Backbencher

Lecture 10 was significantly shorter than previous lectures. Dr. Isern talked more about the personal lives of Clark and Sinclair. I personally thought the most interesting thing about Clark was the controversy over his relations with and awards from the soviets. It makes perfect sense why some would expect him to be a communist. Sinclair was an opponent of imperialism, and he wanted New Zealand to have an independent image, seperate from Great Britain. Not to have the appearance as just a former colony. Dr. Isern also discussed the problem of bias. Some students in class had some interesting opinions on bias. I believe it is impossible to be 100% unbiased, but I believe historians, professional and amateur, should try their very best to avoid it. It is not the historians job to spice up or add emotion to history, histroy should be allowed to speak for itself. A historian should tell historical events in a story board fashion using only hard evidence to back up theories or ideas. I personally believe that history is society's memory. I like history because it is about real people, real events, incredible and facinating times, and it gives us insight into our own future. There are a lot of excellent fiction novels and movies that are stimulating and exciting. However, the history of human civilization is much more spectacular than any movie or book because it really happened. I do think that Clark and Sinclair were bias when they wrote their history. I think they loved their countries so deeply that it was nearly impossible to keep their nationalism from leaping from the pages. I thought Sinclair's work was better mainly because of a more detailed look at native culture. He showed the Maori culture and its significance in NZ. Clark did not give close to as much detail on the Aboriginies. It seemed as though he rushed through that part of his book to get to the early European settlers.