25).

[@davidwright8432]

Nice one, Sir Simon! (about 6:00 mins) - re a guillotining, ' ... took the edge off ... '

[@user-ok9ym9zm9m]

I changed brands lol😂

[@flyingface]

unfortunate to hear Schama's dogmatic views on Oct 7th. He seems to take the stance that ethnic cleansing is a proportionate and legitimate response. So much for being a humanist

[@vickingvicbubble8042]

Why does Sir Simon Schama not have a word to say about the destructive and violent crowd behaviour of the BLM riots?

[@UltimateTruthsAndWorldviews]

they are not worthy of the name revolution

[@WalterWE]

This isn’t much good at all. I hold Schama and his work in very high regard, but his delivery here is sub-par, to put it mildly. He was invited to give a lecture, but what he’s doing is merely reading out an article aloud and, perhaps even worse, too fast. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the article itself or the points he makes, but as a lecture this is all rather sad, considering what a brilliant scholar he is. Perhaps he was pressed for time or some other particular reason why he felt he had to do it in this way - or maybe he’s simply getting too old (79 years in 2024) for this type of performances.