The Language of the Past 9781474246637, 9781474246804, 9781474246781

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
1. History, Heritage and Language
2. The Prehistoric World
3. The Ancient World
4. The Medieval World
5. The Modern World
Conclusions: Speaking about the Past
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

The Language of the Past

The Language of the Past Ross Wilson

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2016 Paperback edition first published 2018 © Ross Wilson, 2016 Ross Wilson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4742-4663-7 PB: 978-1-3500-5805-7 ePDF: 978-1-4742-4678-1 ePub: 978-1-4742-4679-8 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Wilson, Ross J., 1981Title: The language of the past / Ross Wilson. Description: London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015047953 (print) | LCCN 2016014760 (ebook) | ISBN 9781474246637 (hardback) | ISBN 9781474246781 (PDF) | ISBN 9781474246798 (ePub) | ISBN 9781474246781 (ePDF) Subjects: LCSH: History–Terminology. | History--Methodology. | History--Philosophy. | English language–Discourse analysis–Social aspects. | English language–Discourse analysis–Political aspects. | Historiography–Philosophy. | Social history–Philosophy. | Linguistics–Philosophy. | English-speaking countries--Social conditions. | English-speaking countries–Intellectual life. | BISAC: HISTORY / General. | HISTORY / Historiography. Classification: LCC D16.135 .W55 2016 (print) | LCC D16.135 (ebook) | DDC 901/.4–dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015047953 Cover design: Sharon Mah Cover image © The Trustees of the British Museum Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd.

Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements 1 2 3 4 5

History, Heritage and Language The Prehistoric World The Ancient World The Medieval World The Modern World Conclusions: Speaking about the Past

Bibliography Index

vi vii 1 23 65 115 153 191 197 244

List of Figures 2.1 Crystal Palace Park dinosaurs.

27

2.2 Fragment of Neanderthal skull.

39

2.3 Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England.

54

2.4 Frederick Burr Opper, Our Antediluvian Ancestors.

57

3.1 Alexandra Road Estate, London.

78

3.2 ‘The Pyramids of Geezeh’.

81

3.3 Olympia Electric Theatre, Chichester, 2015.

110

4.1 Palace of Westminster, London.

125

4.2 The Cloisters Museum, Fort Tryon Park, Manhattan, New York.

131

4.3 Photograph of the ruined Clitheroe Castle, Lancashire.

144

5.1 Statue of Queen Victoria, 1893.

156

5.2 Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World, 1899.

171

5.3 Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France.

185

Acknowledgements This work has emerged from the associations, experiences and ideas that I have developed over the last five years. I would like to extend my deepest thanks to the individuals who have assisted in this process. Acknowledgements are due to the publishing team at Bloomsbury Academic, who have supported the idea for this work and offered advice and guidance throughout the writing process. I would like to express my thanks towards the staff and students of the University of Chichester, Pace University and the New York Institute of Technology. My special thanks are due to those who have helped me develop my work over the years. It is their fine scholarship and teaching which has served as an inspiration to continue my own research. Whilst any faults are entirely my own, any credit should be shared with them. These individuals include Professor Julian Richards, Dr Dominic Perring, Dr Kate Giles, Dr Jonathan Finch, Dr Geoff Cubitt, Dr John Clay, Dr Kalliopi Fouseki and Dr Emma Waterton. I would also like to especially thank Professor Laurajane Smith, Professor Richard Bessel and Dr Kevin Walsh. Finally, I would like to dedicate this work to my family, Guy, Pippa, Freddie, Arthur, Drew, Ellis, Bryn, Jill and Euan. I am indebted to your kindness. My thanks are due to my family in the United States, Steve, Cindy, Ian, Lucy and Edwin. To my parents, Margaret and Roger, who always encouraged and enabled my studies, I will never be able to thank you enough. To Nancy, this book is for you.

1

History, Heritage and Language

We speak so much about the past, our history and heritage that we appear seemingly assured of its significant value and place within society without questioning how the way we talk about a time other than our own reflects our current fears, anxieties and concerns as much as our pride, status and ambitions. Perhaps, the absence of reflection on this point is a means of reassurance as much as it is neglect. To examine the manner in which epochs, events, cultures and individuals from history are made present through our use of language could serve to place ourselves under far greater scrutiny. Our expressions and utterances are so intrinsically linked to our identities and ideas that an analysis of how we speak about history informs us of both our attitudes towards the past and our contemporary concerns. Therefore, to uncover the ‘language of the past’ can serve to disrupt and challenge well-held notions of place, self and purpose. In these circumstances, a reluctance to consider these issues might certainly appear to be judicious. Indeed, the presence of the past in our contemporary expressions and articulations, its use within the vernacular, literary and standard languages of Anglophone nations, has also been frequently overlooked by scholars. Whilst dictionaries and etymologies may trace the development and meaning of words, and linguists may examine the phraseology and idioms of cultures and societies, historians have been reluctant to assess how history features within contemporary discourse. Such an omission may arise from a perception that this work is far removed from the realm of the ‘proper’ historian, too enmeshed in public responses or popular culture to be regarded by the academic. However, the understanding of previous eras, the attitudes towards the past and its relevance in the present operate in the way in which we talk about history. To speak so much about the past without understanding what we mean only serves to obscure our own society and our own history. The English language abounds with terms, phrases, metaphors, similes and allusions to the past that are drawn upon to assess the present both positively

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The Language of the Past

and negatively. Whilst we are familiar with expressions that laud or glorify a historical era, we are less familiar with references to the prehistoric, ancient, medieval or modern periods which are used as a mode of dissent, assurance or reform. To speak of something or someone as emanating from the ‘Stone Age’, or characterize an institution as from the ‘Middle Ages’, to describe a business relationship as ‘feudal’ or to disparage or praise ideals or morality as ‘Victorian’ refers to both a perception of the past and its relationship to the present. Some of these references represent an intangible cultural heritage, inherited from earlier eras, whilst others represent the origins of historical study in the eighteenth century as scholars sought to define and classify the past. Whether these terms have been inherited or invented, their use in the present as communicative devices demonstrates not only the attitudes of contemporary society towards our recent and distant ancestors but also to our current situation (see Davies 2008). Whilst etymologists and lexicographers define meanings and origin points of words or phrases, this study examines how history is maintained and used by society through language as a mode of critique. By analysing the use of this discourse within the political, media and the public sphere in Britain and the United States, this book will examine how these terms, phrases and allusions first came into usage, developed and how they are employed today. Using newspapers, political speeches and literature as well as a wider cultural array of museums, film and television, through which references to the past are formed and maintained, this study will assess how talking about the past in the present is a critical discourse within society. ‘History’ is frequently cited as a positive, reforming influence, but how the past has featured as a negative point of comparison and allusion with the present can be assessed as the foundation of the modern era.

History, memory and heritage The study of the relationship between the past and the present, the place of history within popular culture and the use of heritage has been the subject of concern for an increasing number of scholars (Black 2014; de Groot 2009, 2012; Outka 2009). This work stems from the innovative studies conducted in the 1980s which sought to address the apparently ever-increasing tide of nostalgia and commercialism which had seemed to engulf Britain (see Hewison 1987; Lowenthal 1985). Within these studies the ‘sense of the past’ was a commodity, packaged and sold at designated sites where the public could consume the sights,

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smells and touch of history (Wright 1985). The use of history or heritage within contemporary life was regarded as a tool by which the forces of late capitalism had imposed themselves upon a population, normalizing social, cultural and economic relations (Wright 1991). In this manner, the public understanding of the past was invented, fabricated and a means by which stability and order were formed (after Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983; Shaw and Chase 1989). The critical response to these assessments was a greater focus of attention on the myriad of ways in which the past was used within society beyond notions of ‘consumption’ (Samuel 1989). In this work, the place and value of history served as a point of contestation within society; the past was a battlefield which was used to fight for different visions for the present (Samuel 1998). History and heritage were examined as a mode of control or as a means of resistance. In this understanding, campaigns to save buildings, preserve landscapes and protect the historic environment were loaded with agendas about nationality, ethnicity, place and power (see Gathercole and Lowenthal 1990). The formation of this approach to the place of the past in the present has served to ensure a complex and often contradictory assessment of the public understanding and use of history. The notion of ‘consuming’ the past, with all the connotations that such a concept denotes, still dominates some assessments of the appearance of aspects of history within popular culture (Arnold et al. 1998). However, the value of history as offering a means of resistance against power and fostering dissident attitudes is still part of the study of ‘popular history’ and ‘public history’ (Kean and Ashton 2009). Nevertheless, what appears to be absent is an understanding of how both this use and abuse of history occurs within contemporary society for social and cultural purposes as part of the same process. The development of this engagement with wider social and cultural conceptions of the past in Britain largely coincided with the development of ‘public history’ within the United States. This movement was born out of a greater regard for the places and sites through which society engaged with its history. The battlefields, plantations, buildings and towns that shaped the history of the nation had been largely omitted from the academic study of the past as their associations with re-enactments and recreations had been regarded as devaluing the discipline. A range of studies emanating from the 1970s onwards sought to develop a greater awareness and respect for these popular ways of engaging with history. As such, a whole sub-discipline emerged which was concerned with the notion of ‘public history’ which included the management, preservation, promotion and use of sites of historic interest. This formation of ‘public history’

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The Language of the Past

aimed to serve the interests of those who had been neglected from the study of the past within the academic sector. Nevertheless, historians were also hesitant to validate this process, fearing a ‘Disneyfication’ of the past would emerge through a greater popularization (see Wallace 1996). Where a distinct critical agenda within this particular study of history began to emerge was in the assessment of national commemorative acts. The United States Bicentennial in 1976 highlighted the residual tensions between the public commemoration and celebration of the War of Independence and the apparent amnesia regarding the history of genocide and enslavement that enabled the formation of the country (Bodnar 1992). Similar criticisms of popular notions of history as exclusionary and divisive were also apparent during the marking of the Australian Bicentenary on 26 January 1988. This commemoration of the landing of the British First Fleet near Sydney, which formed the bedrock of Australian identity and the marking of Australia Day, demonstrated the apparent ease by which wider society could forget about the history and legacy of colonial rule inflicted upon Indigenous Australians. Such experiences encouraged an active and engaged public history within Australia, with scholars examining the myths and memories of national identity, values, place and landscape (Ashton and Hamilton 2010). Indeed, in Australia and the United States, scholars have increasingly drawn upon critical approaches to public history as a means of affirming minority narratives or providing a platform from which the ‘subaltern can speak’ (after Spivak 1999). This engagement has shaped the practice of public history and the understanding of popular conceptions of history within the discipline as a ‘tool for reform’, but also in itself in ‘need of reform’. This seemingly contradictory assessment underlies the difficulties experienced by historians in analysing the function of history for contemporary society; it appears to be both radical but also normative. The strange nature of the past and its place and value in the present have been the subject of analysis for scholars within the related sub-discipline of memory studies. The initial examinations of memory within society characterized it as a ‘folk culture’ or as an ‘organic’ popular history which had been eradicated or constrained by the formation of academic history (Nora 1985, 1989; Yerushalmi 1984). The eclipsing of public remembrance by institutional practices of history was regarded as reflective of a ‘modern age’ whereby the processes of industrialization, technology and the forces of late capitalism irrevocably wrenched populations from what had been established modes of living with the past. Such romanticized notions of ‘traditional’ versus ‘modern’ modes of remembrance, which led the early studies of memory, were dismissed by

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historians who regarded the caricature of the discipline as inaccurate. However, the emergence of memory studies led many historians towards a greater degree of engagement with the actual processes of remembrance in society. Issues of nationalism, religion, politics and identity were the subject of assessments across Europe and North America which placed considerable emphasis on the commemoration of the traumatic events of the twentieth century (see LaCapra 1998). These studies focused on the dynamics of memory within individuals, communities and wider societies as a means by which the past was managed and expressed through art, literature, memorials and public practices. This work has established the assessment of memory as a means by which people and groups shape themselves in relation to their sense of history as a continuing act. In this assessment, the past is a source of cultural and symbolic capital that is harnessed as an engine to further causes in the present (Wertsch 2002). Whilst memory studies has addressed the relationship between popular and academic traditions of history, it has also been divided between analyses which validate public perceptions of the past and those which seek to revise and reform outdated or offensive notions of historic events. This seemingly dichotomous nature of the function of history within society has also been examined and addressed within the field of heritage studies. The rise in regard for the cultural, social and economic value of ‘heritage’, within both national governments and non-governmental organizations such as UNESCO, has seen the formation of policies and procedures for managing and conserving heritage sites across the world. However, this singularly limiting definition of ‘heritage as conservation’ has been challenged by the development of an agenda that views heritage as a far more dynamic element in society (Harrison 2013). In this approach, ‘heritage’ is the study of how varying definitions and interpretations of history constitute norms, values and ideals in the present. Significantly, this notion of ‘heritage studies’ incorporates an analysis of dissident, popular and official accounts, where the justification and veneration of the past is regarded alongside its discriminatory and defamatory effects (see Smith 2006). The development of this distinct field of concern has utilized the work conducted within public history and memory studies to examine how issues of popular understandings of the past can hold multiple meanings, reflecting the operation of power within society whilst also forming the locus of resistance to authority. Scholars within this field have examined the nature of engagement with the past at a variety of sites – museums, archives, libraries, buildings and re-enactments. This multiform analysis has provided heritage studies with a means of observing the formation and function of a sense of the past across communities (Harrison

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The Language of the Past

2013). Rather than being purely concerned with ensuring the preservation of historical places and materials, heritage studies also examines the relationships that are formed with the past and their use in the present. Indeed, a ‘critical heritage studies’ has emerged that focuses on the way in which this connection serves as a complex network of association and affiliation within society defining issues of class, gender, ethnicity and representation. This approach has ensured that a regard for places, objects and sites has developed to incorporate a concern for both the tangible and the intangible aspects of heritage (Smith and Akagawa 2009). The former has served to define the initial approach to the past through landscapes and buildings, whilst the latter has become increasingly significant for scholars as they observe how traditions of storytelling, song, dance and language form modes of social and cultural expression regarding the relationship between history and the present (see Fairchild Ruggles and Silverman 2009). It is the particular analysis of language and heritage which has served to indicate the value of a critical heritage studies, revealing how words, terms and phrases act as a vehicle for assessing the connections between past and present as a means to conform but also to contest. Therefore, it is through language that a movement beyond reforming or romanticizing popular notions of history can be achieved. It is the study of language where the use and value of the past in contemporary society can be examined.

Language and history Language forms a connecting point between contemporary society and its past, but it remains a relatively understudied area of analysis for the historian (see Burke and Porter 1987). Anthropologists have examined the function of language as a means of mobilizing history within traditional societies across the globe, but comparative examinations of the role of language in presentday Western nations are not as extensive (see Grillo 2009). Language as a means of demarcating identity in the present forms a vital part of an array of sociological work, but these are not always equipped with an extensive historical context (see Bernstein 1971). Such absence from the wider literature appears to be an oversight when considering the significance afforded to language in the formation of modernity (Baumann and Brigg 2003). Indeed, Habermas (1985, 1990) defined how the deployment and dissemination of language and specific modes of discourse within print culture from the eighteenth century characterized and cemented a future-orientated, enlightened and rational sense of self within European society. In this assessment, it was only through a

History, Heritage and Language

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reconfiguration of time, place and notions of history that a ‘modern’ society was able to emerge (Kern 1996). Indeed, utilizing a discourse to talk about the past in a manner that emphasizes the development and advancement of the age from which that observation is made is an action that has a significant connection with the development of the modern world (see Koselleck 2004). For example, the encounter and engagement that occurred between the native groups from Australasia and the Americas with European colonists brought a particular response from the latter with regard to their own past societies (see Dening 2004). John White (1540–1593), an English illustrator and early colonist of North America, in an account of these new lands, detailed the inhabitants of the eastern seaboard of the United States in comparison to his vision of the peoples of Ancient Britain (Hulton 1984). As such, it is through reference, comparison and simile with the past that this ‘new world’ is brought into meaning. In the 1590 edition of A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia, these images are described as emphasizing the differences and similarities between the old and new worlds: THE PAINTER OF WHOM I HAVE had the first of the Inhabitans of Virginia, giue my allso thees 5. Figures fallowinge, fownd as hy did assured my in a oolld English cronicle, the which I wold well sett to the ende of thees first Figures, for to showe how that the Inhabitants of the great Bretannie haue bin in times past as savage as those of Virginia. (Harriot 1590)

Witnessing the colonized ‘other’ as indicative of a formative phase of the development of the population of Britain through the use of allusion and simile provided a mode of understanding this encounter with native peoples but also for establishing a relationship with their own ancient past (see Piggott 1989). Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) reaffirmed this perception with his political treatise, Leviathan (1651), which characterized the native peoples of the Americas as occupying an earlier stage of political development akin to a distant past. This particular means of discourse, focused on notions of progress, framed the origin of antiquarian study in Europe (see Parry 1995; Vine 2010). Indeed, early English antiquarians such as John Leland (1503–1552), John Stow (1525–1605) and William Camden (1551–1623) catalogued the ancient ruins and monuments of their nation as a means to extol the virtues of the present. In their endeavours they sought to establish and explain the progress of the nation (Camden 1586). The primitive state that antiquarians regarded as prevailing within the nation’s ancient history served as a moral, philosophical and political lesson for the present (see Lovejoy and Boas 1935). In these accounts, the ruins of

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The Language of the Past

the past evoked both a sense of pride but also fear; within the discourse of these early scholars such relics were assessed in comparison with the achievements of their own age and the parlous fate that might also befall them (Janowitz 1990). The poet Edmund Spenser (1552–1599) encapsulated this mode of speaking about the past in his epic work ‘The Ruines of Time’, originally published in 1591, which imagines Britain alongside the ancient empires: Looke backe, who list, unto the former ages, And call to count, what is of them become. (Spenser 1868: 5)

The establishment of this particular type of historical discourse served to instruct the work of antiquarians from the seventeenth century onwards (Carew 1602; Stow 1598). Indeed, the formation of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1707, which was granted its Royal Charter in 1751, served to continue this mode of speaking about the past as a means of establishing the stability of the present (Manias 2013; Pearce 2007). The society encouraged the study and dissemination of antiquarian research of the ruins of Britain as an exploration into the history of the nation as a beguiling but, nevertheless, inferior version of the present (see Roy 1793). This did not entail that the past was wholly regarded from the condescending view of posterity. Throughout the eighteenth century the past served as a resource or instructional device upon which contemporary society could set a standard. The notion of measurement became significant in this regard as to consider the progress of the present an accurate assessment of the past was required. It is in this spirit that the Society of Antiquaries of London publications, such as Vetusta Monumenta (published from 1747) or Archaeologica (published from 1770), provided detailed examinations and illustrations of the ‘scientific study’ of the past (Heringman 2013: 15). Rendered into an object of analysis, the nation’s history could be examined as a rudimentary state before a catalyst had sparked the present into existence (see Brand 1776). What marked this approach was a systematic collection of data regarding the past; artefacts, monuments and memorials from ancient history to the medieval period in Britain and across Europe were recorded in minute detail, their design was classified into type and their function was assessed upon their form (Smiles 2007). For example, David Hume’s (1711–1776) exhaustive six-volume study of The History of England served to place the understanding of a remote past as the product of investigative ‘research’ (Hume 1762: 2). Edward Gibbon’s (1737– 1794) epic The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire approached the subject of study as a morality tale to warn the present British Empire of its potential fall from power and prestige with the rigour of a scientific analysis

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(Gibbon 1776). Similarly, William Robertson (1777: v) in his multi-volume work History of Scotland regarded the formation of evidence and the ordering of this material as the essential work of the historian (see Hicks 1996; Phillips 2000; Shapiro 2000). This examination and categorization of the past encouraged the formation of archaeology and history as distinct academic pursuits (see Thomas 2004). Indeed, the English Dictionary, composed and ordered by Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) and first published in 1755, described ‘History’ as ‘a narration of events and facts delivered with dignity’ and the ‘knowledge of facts and events’ (Johnson 1785: 960). This notion of appropriate and detailed survey of materials was accompanied by a definition of what defined ‘antiquity’: old times; times past long ago … the people of old times; the ancients … the works or remains of old times … old age; a ludicrous sense … ancientness. (Johnson 1785: 163)

A mode of historical writing emerged in Britain during the eighteenth century that provided a means of talking about the past that emphasized the success of the present and the need for placing order on disorderly times (Dew and Price 2014). Such sentiments can also be witnessed in the growing interest in the Society of Antiquarians for the study of etymologies, genealogies and the production of encyclopaedias and dictionaries. Indeed, George Crabb (1778– 1851) published his Universal Historical Dictionary in 1833 which was intended to inform readers of the names of places and persons of biblical, ecclesiastical and political history alongside the figures of myth and lore (Crabb 1833: 9). This exemplifies a mode of historical discourse that emerged within British historiography during the nineteenth century that relied upon categorization (Mitchell 2000). Rendering history into a logical and increasingly ‘scientific’ framework that placed the present beyond the tragedies, catastrophes and inefficiencies of earlier epochs served to emphasize progress and order within Victorian Britain (Hesketh 2011). This would be characterized by the British historian, Herbert Butterfield (1900–1979), as ‘whig history’ which presented the study of the past as a line of progression from tyranny to liberty (Butterfield 1931). The great Whig historian, Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859), reflects this principle in his epic, multi-volume account of The History of England from the Accession of James II: For the history of our country during the last hundred and sixty years is eminently the history of physical, of moral, and of intellectual improvement. Those who compare the age on which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in their imagination may talk of degeneracy and decay: but no man

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The Language of the Past who is correctly informed as to the past will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present. (Macaulay 1849: 1)

Whilst revealing an objective for historical study, such concerns also solidified a particular discourse regarding time, achievement and progress within the discipline of history in Britain but also across Europe (see Lianeri 2011). The formation of a professional, academic pursuit of the past within the Western tradition in the nineteenth century provided a particular means of talking about the past (Koselleck 1988). For the historian, the object of analysis was rendered into a neutral entity by a mode of discourse that removed it from its original context and served as a point of affirming the present as the natural and inevitable consequence of history (von Humboldt 1836; von Ranke 1890). Such was the confidence in this classificatory scheme that history was increasingly regarded by its practitioners as akin to the natural sciences, offering a means by which fundamental laws could be derived from the past and used to assess the present (see Buckle 1857). The work of the British legal historian Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy (1812–1878) can be assessed in this manner as his examination of the past was a study of the formation of ‘righteous’ principles which structured contemporary society (Creasy 1869). Such principles were most clearly detailed in Creasy’s genealogical investigation of the development of the English constitution from the principles laid out by the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 to the 1832 Reform Act (Creasy 1886). In this account the purpose of history is stated to the reader: An attempt to arrange in simple form and to place before the public, in a few easily accessible pages, the great principles of our Constitution – to prove their antiquity, to illustrate their development. (Creasy 1886: 1)

In this manner, the institutions of the nation were born out of the struggles of a perhaps noble but certainly primitive past that served as a mirror upon which the achievements of the present could be regarded (Stubbs 1875). Disruptive events such as invasions, battles, revolutions, inventions and migrations were placed within a mode of discourse that affirmed the certainty of the present as the inheritor of the advances made within society (see Freeman 1867; Green 1875). This perception of the past was not purely a matter of intellectual concern (see Levine 1986). Indeed, it served a very significant purpose for the continuation of society. The ‘logic of history’ and the manner in which past peoples were increasingly presented to the public through historical writings, societies, schools and museums as imperfect versions of the present served to rationalize the social, cultural and political alterations brought through industrialization

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and urbanization. Museums and libraries of the nineteenth century ordered their collections to proclaim the status of the present (Bennett 1995). Indeed, the Great Exhibition of 1851, held in London’s Crystal Palace, placed the achievements of modernity in industry and science next to the ‘primitive’ works of native peoples thought to occupy a rudimentary position of humanity. Such schemas were reinforced with the publication of Charles Darwin’s (1809–1882) work which set forward the principles of evolutionary thought, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (Darwin 1859). Whilst the descent of humanity from a common ancestor shared with apes challenged religious notions, the principle of movement from the simple, brutish past to the complex, settled present did not similarly unquiet Darwin’s readership. Such notions of progression had become firmly embedded within the scientific and geological literature of the age so to speak of the past was to reference the distinction between the primitive and the civilized (Gould 1987). Darwin’s principle of evolution drew upon the theories of geological formation that had been established in the eighteenth century as scholars drew attention to the natural revolutions that had occurred in the past to create a stable present (Dean 1992; Rudwick 2005). Early pioneers of this field such as Adam Sedgwick (1785–1873) put forward the principles of the development of rock formations of a ‘primitive’ era as a naturally occurring process (Sedgwick 1821). Such ideas were translated into the study of humanity so that both geological events and human history could be understood in the same manner. The leading Victorian geologist, Charles Lyell (1797–1875), the main proponent of ‘uniformitarianism’, which stressed the existence of natural processes acting upon both the past and the present, regarded the examination of a ‘primordial’ state of existence as a means of understanding the relations that have established the present: When we study history, we obtain a more profound insight into human nature, by instituting a comparison between the present and former states of society. (Lyell 1833: 1–2)

In this representation, the turbulent past was the progenitor of the present; whilst the political and economic revolutions and social uprisings moulded the appearance of society, these were the result of the ever-present forces of change. As such, by the late nineteenth century this mode of historical discourse which was present in Britain, the United States and throughout Europe could be used to assess previous eras such as the Renaissance as imperfect earlier incarnations of contemporary life (see Burckhardt 1860). Notions of progress and improvement were evident in such analyses despite the acknowledgement of the legacy

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The Language of the Past

of the past in the present (see White 1973: 47–48). Indeed, the principles of movement towards a more harmonious state through revolutionary eras and the constraining effects of previous epochs were specifically drawn upon within the writings of Karl Marx (1818–1883) (see Cohen 1978; Fleischer 1973). In this conception of historical development, the primitive stages of humanity suffered from the increasing concentration of capital and the forces of production within society which would eventually collapse under the weight of its own inequalities (Marx 1867). As a historian, Marx demonstrated the way in which social relations were formed through the political and economic circumstances of a state; it was these conditions of society which were historically specific and which framed the actions of the present (Marx 1869: 3). According to Marx, the 1851 coup d’état that saw the installation of LouisNapoléon Bonaparte (1808–1873) as emperor and the destruction of the French Second Republic was the result of the legacy of the past and the restrictions inherent within the socio-political traditions of the state (Marx and Engels 1968). This was summarized by Marx and Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) in their classificatory system of the history of human development (see Marx and Engels 1888): ●

●

●

●

Primitive communism Ancient slavery Medieval feudalism Modern capitalism

Marx and Engels reiterated the pattern of nineteenth-century scholars in their vision of history as a progression from barbarism and serving the purpose of explaining the present. This programmatic route of humanity served to form the basis of a Marxist historiography which relied upon the ‘stratigraphic’ vision of history to expose the current workings of society (see Tawney 1926; James 1938). The notion of inherent development alongside temporal change is thereby present across Western historiographical discourse from the beginning of the twentieth century as scholars educated in earlier traditions propound notions of advancement within history (Koselleck 2004). The Irish historian, J.B. Bury (1861–1927), examined the notion of progress of history with his work which provided an empirical study of the ‘ideology’ of progress and its appearance within human society (Bury 1920). Indeed, such notions structured the work of Arnold Toynbee (1889–1975), whose epic investigation A Study of History examines the rise and fall of civilizations upon the basis of a progress from barbarism to accomplishment (Toynbee 1934). A similar emphasis can be observed within historical movements within

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the United States. In this example, the ‘progressive’ historical analyses which emphasized the advancement of society through successive episodes of conflict affirmed the direction and advancement of the nation (Becker 1915; Parrington 1927). Such emphasis on process and change in historical discourse was also present in the French historical movement, the Annales School, as it took shape during the course of the early twentieth century (Bloch 1924; Braudel 1949). The past is thereby framed as a form of instruction or as a measuring device, serving as a dire warning or a means of assessing contemporary society. However, regardless of the purpose, ‘history’ is still removed from the present and cast as imperfect. In this way, the manner in which historians engage with the past, reference the past and speak of the past sets out the relationship that is held with history. This use of the past for the purpose of emphasizing the present is also utilized within the historiography from the 1950s that stressed the necessity of including a wider social base within historical analysis. This can be seen in the works of Christopher Hill (1912–2003) and E.P. Thompson (1924–1993), who campaigned for a ‘history from below’ to examine the lives of individuals otherwise obscured from the grand narratives of progress (Hill 1974; Thompson 1963). However, within these accounts the past was still cast as the brutal, savage era from which the present can be reformed. Whilst the revolutions and social movements from the past that argued for equality and representation serve as an inspiration for current agendas, their repression and their failure were regarded as offering stark lessons for contemporary political concerns (see Hill 1972; Thompson 1975). The limitations of those grand narratives and the notion of history as a reflection of contemporary progress also formed part of the critique offered by historians influenced by the postmodern critique of modernity (Lyotard 1984). In this assessment, the notion of advancement and development within Western civilization was exposed as illusory and the result of the operation of power, authority and capitalism (Foucault 1972). What was also distinctive about this alteration within historical thought was the recasting of the discipline as a process of construction (Attridge et al. 1987; Hutcheon 1988). Indeed, in this approach the parallels between history and fiction are regarded as convening and the act of writing history can be analysed on the same literary basis (White 1973). In this manner, the work of historians over the preceding two centuries could be assessed upon the basis of its narrative format, where the style and structure of these accounts were classified on the form of emplotment, argument and ideological implication (White 1987). The representation of the past through history was thereby rendered into a process

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The Language of the Past

of representation, where terms, frameworks and approaches used by historians were the product of wider social and political concerns (Ankersmit 1983, 2001). The role of postmodern and post-structural theory within history placed significant emphasis on the function of language within the study of human society (see Derrida 1976). This ‘linguistic turn’ within history has ensured that a greater degree of reflection upon the use of ideas, expressions and concepts of progress and development became widely practised within historical studies (Clark 2004). The structures of thought and the terminology used to examine past peoples became themselves the object of assessment as historians questioned the value judgements, classifications and directions which have been imposed upon historical eras (see Brunner et al. 1972). The British archaeologist, historian and philosopher R.G. Collingwood (1889–1943) had already drawn attention to these factors in his highly influential study which was published posthumously after the Second World War: such phrases tell us nothing about those ages themselves, though they tell us a great deal about the persons who use them. (Collingwood 1946: 218–219)

The role of historians in framing the relationship between the past and the present is revealed in this assessment as the manner in which historical discourse is formed alters the perception between the contemporary and the historic. The German intellectual historian Reinhart Koselleck (1923–2006) identified this phenomenon as a key aspect of the ‘acceleration’ of modernity, a process which sought to place a greater distance between ‘the modern era’ and its history which would compromise its emphasis on progress and development (Koselleck 1979). In this analysis, ‘the past’ is used as a linguistic device to enable Western societies to assert the present as a coherent, stable whole formed from an unstable and illogical past (Koselleck 1987). Such assessments evidence the way in which language can be regarded as highly important to the study of history both as an object of contemplation but also as a means of analysis (see Jay 1982). From the 1980s onwards, cultural and intellectual historians have used language as a form of investigation, drawing upon the developments within philosophical studies in the early twentieth century which stressed language as the major structuring device in cognition (see Russell 1905; Wittgenstein 1922). Indeed, the field of historical linguistics has developed from a solely technical focus to provide a number of studies which track the use of language across time periods and cultural groups to explain change within societies (see Renfrew 1987; Skulsky 1992). However, whilst this approach has enabled a range of analyses which attempt an investigation of psychological and emotional constructs

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within historic periods through a study of how language is used and developed within the past, there is a peculiar absence of studies which assess how history is discussed in the present by current communities (see Bynon 1977; Lass 1997). Historians have structured the understanding of the past and its relationship to the present through language since the emergence of the discipline, but the way in which this language of the past is used within wider contemporary society has received only partial and limited attention.

The language of the past: Historical discourse in contemporary society The way in which the past features within public discourse evidences a range of attitudes, ideals and values within modern society. The relationship that current individuals, groups and communities hold towards previous eras of human and natural history, as represented in the terms, phrases and expressions used, indicates an assessment of the past and the present and also indicates a perception of the future. The way in which the past is spoken about within current society beyond direct statements and references appears absent from critical scholarship. The use of comparison, metaphor, allusion or simile, all form a means by which we speak about history alongside the terminology, phrases and expressions which constitute an intangible legacy of the past in the present. This is the ‘language of the past’; it is this use of historical references within discourse in the present that is more than just a means to add illustration to contemporary life. It is this mobilization of the past within the present through language which serves as a means to establish and maintain identity, form a sense of place and bring about political ideals. How we talk about the past within society reveals who we presume to be in the present and who we hope to be in the future. Whilst assessments and positive reflections of ‘history’ as a guiding influence dominate popular perceptions of the past, it is in the reference to historical eras in a negative or critical context that we see an alternative agenda emerging which characterizes the modern period. Rather than affirming the notion of history as something that we are built from, the past is something we are seeking to escape. Within the last three decades a significant movement within discourse studies has provided a methodology for studying cultural attitudes and political controls within the use of language (see Fairclough 1992). This work has taken as its object of study the formation of ‘social reality’ through representation and communication (Fairclough 1995, 2001). As such, it has been formed from the

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The Language of the Past

study of the philosophy of metaphor, allusion and reference within language as a conceptual device (see Lakoff 1987; Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Whilst these aspects of language have constituted part of the classical study of rhetoric, it is the use of these references as a means of framing understanding and a mode of thought that has been central to this work (Fogelin 1988). This approach is also influenced by the work of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) who stated that such uses of allusion and metaphor were central in how individuals regarded both themselves and their wider world (Heidegger 1962: 100–101). In this approach, this use of language provides the means of conceptualizing but also a framework of authority (see Derrida 1982: 207–208). Scholars in this field have demonstrated that the use of reference and allusion within language constitutes a means of control and the site of resistance within society (Fairclough 2003). Studies of newspapers, television news reports, advertising, fictional accounts or political speeches and manifestoes have been assessed on this basis to reveal the structures through which power and authority are exercised (van Dijk 1988, 1991). As such, this approach provides a means of examining how the use and employment of language, through metaphor, allusion, simile, terms, expressions and phrases, demonstrates the presence of an ideological agenda. Therefore, by examining how issues and concerns are represented, through the language used, the imagery that is drawn upon or the subtext that is present, an insight into how that individual, group or society defines themselves and their relationship to the wider world can be gained. Therefore, applying this mode of study to the way in which the past is discussed in a negative or critical context will demonstrate how ‘history’ functions in the present. Indeed, through this approach, the manner in which previous eras are represented, referenced or alluded to within contemporary society can be examined as an essential aspect of how our society is structured. Essentially, how we speak about the past can be shown to be key in shaping the modern world. To apply this mode of analysis to the way in which the past is referenced within Britain and the United States, a framework of assessment is required which examines how this mode of representation operates for individuals, groups and communities. As such, this study will focus on three specific areas which will detail the use of references to historical eras or contexts: ●

●

●

Political sphere: the speeches, manifestoes and statements of politicians and governments Media sphere: the newspapers, web sites, television and film representations Public sphere: the vernacular uses and expressions that are made in open forums

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By analysing the critical allusions or metaphors to historical periods within these fields, the way in which the past is used within contemporary society can be delineated. This approach provides a means of assessing how the use of the ‘language of the past’ operates at varying levels within societies as a point of power, authority and identity. This work will examine and define the etymologies of specific historical terms, the origins of phrases and the emergence of expressions; whilst the development and transition of these aspects of the ‘historical discourse’ will be assessed, the focus of this study will be the employment of these discourses in the present day (after Foucault 1972). Political speeches, newspaper coverage, editorials, online news sources and public expression within Britain and the United States will be the focus of concentration. The critical references to the past within these forums will also be supported by a wider assessment of the representation of historical eras on television and film but also within museums, architecture, drama, art and literature. The focus of the study on Britain and the United States provides a means of analysing the local, national and transnational references to the past. This ‘language of the past’ or ‘historical discourse’, which is defined here as the way in which the past is referenced as a mode of critique, constitutes a dynamic process that structures the present and guides the future through allusions to historical terms, expressions and concerns. We speak about the past in a negative or critical manner because it serves a purpose; it enables contemporary society to continue on with a sense of progression without its history returning to undermine it. Where the formation of the discipline of history saw the emergence of a mode of representation that sustained the forces of modernity, the means of talking about the past within current contexts also maintains and structures the present. The ‘language of the past’ is employed within the political, media and public sphere to achieve two objectives: ●

●

To separate the past from the present as a means of emphasizing the progress and development of current society To direct the present towards a future as a means of ensuring the progress and development of current society

The way historical events, periods or characters are discussed, referenced and regarded in a negative context evidences how history and heritage appear to be used within society as a point of orientation to allay contemporary concerns (after Beck 1992). Within the wider social, cultural and political spheres, the ‘historical discourse’ acts to support the notions of progress and development

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The Language of the Past

that accompany the forces of modernity (Berman 1982). Whilst variously defined by scholars, ‘modernity’ can be understood as a sense of development which is associated with the advent of late capitalism, industrialization, democratization and urbanization from the eighteenth century onwards (Giddens 1991). However, what characterizes this process is a perception of acceleration and advancement from the past. Far from emerging at a single locale, at a particular chronological juncture, this development has been observed as a phenomenon that has taken place in multiple locations at multiple times (Cooke 1990). Indeed, modernity is an event that should be considered as an action that keeps occurring through various mediums and which can only be classified through its insistence on progress (Bauman 2000). The way the past is discussed as a critical reference or allusion enables this essential quality of development within modernity as issues of place, identity, gender and class within society are defined as ‘progress’ through historical reference. It is through the past that these areas of concern are structured in the present. Within the negative or critical allusions and references that mobilize history for current agendas, the rationale for speaking about previous eras can be observed; it serves to console contemporary society and to reaffirm a sense of development. Following Thompson (1963: 12–13), the past cannot be rescued from the enormous condescension of posterity, as upon that act of condescension rests the entire edifice of modernity.

Outline of the book The book examines the use of the ‘language of the past’, which will be divided into four chapters of analysis: prehistoric, ancient, medieval and modern. Each of these chapters details the critical allusions and references associated with these particular periods that are used within contemporary society. These chapters will follow a common structure of examining terms or phrases associated with these eras and how they have been employed in the modern era. This study will explore the origins of these references, identify any developments and analyse their uses within present-day contexts. Through this framework, the book will demonstrate how critically referencing the past in Britain and the United States has provided the means by which the modern world has been shaped. In this assessment, these chapters will identify how the past is largely used as a means of reassuring the present of its direction and objectives. The past serves as a point of comparison to reinforce the notions of progress within modernity and

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enable a sense of advancement. Therefore, this reference or allusions made in the present regarding earlier historical periods is reflective of the modern drive to develop and progress. Chapter 2 will examine the references made to a prehistoric era within contemporary society. The chapter will assess the emergence of terms such as ‘dinosaur’, ‘antediluvian’, ‘prehistoric’, ‘Ice Age’, ‘Neanderthal’, ‘caveman’ and ‘the Stone Age’ within academic usage initially and then within the wider public sphere. These expressions will then be examined for their use within Britain and the United States as they are employed through metaphor and allusion to refer to more than their original context. Using media, public and political discourse within newspapers, novels, academic studies and popular debate from the eighteenth century onwards, references to aspects of prehistory will be demonstrated as possessing negative connotations. Indeed, within a contemporary context to use terms and phrases associated with this ‘primitive’ era is to critique present-day individuals and issues. For example, apparently unreconstructed viewpoints are referenced within the media as evidence of a ‘caveman’ mentality or their possessor is described as a ‘relic’ or a ‘dinosaur’. Terms and phrases associated with prehistory are employed in the present to reassert the need for progression. Chapter 3 will assess the terms and phrases associated with the ancient world that have been incorporated into wider usage through the legacy of classical traditions within Western culture but also through the scholarship of historians over the last 300 years. These references are well established within contemporary society and they evidence both the biblical account of the period and the initial study of the ancient world in the nineteenth century which focused on the political machinations and organization of these civilizations. However, it also reveals how the ancient world is utilized in the present to define and comment upon current political situations. For example, moral corruption in politicians can be framed within the popular press with comparisons to Nero, Caligula or Caesar. Despite the role of Greece, Rome and Egypt in the intellectual traditions of Europe, references to these civilizations frequently serve as a means of rebuke and caution. As such, references and allusions associated with the ancient world within media, political and public discourse can be observed to be as an exercise in modernity, serving as a means of judging the present and controlling the future. Chapter 4 examines the references that are associated with medieval culture, politics and religion which are used to understand and assess the present. Popular expressions within Britain and the United States are replete with

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The Language of the Past

allusions to this particular era of history. These associations are derived from the period itself, popular culture and the established study of medieval history over the course of the last two centuries. Overwhelming, these allusions are negative as individuals who are perceived to be overreaching in their operation of authority are cast as behaving like a ‘medieval king’ or a ‘baron’. Furthermore, groups can be condemned for their ‘medieval mindset’, ‘medieval religious practices’ or undertaking procedures which are likened to ‘medieval torture’ if their ideas or values are regarded as lacking in the progressive principles of modernity. Terms such as ‘peasant’, ‘serf ’, ‘knight’ or ‘lord of the manor’ are used to comment upon the relationships and behaviour within current society. Whilst a romantic vision of the medieval era can be located within contemporary discourse, idealizing community life and rural activities, the employment of words and phrases that refer to the period serves to reinforce the separation between past and present and reaffirms notions of political progression and social advancement. Chapter 5 reveals the ways in which modern historical associations are drawn upon within current society to express identities and meanings in the present. Using recent historical periods as a frame of reference enables individuals, groups and communities to stress their own superiority in relation to the past. Therefore, terming modern-day morality, politics or culture as ‘Victorian’ passes judgement upon the historical era itself and on contemporary practices. Correspondingly, employing the term ‘the Wild West’ to describe current culture, society and politics denotes regression, lawlessness and danger and illustrates a departure from the proper order of things. This chapter will also examine how references to historic wars and conflicts within Britain and the United States have shaped the modern era. For example, using the First World War battles of the Somme and Passchendaele as illustrative devices to critique ill-considered plans, noble but tragic endeavours and lapses in authority and responsibility can be located in Britain from the 1920s onwards. Indeed, despite the chronological proximity, references to modern historical eras are used to highlight failure and misjudgement in the present and to reassert the need for social, economic, political and cultural improvement. The Conclusions complete the study by analysing how through language we can assess wider public responses to the past. The way in which words or phrases that reference previous historical eras are used to assess and understand the present reveals how contemporary society is structured and how the future is defined. Despite the array of studies that have highlighted the modern fixation with the past, using notions of memory and heritage to demonstrate the near

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obsession with conservation and preservation, the manner in which historical eras are talked about within Britain and the United States demonstrates a very different understanding. This separation between past and present is a product of modernity and indicative of the way in which contemporary Western society orientates itself towards the future. Contemporary society is more than just the product of the historical events that have formed the institutions and ideals of the nation state. The modern era has been defined by how we speak about the past.

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The Prehistoric World

Introduction The use of references to a distant, prehistoric past within the contemporary political, media and public spheres provides a clear indication of the use of a ‘historical discourse’ as a tool that functions to distinguish and elevate the present. Rather than serving as a mere illustrative device within language, this mode of referencing a ‘primitive era’ in natural and human history possesses a significant ideological effect. Rendering this previous age into a savage and strange epoch ensures that the perception of present-day stability and progression is asserted. The presence of this type of discourse across society reveals the way in which the forces of modernization have shaped popular notions about the past. This history is largely dismissed through reference, allusion and metaphor as an era of brutality that provides a startling contrast to the modern world. To be associated with extinct species, geological and climatic processes that stretch across millennia and the early evolutionary forebears of anatomically modern Homo sapiens is to be cast as irrelevant, backward and an obstacle to development. To be of such a period separates the subject from the acceleration and advances of contemporary society (after Koselleck 2004). Such disconnections are not inevitable; they are not the product of a predestined process or an accustomed practice that sees current eras find fault in their predecessors. This mode of discourse is born out of the considered indifference and constructed contempt of the present towards the past as a means to stress progress and development. Certainly, positive uses and mobilizations of this discourse to enact modern-day political and social processes can be located across the political, media and public discourse. However, rather than acting as a contrast, this perception is offered as a means of redeeming the present and saving the future rather than altering an assessment of the past (after Giddens 1990).

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The Language of the Past

The discovery of evidence in rock formations and fossils and the subsequent development of the study of geology and palaeontology have been extensively examined by scholars (see Gould 1987). The formation of a concern for an ancient past from the seventeenth century onwards brought forth an array of terms and descriptions as well as analytical and chronological frameworks. Whilst these early studies have been subject to academic revision and reinterpretation, the legacy of this work persists within political, media and public discourse. Indeed, it acquires further meanings and associations in these contexts. By tracing the origin of words, phrases and associations derived from the work conducted within geology, palaeontology and prehistory to their usage as allusions and references within a range of situations in the present, the value of the past for contemporary society can be revealed. From the formation of the planet to the emergence of modern humans, this history serves as a symbolic resource that is drawn upon to assert the dominance of the present rather than the qualities of the past. This chapter analyses this phenomenon by examining current uses of this discourse across a variety of media. The manner in which such past eras are referenced, such as the Jurassic period or the Ice Ages, the way in which vanished animals, such as the dinosaurs, or hominid species, such as the Neanderthals, are evoked or the modes by which early humans are discussed will be assessed as they are used to frame current concerns and issues. Tellingly, rather than speak of this history itself, this language of the past is used to engage with fears and desires in the present. Through allusion and metaphor, the past is formed as an inferior object through which current society can assert and maintain its place at the apex of development and progression.

Dinosaurs, the prehistoric and the primeval The range of terms and phrases associated with a distant past that are evoked within contemporary vernacular expressions is considerable. References to the eras, events and life before human existence abound across political, media and public spheres to frame current issues, anxieties and concerns. The adaptability of these allusions is significant but it is their usage in an overwhelmingly negative connotation that is especially informing. Indeed, the ability to make a prehistoric period appear relevant for modern contexts emphasizes the focus of concern within the historical discourse to separate the past from the present. In this instance, we speak so much about the past because it enables us to disassociate ourselves from its presumed failures and its decline and to affirm the progress

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of modernity. Examining this way of speaking about the past demonstrates how significant this history is as a validation of identities and values in the present but not through a sense of ownership, pride or investment. Rather, this validation from the past is born out of the perception of detachment and separation that is evidenced in the references made to this era within contemporary discursive spheres. This mode of representation of framing current issues with ancient past contexts is highly noticeable with regard to the chronological period, the habitat and the eventual disappearance of the dinosaurs (see Mitchell 1998). The emergence of references to the extinct animals that once inhabited the Earth within vernacular allusions has developed from the beginnings of paleontological study in the nineteenth century. However, the term ‘dinosaur’ itself becomes part of scientific examination from the 1840s through the work of the British naturalist and anatomist Richard Owen (1804–1892) (Rupke 1994). Whilst fossilized remains had been the subject of examination for decades, the exact taxonomy of these animals was the subject of academic dispute (see Dixon 1850; Mantell 1822). Owen’s objective of establishing primacy for his own work in this field was achieved through coining the term ‘dinosaur’ from the Ancient Greek deinos (terrible) and sauros (lizard): The combination of such characters … manifested by creatures far surpassing in size the largest of existing reptiles, will … be deemed sufficient ground for establishing a distinct tribe or suborder of Saurian Reptiles, for which I would propose the name of Dinosauria. (Owen 1841: 103)

Owen also postulated the reason for the disappearance of this ‘distinct tribe’ from the Earth; they had failed to adapt and their large size had reduced their ability to survive ‘against the surrounding agencies’ (Owen 1859: 56). The invention of the term and the cause of the demise of this primordial life gained prominence for the study of fossils. However, it also saw the incorporation into English of ‘dinosaur’ into scientific and public usage. The names of the chronological epochs that these creatures belonged to and the discovery of different species and categories within this new order of animals brought further additions to the lexicon (see Seeley 1888). The eras of the Triassic (251–200 Ma), Jurassic (200–145 Ma) and Cretaceous periods (145–66 Ma) were coined in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and offered an academic means of measuring these vast timescales as well as imposing a sense of awe within the public for this history (Rudwick 1992: 241). Indeed, the image of terrifying giant reptiles that once resided upon the Earth inspired the popular imagination

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The Language of the Past

and museums, exhibitions, novels and illustrations fuelled this fascination with the fearsome creatures in the late nineteenth century (see Freeman 2004). In Britain, this provided the means by which the names and associations of these extinct creatures were brought to the present. The excavation of specimens and the classification of the Iguanodon (1825), the Megalosaurus (1827) and the Hylaeosaurus (1832) were rendered into vivid detail with the display in 1854 of the life-like replicas in the Dinosaur Court in London’s Crystal Palace Park designed under the direction of Richard Owen by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (1807– 1894) (Phillips 1854) (Figure 2.1). Such presentations relied upon the sublime nature of the dinosaur for Victorian audiences; the strange beasts from a distant era were captivating but they also demonstrated the progress of society from this primordial state (Owen 1854). The presence of these creatures within the popular imagination of nineteenth-century Britain is demonstrated in their use as an illustrative device within contemporary Victorian fiction (Zimmerman 2009). From Charles Dickens’s Bleak House (1853: 1), where a ‘Megalosaurus … like an elephantine lizard’ was placed amongst the houses and squares of Holborn Hill, which framed the foreboding atmosphere of the law courts of London, to the fantastical adventures of Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (1912), where the extinct creatures still roamed the Amazonian basin in South America, dinosaurs were the subject of both excitement and terror. However, it was their extinction that appeared to most attract attention; the failure of these animals to prosper and survive appeared as a challenge to the progress of humanity (Rauch 2007). Indeed, in one of his earlier short stories published in 1887 entitled ‘A Vision of the Past’, H. G. Wells (1866–1946) provided an ironic account of an interrogation between a man and a dinosaur on the subject of extinction (Wells 1887). Through such representations, by the beginning of the twentieth century, dinosaurs had become synonymous with a primitive age, an absence of development and ultimately failure and annihilation (after Smith 2012). In the United States, the ‘Bone Wars’ (1877–1892) between Edward Cope (1840–1897), of the Academy of Natural Sciences, and Othniel Marsh (1831– 1899), of the Peabody Museum of Natural History, saw a struggle for collections and academic prominence within the developing field of palaeontology but also led to discovery and classification of an array of species such as the Stegosaurus (1877), the Diplodocus (1878) and the Triceratops (1889) (Wallace 2000). With the identification of the Tyrannosaurus rex (1905) and the creation of the Dinosaur National Memorial in 1915 in the fossil-rich areas of Utah and Colorado, the

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Figure 2.1 Crystal Palace Park dinosaurs, created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins.

‘era of the dinosaurs’ had saturated the popular imagination (Brinkman 2010). However, the prevailing object of this fascination was the disappearance of the seemingly once dominant animals and the distinct separation between this distant period and the present (see Matthew 1915). Such issues are a feature of early twentieth-century science fiction literature and film within the United

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The Language of the Past

States. Novels and films such as The Land That Time Forgot (1924), by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950), or Brute Force (1914), directed by D. W. Griffith (1875–1948), explored the oddity and terror engendered by the discovery of surviving members of this extinct species or the coexistence of humans and dinosaurs in the past. In such circumstances, it is perhaps of no surprise that the dinosaurs were evoked as a reference in the maelstrom of the industrialized conflict of the First World War (1914–1918) (see Fussell 1975; Kern 1996). The prehistoric creatures served as a useful allusion to confront and understand the terror of mechanized war that wrought death and suffering on an unprecedented scale (see Tate 1998: 138). Indeed, dinosaur references provided a means by which the advance of modern society could be measured; whilst evoking an earlier ‘primitive’ age, the dinosaurs in their size and power had been matched by the progress of technology. However, whilst enabling a demonstration of advancement, the scale of destruction wrought by the conflict could also be omitted from association with modern notions of progress by being firmly placed within references to a distant past. This is evidenced with the allusions made between the extinct animals and the great emblem of this new mode of warfare: the tank (Wright 2000). From their first usage in 1916 by the British army, these armoured vehicles were immediately regarded alongside the dinosaurs for their terrifying nature. Observers on the battlefields of the Western Front in France and Flanders remarked upon the similarities: After some two hours of progress we came, in that devastated district near the front, to an expanse where many monsters were clumsily cavorting like dinosaurs in primeval slime …. (Churchill 1918: 84)

Contemporary newspapers in Britain and the United States also focused on this historical reference: (the tanks) must have recalled the terrors of prehistoric man when dinosaurs and pterodactyls, assailed his primitive cave dwelling. (New York Times, Anon 1916a) the return to earth of ichthyosaurs or dinosaurs spouting bullets from their nostrils could not have been more amazing. (New York Times, Anon 1916b)

Such comments were also mirrored in the letters and diaries of soldiers in the British army serving in the trenches. Individuals remarked upon the size, speed, power and terror of the tanks through references to the perceived characteristics of the dinosaurs (after Foley 2014: 85–86). The American historian Arthur Riggs

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(1879–1952) wrote of his experiences with the British Army Tank Corps and the ‘otherworldly’ nature of these new machines but utilized a reference to a distant past to place these modern inventions into context: other tanks rested at various angles … all of them terrible, ludicrous, inspiring— monsters from some prehistoric age who had gallantly come to help their puny masters. (Riggs 1917: 102)

Similarly, Max Pemberton (1863–1950), writing in the popular British magazine War Illustrated, reported the news of the development of this new mode of waging war with a clear link to an ancient period in the Earth’s history: Huge saurians and steel pterodactyls which eat houses as elephants eat hay. (Pemberton 1916: 179)

The effect that the tank was regarded as having upon the enemy was also asserted in the same manner so the confrontation with modern warfare was rendered into a presumed brutal and savage past: And the effect upon the morale of the enemy was not, indeed, unlike produced if some prehistoric dinosaur suddenly appeared upon the battlefield. (Townsend 1917: 205)

Other new weapons of the war were also framed within these prehistoric allusions. Indeed, in their post-war history of the 1st Battalion of the Cambridgeshire Regiment, Brigadier-General E. Riddell and Colonel M. C. Clayton (1934: 50) stated that despite ‘modern weapons’ the war was ‘still prehistoric in its conduct’. In an anonymous poem, entitled ‘Death of a Zeppelin’, published in a highly popular anthology in Britain entitled The Muse in Arms and edited by the author Edward Bolland Osborn (1867–1938), the German Empire’s airships were similarly placed in this setting as ‘the man-made Dinosaur that haunts the night’ (Anon 1918: 117). With references to a prehistoric era, the wider landscape of the battlefields of the First World War in France and Flanders became an environment that was apparently suited to the existence of such creatures (after Das 2005: 39). The British war correspondent William Beech Thomas (1868–1957) described the battlefields of the Somme after the 1916 offensive on the Western Front as a scene of ‘primeval slime’ (Thomas 1917: 8). The history of the 12th Bermondsey Battalion described how the condition of the Somme created soldiers who ‘bore no resemblance to human beings, haggard, sleepless, filthy, like creatures of the primeval slime’ (Aston and Duggan 1936: 125). Whilst in his memoirs,

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the British army veteran Charles Carrington (1965: 198) stated how the war had reduced Flanders to a ‘primeval marsh’. The same reference points were made during the Second World War (1939–1945), where the battlefields and weapons were once again alluded to within a historical discourse that places the monstrous and the destructive within the context of the past (Conrad 1999: 102). For example, the artist Paul Nash (1889–1946) described it as almost ‘inevitable’ that the Hampden Bomber should resemble a ‘pterodactyl’ (Nash 1942: 43). In his post-war memoirs, Captain Charles B. MacDonald (1922–1990) described the sight of the fortified Siegfried Line, built by Nazi Germany, as a ‘prehistory monster, coiled round the hillsides’ (MacDonald 1947: 10). Therefore, in its contemporary experience and its remembrance, the global wars of the twentieth century were represented through a historical discourse that evoked a distant past to understand a traumatic present. Allusions to dinosaurs and a primeval history served to ensure that the conflict’s challenge to modernity’s drives of progress and advancement was ameliorated. The war was framed not as a demonstration of the failure of modern society but as a return to a primordial era far removed from the values and ideals of contemporary society. This notion of monstrous, outdated and ill-adapted creatures also became a useful point of comparison within early twentieth-century political culture within the United States. ‘Dinosaur’ as a derogatory term was mobilized to ridicule opponents or to highlight their potentially dangerous policies. In this manner, ‘dinosaur’ could refer to both the strange and the moribund within the political sphere. For example, in 1916 President Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) refuted the accusation that he had slurred the name of Republican presidential candidate Charles Hughes (1862–1948) by reference to the extinct animals: This is just as preposterous as if it had been said that Mr. Hughes had called me a Dutch Reformed dinosaur. (New York Times, Anon 1916c)

Such uses of the term within political discourse in the United States became more apparent by the 1940s and 1950s when ‘dinosaur’ acquired the status of a dimwitted and anachronistic obstacle to reform. Such employment is reflected in the speeches made by President Harry Truman (1884–1972) to rebuke members of the opposing Republican Party in speeches delivered during 1952: This is the kind of dinosaur school of Republican strategy. They want to go back to prehistoric times. (Truman 1966: 221)

The allusions to the ‘dinosaurs’ served to reinforce the sense of progression alongside the stagnation and ineptitude of opponents. The extinct creatures

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appear to emphasize the advance of modernity as through the employment of allusions and references, the present uses the past to distance itself from its forebears. The same use of ‘dinosaur’ is also present in post-1945 British politics where the name evokes a failure to adapt to a new political environment or the incompetency of lumbering, inefficient and incompetent organizations. In the post-war world that was rapidly altering to accommodate technological, political and social changes, to be labelled a dinosaur was to be a barrier to progression or a precursor to failure. Whilst no allusions to the term are made in the nineteenth century within parliamentary debates, it is only after 1945 that references abound to ‘dinosaurs’ in a negative connotation. For example, Sir John Anderson (1882–1958), who was briefly the wartime Chancellor of the Exchequer, in March 1947 referred to the economic policies of the new Labour government that saw the expansion of the state sector as following the same process as the extinction of the dinosaurs: Would right hon. Gentlemen opposite just think for a moment of the fate of the dinosaurs in a remote geological age which, after a period of grotesque and portentous over-development, vanished from the face of the earth because they had outstripped the possibilities of their environment? (HC Deb 11 March 1947 vol. 434 c.1191)

The allusion to failure, destruction and anachronism is also present in the response that the Labour Member of Parliament Denis Healy gave in November 1953 whilst in opposition against the economic and foreign policies of the Conservative government under Sir Winston Churchill (1874–1965): not to satisfy the needs of the British economy, but simply to satisfy the doctrinaire dinosaurs of his own back benches …. (HC Deb 5 November 1953 vol. 520 c.422)

Similarly, the Labour Member of Parliament William Warbey (1903–1980) referred to the prehistoric creatures as a damnation of war planning in the parliamentary debates in August 1956 regarding access to the Suez Canal, an issue that would eventually see Britain join France and Israel in an invasion of Egypt in 1956: That was Imperialism. That age is passing. Wherever things of that character are still done in any part of the world they have the taint of the carrion of Imperialism and of the dead meat of the dinosaur. (HC Deb 2 August 1956 vol. 557 c.1643)

From socialist spending policies, the limitations of orthodoxy and the ramifications of neocolonial policies, the variability of the use of the term

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‘dinosaur’ to address concerns, anxieties or fears is evident. However, despite this plethora of applications, which are dependent upon whatever ideological agenda is present, what is consistent within this political discourse is its use as a means of censure. This past is evoked to demonstrate the distinction and separation of the present. Indeed, when confronted with a challenge to notions of progression and advancement, the prehistoric past serves as a symbolic resource for contemporary society upon which it can draw upon to testify to the deviation from this path and to act as a corrective. It is in this manner that we have become accustomed to the regular appearance of dinosaurs in the present, a warning of the folly of humanity and precarious nature of our existence (after Mitchell 1998). The image of these prehistoric creatures appears to haunt modernity, proving a constant object of fascination and repulsion for their ability to tell us of our own potential annihilation (after Derrida 1994). After 1945, with the threat of nuclear war an ever-present anxiety and the military doctrine of mutually assured destruction present within government planning, the extinction of all life on Earth appeared a reasonable supposition (see Brodie 1946). As such, when confronted with the possible failing of the principles of modernity, it was the dinosaurs that served as a useful point of comparison with humanity’s own seemingly disastrous predicament (see Koestler 1955). After the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, dinosaurs were closely aligned with the nuclear age and became a significant feature of popular culture serving as a symbol for rampant terror, wanton destruction and unrestrained power (see Jankovich 1996: 52). This theme was the central plot of the film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1952), where a dinosaur is awoken from its hibernation by nuclear testing and then threatens the eastern seaboard of the United States. In The Giant Behemoth (1959), a dinosaur infected by radiation poisoning caused by oceanic nuclear testing causes havoc in London, rampaging across the city, destroying buildings and livelihoods in the process. In Ray Bradbury’s (1920–2012) classic short story entitled ‘A Sound of Thunder’, the time-travelling hunters to the Jurassic era set in motion a chain of events that irrevocably alters the future (Bradbury 1952). Similarly, L. Sprague de Camp’s (1907–2000) well-known short science fiction story A Gun for Dinosaur (1956) emphasizes the dangerous nature of the prehistoric creatures as adventurers travel back to the Cretaceous era where one of their company is killed by a Tyrannosaurus rex, thereby forming an unassailable time paradox in the present. In the nuclear age, the prehistoric is awakened as a warning.

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The dinosaurs become an important symbol during this era as they are used to describe the potential disruption to the present and its progress. Indeed, the extinction of the dinosaurs became a highly significant argumentative point for those opposed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The danger of ‘going the way of the dinosaurs’ was frequently asserted in Britain by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). The one-time president and a leading proponent of this movement, the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) made a direct reference to this threat: If, with our increased cleverness, we continue to pursue aims no more lofty than those pursued by tyrants in the past, we shall doom ourselves to destruction and shall vanish as the dinosaurs vanished. They, too, were once the lords of creation. They developed innumerable horns to give them victory in the contests of their day … they became extinct …. (Russell 1956: 92)

This use of referencing the extinct creatures for promoting nuclear disarmament demonstrates the way in which the language of the past is mobilized as a critique or as a rebuke within society. Such sentiments are not purely the preserve of dissenting voices; the end of this prehistoric species serves as a highly symbolic allusion across the political spectrum in its insistence that society must move forward. In such a fashion, it was these animals that were evoked by President John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly regarding nuclear proliferation in September 1961: unless man can match his strides in weaponry and technology with equal strides in social and political development, our great strength, like that of the dinosaur, will become incapable of proper control – and like the dinosaur vanish from the earth. (Kennedy 1961: 622)

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the threat of nuclear armageddon was consistently referenced to the mass extinction event that witnessed the end of the Cretaceous era (66 Ma). Such associations increased with the development of the theory in the 1980s that the abrupt end to the dinosaurs was the result of a colossal asteroid impact (Alvarez et al. 1980). This interpretation gave rise to the ‘nuclear winter’ hypothesis, where effectively the light from the Sun is blocked from the particle-dense atmosphere (see Turco et al. 1983). Such a scenario was then used to both explain the climatological and geological effects caused by the impact of a large extraterrestrial body on the Earth and the extinction of the dinosaurs (Sagan 1983). The connection between the potential end of humanity through a nuclear holocaust and the cause of the extinction of the

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planet’s previous dominant species became a popular point of reference within the wider media (Anon 1985; Browne 1985; Wilford 1985). Going the ‘way of the dinosaurs’ through the advent of a ‘nuclear winter’ was a reference that was made acutely relevant during the 1980s as global anxiety over atomic weapons once again proliferated (after Badash 2009). The association between the destructive nature of humanity and the extinction of the dinosaurs had already been stated at the outset of the environmental movement in the 1960s (Sale 1993). Key figures in this early campaign stressed the dangers of the unsustainable way in which the Earth’s resources were being used, the threat posed by overpopulation, the environmental damage wrought by chemical and industrial agricultural processes and the path of the dinosaurs being humankind’s inevitable route (see Carson 1962: 188). Such associations brought the concept of replicating the dinosaur’s fate by mismanagement and maltreatment into consistent use within the nascent environmental movement (see Hinrichs 1971). Referencing the dinosaurs and their extinction was employed to mark out the sense of hubris present in current policies and practices towards ecological management (Jackson 1973: 322). Indeed, modern environmental disasters, caused by the effects of centuries of unrestricted capitalist growth, were framed in direct comparison with the presumed failure of the dinosaurs within the popular media (see Willis 2013: 109–110). This movement also encouraged the conservation movement to highlight the threats posed to contemporary species that might be forced to extinction by the actions of humans and go the way of their prehistoric forebears: The Hawaiian dark-rumped petrel, the blunt-nosed leopard lizard, the Santa Cruz long-toed salamander and the Colorado River squawfish … may soon go the way of the dinosaur: to extinction. (Time, Anon 1967: 53–54)

The threat to current species by the actions of humans was therefore emphasized through reference to the decline of the dinosaurs as a means to highlight the failings of contemporary society (see Mallinson 1978: 14). The association with inadequacy and inadaptability has ensured that the dinosaurs can serve as a frame to address perceived environmental, conservation and even technological shortcomings. The latter is clearly demonstrated during the 1950s in an era of economic development, where the automobile business executive and politician George W. Romney (1907–1995) decried his competitors in the car industry during an interview in Time magazine as ‘gas-guzzling dinosaurs’ (Anon 1955: 23). Similarly, in a period of economic decline during the 1970s, industries and businesses that had not adapted to the new financial climate were threatened

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with ‘extinction’ and were threatened with following ‘the way of the dinosaurs’ (Congressional Record 1971: 41389). This point of orientation, of dinosaurs being an offensive or disturbing anachronism in the present, was also defined in the development of the second-wave feminist movement from the 1960s (Friedan 1963). To be a ‘sexist dinosaur’, a ‘chauvinist dinosaur’ or ‘prehistoric’ or ‘primeval’ in attitudes towards gender equality became identifying tags for those unconstructed perceptions that had failed to progress with the social and political transformations of the latter twentieth century. Within the language of the past, a dinosaur is a barrier to advancement. The development of the term ‘dinosaur’ from its origins in the nineteenth century to its use as a term of criticism and abuse emphasizes the way in which the past is used within the present. In contemporary society, the reference to the dinosaurs, the prehistoric eras or individual dinosaur species within the political, media and public spheres reveals how this history is cast in various ways. Despite the multitude of assessments of what actually constitutes development for society, through allusion, metaphor or simile the extinct fauna are brought to life to haunt the present and act as a reminder of the modern drive for progress and advancement. To be ascribed the status of moving, acting or thinking like these animals is to be regarded as defunct or moribund. It is within the political arena where the term can be most clearly observed as part of the way in which reference and allusion are used to separate the past and the present whilst asserting the notion of development. For example, after the unsuccessful 1997 General Election campaign in Britain by the Conservative Party, the sobriquet was frequently asserted within sections of the right wing press to critique the perceived ‘traditional’ elements within the party as a barrier to reform. In the conservative newspaper Daily Mail, the attitudes towards multiculturalism stated by the former Conservative Party minister Norman Tebbit were characterized as prehistoric with the headline, ‘March of the Dinosaurs’ (see Hughes and Deans 1997). However, the same newspaper within the space of a year used the epithet to decry the operations of trade unions within the new Labour government with the headline, ‘Union Dinosaurs need to start using their brains’ (see Sinclair 1998). Seemingly, this is a species that cannot be classified as extinct as their utility evidences their survival. The use of the moniker as a point of reference is also aptly illustrated in the way in which Tony Blair repositioned the Labour Party in Britain upon taking the leadership in 1994. Blair set out to divest the socialist underpinnings of the labour movement by removing the commitment to nationalization stated under

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Clause IV of the Labour Party constitution. This manoeuvring was framed by supportive elements within the media as a prehistoric battle: The claws of the dinosaur: Labour Party leader Tony Blair’s opposition to Clause Four. (The Economist, Anon, 1995)

The opposition to these reforms from the trade unions was frequently placed as an engagement with the extinct animals in order to overcome obstacles and enact a degree of progress: Even Dinosaurs Were Never So Extinct as Union Loudmouth John. (Sunday Mirror, Anon 1998) The Dinosaurs That Are Driving British Business to Extinction. (The Mail on Sunday, Steven 1996) Date for dinner with dinosaurs. (Daily Mail, Torode 1996)

Indeed, such was the way in which the political alteration precipitated by Blair and the ‘New Labour’ programme that the election of the party in 1997 on an overwhelming majority was regarded on the basis of an ‘evolution’ which emerged from the extinction of a previous, primitive political era: Old-fashioned socialism is now as extinct in this country as the fearsome dinosaurs who once prowled it. Never again will union barons hold our nation to ransom. Never again will enterprise be a dirty word. (The People, Anon 1997a)

Modern politics takes upon the mantle of some prehistoric struggle for progress through these references that are fluid in their usage and application. Indeed, no one particular political hue can profess to have a monopoly on such analogies. However, what is consistent is their disassociation between the past and the present and an insistence on advancement. To possess the characteristics of a dinosaur, to be hailed as emerging from the primeval slime, to be referred to as belonging to the Triassic, Jurassic or Cretaceous eras, to be defined to as a Tyrannosaurus rex, Diplodocus or Pterodactyl, is to be banished from the modern age and suffer the ignominy of the present’s assessment of the past: irrelevance. The re-emergence of dinosaurs as a central part of popular culture as observed in the novels, television and programmes from the 1970s onwards has certainly ensured the relevance of the reference. Certainly, representations of dinosaurs within recent films such as The Land Before Time (1988), Super Mario Brothers (1993), Jurassic Park (1993) and Dinosaur (2000) or the British television programme Walking with Dinosaurs (1999) have reiterated, challenged and even rehabilitated the image of the extinct creatures within society (see Willis 1999). However, what

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remains is the derogatory connotation in which these animals are referenced within current society. When used as a point of allusion or comparison, it is to undermine the status, ideas and values of the object of disdain: Sexist Dinosaurs Roam Congress with Jurassic-Era Attitudes to Women. (The Irish Times, Carswell 2014) Let’s Tell These Old Dinosaurs That We Women Won’t Play Their Ancient Game. (Belfast Telegraph, Graham 2013) The Dinosaurs of Westminster Can No Longer Be Allowed to Stamp Down Scottish Labour. (Sunday Mail, McFadyen 2014)

In such a context, the term ‘dinosaur’ has come to possess powerful connotations that further emphasize the complex relationship between this past and the present (see Mitchell 1998). Such a perception is not an inevitable response, nor is it an understandable reaction to being confronted with the vast scale of the chronological distance that separates our own time from the dinosaurs of the Mesozoic era (252–66 Ma). It is rooted in the language of the past that has formed within the modern era as a means of establishing a sense of identity, place and progression in the present (after Giddens 1990). However, within this discourse is a means by which an alternative, reflexive mode of engagement can be formed (after Giddens 1991: 5). Indeed, reference to a prehistoric era, the dinosaurs and primeval environments has gained traction in recent years within the ecological movement, where humanity is seen as the flawed animal unable to alter to its environment: Dinosaur should be a term of praise, not opprobrium. Dinosaurs reigned for more than 100 million years and died through no fault of their own; Homo sapiens are nowhere near a million years old, and have limited prospects, entirely self-imposed, for extended geological longevity. (Gould 1995: 38–39)

Whilst there is a means by which the language of the past that separates a historical era and the present to emphasize advancement can be altered, this constitutes a minority, dissonant mode of talking about this history. Overwhelmingly, dinosaurs are still referenced to critique a failure of modernity to adapt and progress. This use of the extinct creatures as a metaphor or allusion was set in place in the nineteenth century, as the place of the dinosaur within popular and political discourse was established as a term with associations of terror, extinction, failure and critique (see Glut and Brett-Surman 1997; Sanz 2002). What marks this development is the use of ‘dinosaur’ to refer to contemporary contexts within Britain and the United States. Rather than referencing the animals themselves,

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the terms associated with the discovery, development and fate of these creatures are mobilized to frame current anxieties, fears and agendas for the future.

Neanderthals, cavemen and Cro-Magnons The discovery of humanity’s ancient history, its ancestry and its evolution from the great apes to anatomically modern humans has been a phenomenon of the contemporary age. From Darwin’s (1871) study of the ‘descent of man’, to the discoveries made by Louis Leakey (1903–1972) at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, Mary Leakey’s (1913–1996) identification of the extinct primate Proconsul and Donald Johanson’s 1974 identification of ‘Lucy’ (Australopithecus afarensis), the study of palaeoanthropology has challenged notions of religion, ideas about humanity and ecological perspectives over the last century. This field has also provided an array of points of reference that are asserted within the political, media and public discourse as metaphors or allusions to contemporary concerns. As such, the prehistory of humanity possesses a modern agenda. It is evoked to serve the interests of the present as a point of comparison that emphasizes the ever-growing distance between the past and our modern age. Within this language of the past, the ancestors of modern Homo sapiens are framed as inferior examples that are referenced as a means of rebuke or ridicule. This history is used as a mirror to hold up against ourselves and our achievements to assert notions of progress and disassociate current society from the perceived failings or brutality of the past. The physical similarities between modern humans and species of apes had led to the postulation of a relationship before the eighteenth century, but it was the classification system designed by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707–1798) that placed these creatures together within the order Hominidae (Linnaeus 1758). This hierarchy of development that placed humanity at the summit of the species but a relative of these ‘lesser’ creatures proved a direct challenge to theological principles of God’s creation of man (Chambers 1844; Owen 1848). However, the discovery of fossilized remains across Europe and particularly of hominids in the Neanderthal Valley in North RhineWestphalia in Germany in 1856 engendered interest in the scientific field but also amongst the wider public (Figure 2.2). These remains of an extinct species, named Neanderthal after the location of their excavation, confirmed the antiquity of humanity but also its status as the dominant member of this order (Huxley 1863). Further discoveries of early modern humans in 1868,

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Figure 2.2 Fragment of Neanderthal skull. Image from Fuhlrott (1865).

termed ‘Cro-Magnons’ after the cave and rock shelter (Abri de Cro-Magnon) in south-western France where they were located, were also used to affirm this order (Broca 1868). Indeed, early discussions of these finds of Neanderthals especially referenced the limited cranial capacity and thereby intellectual and moral capacity of these hominids in comparison to modern humans (King 1864). The criticism levelled at Darwin from politicians, theologians and some sections of the wider public from the publication of his earliest work was largely founded upon the belief that evolutionary theory regarded contemporary humans and the apes as comparable and that man’s bestial nature was thereby

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exposed (see Wilberforce 1860). Although Darwin’s delineation of humanity from a common primate ancestor with the great apes placed our own species as part of a wider group of animals, it nevertheless asserted the primacy of humans (Darwin 1859). Whilst Darwin’s study of ‘natural selection’ was the subject of religious and political outcry, from the end of the nineteenth century, the fossil evidence of Homo erectus (1891), initially named Pithecanthropus erectus or more popularly ‘Java Man’ (Dubois 1894, 1898) and Australopithecus africanus (1924) (Dart 1925), appeared to have vindicated this conception of the history of human development. The principles of evolution, demonstrating the relationship between humanity, the great apes and the wider natural world, also provided late nineteenthcentury society with an array of references and allusions with which to critique contemporary society (see Young 1985). The use of Darwin’s work as a point of association emphasizes the significance of the language of the past as it serves to remove and separate contemporary society from its forebears. Indeed, Friedrich Engels commented, soon after the publication of Darwin’s work, that such a schema revealing the competition for survival served as a condemnation of the savagery of late nineteenth-century capitalism: Darwin did not know what a bitter satire he wrote on mankind … when he showed that free competition, the struggle for existence, which the economists celebrate as the highest historical achievement, is the normal state of the animal kingdom. (Engels 1883: 35)

Darwin’s work offered not just a metaphor for highlighting the broader social and political failings of modern society, but the wider study of human origins began to serve as a reference point for critiquing the absence of progress in the present. The publication and study of the Neanderthal specimens discovered in the late nineteenth century developed this process as this extinct hominid was regarded to be lacking in the physical, intellectual and moral capacities of modern humans according to their cranial size (Lyell 1863). As such, the notion of Neanderthals being an inferior version of ourselves found credence across society as allusions served to emphasize the sense of advancement from this primitive antecedent (see Graves 1991). In the context of imperial expansion, the primitive past of humanity was used to affirm a racial and social order within Western society (see Lubbock 1865). The samples of Neanderthal remains were compared with the great apes but they were also placed in association with other contemporary human populations across the world that were regarded as at a lower stage of intellectual and physical development

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as European populations (Carter Blake 1864). In such a manner, the cranial features of Neanderthals were assessed as similar in appearance and structure to that of colonized peoples: The Neanderthal specimen equalled thirty-seven ounces of millet-seed: in other words, it is nearly equal to the Negro skull, and above the Malay. (Southall 1875: 236)

This comparison was applied to groups and communities across the world to emphasize the perceived backwardness of traditional practices and lifestyle. For example, in a late eighteenth-century study and travel guide of Elgin in the Highlands of Scotland, the author regarded the local Gaelic-speaking inhabitants in a manner analogous to ancient hominids: whose brain is of the genuine Neanderthal type; and who command respect from the possession of real, honest, unaffected, primeval stupidity …. (Shanks 1866: 132–133)

Using this past as a point of reference in the present thereby enabled a validation of European imperialism, of power and of a racial hierarchy. Indeed, a supporter of Darwin and one of the earliest proponents of evolutionary theory, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) drew upon the comparison with prehistoric humans to discuss the status of African Americans in the United States after their emancipation from enslavement with the close of the Civil War (1861–1865): no rational man, cognisant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the average white man. (Huxley 1865: 561)

Alongside this use of references to the past to support social and racial hierarchies, the allusion to ancient and extinct hominids to assail the values, presence and purpose of contemporary communities became a feature of late nineteenth-century political culture. These references can be observed in the work of the late nineteenth-century cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840– 1902). In his work for the periodical Harper’s Weekly, Nast represented the Irish immigrants to New York as primitive Neanderthals who threatened the progress of the metropolis (see Nast 1867). In this manner, the extinct hominids were evoked to demonstrate the danger of reverting to an ancient era populated by backward and undeveloped peoples (see Wells 1866). Indeed, such was the effect of this reference that it was later used by the eugenicist and lawyer Madison Grant (1865–1937) in his categorization of immigrant groups to the United States and the threat posed to Nordic races by miscegenation (Grant 1916). In his account, Madison compared the present-day Irish

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populace with the figure of the past to emphasize their incompatibility with the modern world: The proportions of the skull which give rise to this large upper lip, the low forehead and the superorbital ridges are certainly Neanderthal characters. The other traits of this Irish type are common to many primitive races. This is the Irishman of caricature and the type was very frequent in America when the first Irish immigrants came in 1846 and the following years. (Grant 1916: 108)

It was this influx of immigrants to the United States through the course of the nineteenth century which ensured a cosmopolitan nature of the major cities in the nation. Chicago, Philadelphia and New York became increasingly diverse as Irish, Italian and Eastern European migrants came to the ‘new world’. This confrontation with the new was responded to in some quarters with an evocation of the old as sections of these immigrant groups were compared with the ancient hominids only recently discovered (see Ross 1914). For some observers, a walk through the tenements of the Lower East Side in Manhattan was to be confronted with every example of the earlier age of humanity (Jones 1904). These accounts stressed the dangers posed by immigrant groups and the failure of society to admit or to reform them. These issues were explored by the social campaigner Jacob Riis (1849–1914) who attempted to draw attention to the plight of the poor immigrants in New York with his work, How the Other Half Lives (Riis 1890). In this work, Riis mobilizes the image of a ‘primitive era’, describing the nature and experiences of some residents of the city as if he were providing documentary evidence akin to the anthropological study of the formative types of humanity (Riis 1890: 8–10). In this assessment of the ‘cave-dwellers’ of the tenements, Riis decries the state of society that has allowed such a regression (Riis 1890: 16). Riis used photography to ensure the particularly ‘primitive’ nature of his subject was apprehended. This mode of engagement was also earlier employed by Thomas Annan (1829–1887) in his images of the poor, working-class residents of late nineteenth-century Glasgow as Neanderthals or early hominids (see Annan 1977). In this application, the allusion to humankind’s ancestors holds politicians and the wider public to account for their dereliction of duty which has halted and even reversed a sense of progress and advancement (after Hawkins 1997: 9). Similar uses of references to early hominids and primitive humans can also be noted in the social reformers, such as General William Booth (1829–1912), the founder of the Salvation Army, who denounced the conditions of Britain’s industrial cities as a ‘jungle, ‘swamp’ or ‘cave’ in which a populace was physically

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devolving (Booth 1890). To speak of the formative era of humanity as a reference in the present was to ensure that the failings of modern society were laid bare. As the deleterious effects of industrialization and urbanization were made apparent in the latter nineteenth century, humanity’s forebears were physically and metaphorically unearthed to demand order, progress and advancement. Whilst the comparison between ancient and modern humans served to exercise a sense of moral judgement, it also increasingly operated as a more general rebuke or term of abuse. By the late nineteenth century, to refer to the ancestors of modern humans by name or by their presumed inferior nature acted as a means of stressing social, political and intellectual inferiority (Haeckel 1898). Indeed, the newspaper coverage of the discovery of ‘Java Man’ in the 1890s, whilst expressing fascination with the fossils, was also accompanied by a satisfaction in the specimen’s inferior status and the use of the early hominid as a term of abuse: When I say that P.Erectus, poor fellow, had about half the gray matter of the Neanderthal freak, you will understand that he may have had brawn; but like certain of our most famous collegians nowadays, brainy he was not! (New York Times, Anon 1895)

In an anonymous poem written for the short-lived Modern Culture magazine in Ohio in 1901, the backward and primitive character of ‘Java Man’ serves as a foil for modern society’s progress: You set the pace in Java long ago When you chose a larger hat – don’t you know? – Than any earlier primate of all that torrid climate, And the force of bad example had its way, So heads have gone en growing ‘till our day. – The future? Do not ask it! ‘Twill take a bushel basket Some day to make a hat. (Anon 1901a: 69–70)

This usage of the names and presumed habits and lifestyles of humanity’s forebears as a reference and allusion had begun to serve as a significant mode of expression to denote mental incapacity, physical brutishness and specifically a sense of how the modern age had departed from such an era. In this manner, the metaphor, simile or analogy of ‘Neanderthals’, ‘Java Man’, ‘Cro-Magnons’ or ‘cavemen’ emphasized the advancement of the age but also legitimated policies, particularly within an imperial context. For example, during the Second Boer War (1899–1902), the reference to the ‘primitive’ and ‘backward’ Afrikaansspeaking European population of South Africa was couched in a historical

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discourse that undermined their claim for self-determination (see Cuthbertson 2002; Price 1972). Lady Maud Rolleston, who served as a matron in a hospital for convalescents in Kimberly whilst her husband, a British army officer campaigned against the enemy, remarked upon the primitive ‘countenances’ of the Boers as ‘singularly deficient in nobility’ (Rolleston 1901: 58). Indeed, other commentators emphasized the caveman nature of the Boers who were characterized as deficient in their habits and values (Barnes 1901: 49). The British colonial statesman Arthur Milner (1854–1925), 1st Viscount Milner, was reported to have been moved to describe the President of the South African Republic Paul Kruger (1825–1904) as a ‘frock-coated Neanderthal’ (Lee Thompson 2007: 112). The presumed primitive nature of the enemy was contrasted with the organization of British colonial rule. The association between the ancestors of humanity and backwardness, irrelevance and ineptitude was established by the early twentieth century with depictions of thick-set and incompetent cavemen within popular culture. In films such as Man’s Genesis (1912), which was loosely based upon Darwin’s premise of the ‘descent of man’, primitive humans are shown to be brutal and savage existing purely upon strength to acquire food or mates. ‘Weakhands’, the central character of the film is able to elevate himself from this environment through his invention of the club, a weapon that he uses to exert his influence over the wider group. As a response to this film, His Prehistoric Past (1914), starring an earlier version of Charlie Chaplin’s (1889–1977) iconic hero of ‘the tramp’, is set within an early caveman society where Chaplin’s character, short of physical strength but possessing a strong intellect, rises to the position of dominant male before succumbing to the animalistic violence of his competitors. Intriguingly, the film ends with the hero in the present, waking up from what was a dream of his ancestral nature. The violence of the formative era of humanity is also mocked within the film Flying Elephants (1928), with the comedy duo Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and Oliver Hardy (1892–1957), and the Buster Keaton (1895–1966) feature Three Ages (1923). In each of these examples, the brutal early humans are outwitted by a simple deceit or tool that places the inventor at a higher social level. With the advent of the mass appeal of the cinema at the turn of the twentieth century, it was the vision of humanity’s past and its primitive status that captivated audiences in this modern technology (Gaycken 2014). As the acceleration of modernity takes place, the past serves as a point by which advancement in the present can be demonstrated. This return to primitive settings to emphasize the progress of the contemporary era was also present in the literature of the period (after Rossetti

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2006). However, its place within popular culture acted as a cautionary device. Authors used the setting or the comparison with an ancestral past to assess the state and direction of modern life. The American dramatist Eugene O’Neil (1888–1953) emphasized the brutality of existence that is inflicted upon the poor by a capitalist system in his work The Hairy Ape (1922). Abused by his employers as an ‘animal’ with distinct reference to his primitive demeanour, the lead of the drama finds no solace in the trappings of modern life only to find succour in the arms of a gorilla in the city zoo who crushes him to death. A similar theme of the savage nature present within modern life was also explored in the work of the American historian and eugenicist Lothrop Stoddard (1883–1950). In these assessments of the failing of society in the 1920s, a mass of dangerous, revolutionary ‘primitive people’ would be formed through the concentration of power within a wealthy elite thereby leading to a return to a savage age (Stoddard 1920, 1922). The New York-based humorist and journalist Helen Rowlands (1875–1950) also used this vision of primitive humanity in the 1920s as a critique of current practices of courtship and male behaviour in her comic poem ‘Love and the Caveman’ (Rowlands 1922). This work places the amorous mores of current men as a direct descendant of a presumed brutal ancestor whose romantic notions, whilst less physical, were certainly as blunt: To grasp thy cutie by the hair, And drag her gently to thy lair? (Rowlands 1922: 30)

This satire is also present within film director Cecil B. DeMille’s (1881–1959) romantic melodrama Adam’s Rib (1923), where modern love is played out with references to a primitive past. Essentially, by the 1920s primitive hominids or early humans served as convenient bywords to stress the absence of acceleration and advancement, whether moral, social, sexual, political or economic. The past is not romanticized or idolized in this representation; its brutality and savagery serve as a spectre that haunts contemporary society reminding it of its precarious nature and the contingent quality of progress. The use of the image or association of primitive humans was also significant in the development of the psychoanalytical method during the early part of the twentieth century (see Fielding 1922). The Freudian division of the unconscious, between the id, ego and superego, was based on the premise of the id belonging to a primitive state of nature, ruled by humanity’s animalistic impulses of sexual desire, food, violence and death (Freud 1923). The ancient human past is, therefore, not condemned to a distant era as an object of

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ridicule and fascination but it lurks in the deeper recesses of the mind, which necessitates that it must be controlled: the primitive stages can always be re-established; the primitive mind is, in the fullest meaning of the word, imperishable. (Freud 1915: 285–286)

In this assessment, the psychoanalytical method provides a process that reveals the brutal and savage instincts of humanity that are controlled and ameliorated by the conditions of society (see Jung 1930). Whilst detailing how failings in the relationship between the forces of the subconscious could lead to psychological damage, the structures of society were still regarded as the necessary bulwark against a lapse into primitivism (Freud 1930: 33). It is the fear of a return of an archaic humanity that ensures the relevancy of the psychoanalytical method and the progression of society as the technique enables the subject to live with these repressed desires. The presence of the primitive within popular culture and science by the 1920s ensured that the terms associated with the study of human ancestors had become current and indeed utilized by individuals, groups and communities. However, it was the negative connotation that they denoted which popularized this usage. To apply ‘caveman’, ‘Neanderthal’, ‘Cro-Magnon’ or ‘primitive man’ as metaphor, simile or allusion was to provide a convenient short-hand for a lack of wit, intelligence, speed or guile (see Clark 2008). The past was rendered as an imperfect vision of the progressive present. This clash between the modern and the ancestral was exemplified in the reporting of the 1926 heavyweight boxing match between Jack Dempsey (1895–1983) and Gene Tunney (1897–1978). The fight was pitched as a clash between the ‘caveman’ Dempsey and the ‘office man’ Tunney, a fitting spectacle to represent the growth, confidence and success of post-war society in the United States (Evenson 1996). Newspaper coverage made direct references to the ‘Neanderthal’ appearance of the popular, workingclass Dempsey, whilst extolling the finesse and development of the war hero and the eventual victor, Tunney (Evenson 1993): Dempsey never has met a man with the brains of Gene Tunney. Perhaps the champion is not worrying over such a contact at the moment. Perhaps the public thinks Dempsey incapable of worry because of his natural cave-man attributes. (Harrisburg Telegraph, Anon 1926a)

The reference to the confrontation between an ancient species of mankind and a modern human exemplifies the way in which this aspect of the language of the past has been used to frame debates regarding race, ethnicity and class within society. Neanderthals, primitive hominids and Cro-Magnons are evoked

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as a warning of disruption to modern society from a presumed ‘other’. In the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, ancestors of humanity were characterized as brutish, slow and backward and brought to bear upon contemporary concerns as a means to undermine the status of minority groups that were regarded as potential sources of dissonance or rebellion (Clark 2006). As with the allusion to the dinosaurs, the employment of this discourse as a means of control is well established within political discourse by the 1930s. The ancestral past is evoked to lampoon opponents and detractors. The derisive use of ‘caveman’ is prominent here as it frames others as backward and irrelevant. For example, within the British Parliament, this reference only begins to be used as a rebuke from the 1920s. Walter Elliot (1888–1958), a Scottish Unionist Member of Parliament for Glasgow Kelvingrove, used the allusion to critique the policies of the British army regarding female staff: The attitude of the Army towards women is that of the good old cave-man, the proud fighting man who goes in front carrying his weapon while his humble squaw follows behind with the baggage. (HC Deb 22 March 1920 vol. 127 c.140)

Similarly, the Conservative politician Vyvyan Adams (1900–1951) made the comparison in the parliamentary debates surrounding dominion policies and particularly Anglo-Irish relations: With England and Ireland the relationship should be that of a man and a. woman – the one is strong and the other is beautiful. If my right hon. Friend were here at the moment I would assure him that this particular woman does not relish or appreciate the technique of the caveman. (HC Deb 27 July 1933 vol. 280 c.2845)

In the context of the increasing tensions in Europe during 1939, the reference to humanity’s ancestors was evoked by the Scottish Labour Party politician Tom Johnston (1881–1965) to describe the threat posed from Nazi Germany during discussions regarding civil defence budgets: Until we can create some kind of organised international peace force, some tribunal of equity, we must take what steps are open to us to protect our civil population from the consequences of the modern irruption of cave-man philosophy and its practice in our life and times. (HC Deb 1 August 1939 vol. 350 c.2304)

Indeed, within Britain and the United States during the Second World War, the use of the term ‘cavemen’ or ‘Neanderthals’ to describe the brutality and savagery of the enemy was employed to great effect. In October 1941, Wendell Willkie (1892–1944), corporate lawyer and the 1940 Republican Party presidential

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nominee, referred in press interviews to the ‘Nazi Neanderthals’ on the outskirts of Moscow who could not be negotiated with as a means of advocating intervention in the war in Europe (New York Times, Anon 1941). Even before the conflict, the critical assessment of Nazi Germany as marking a return to a primitive era of humanity was present within academic and popular discourse (Mowrer 1933). The violence and brutality of totalitarian regimes in Italy and Germany were characterized during the war and in its aftermath as primitive eruptions of ancient, latent desires within humanity born from its caveman ancestors (see Cassirer 1946). This use of the language of the past to stress the separation between ‘progressive’ and ‘regressive’ elements within modern society has been the dominant use of ‘caveman’, ‘Neanderthal’ and ‘Cro-Magnon’ within public, media and political discourse since the end of the Second World War. The rationale for this usage in the ‘nuclear age’ is the ability to mark the rapid advancement across Western society from the 1950s. In the modern era, to be regarded as outdated or irrelevant through association with the past appears to be the rebuke par excellence (after Habermas 1987). Within popular culture, primitive humans were frequently depicted as slow, unintelligent and lacking the dynamism to progress. Films such as One Million B.C. (1940), I’m a Monkey’s Uncle (1948), Prehistoric Women (1950), Neanderthal Man (1953) and Teenage Caveman (1958) featured lumbering proto-modern humans in prehistoric or modern contexts who are ultimately redeemed or defeated by intelligence and guile. Similarly, the films Eegah (1962) and the British-made One Million Years B.C. (1966) also provide further representations of the inadequacy of prehistoric humans, who display brutal, savage tendencies and who ultimately are brought into the modern age or divorced from it by the capacity to reason, adapt and progress. These depictions act to affirm a sense of progress or to highlight the deficiencies within modernity that stall that advancement. It is this perception that was the subject of the long-running and highly popular children’s cartoon series The Flintstones (1960–1966). With the social, cultural, political and gender roles of the 1960s transported back to prehistory the series provided a moderate satirical comment on the perception of progress (see Ruddick 2009: 78). In this context, references to the ‘caveman politics’, the ‘Neanderthal mentality’ or the ‘primitive policies’ of political leaders, campaigners and commentators during this era ensured a damning indictment of anachronism and failure (Safire 1968: 183). Phrases such as the ‘Neanderthal men’ or the ‘Neanderthal wing’ of one political party or another were frequent terms of abuse within the Truman presidency (1945–1953) and the Eisenhower presidency (1953–1961).

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Indeed, President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) was himself criticized for his ‘Neanderthal’ fiscal policies (see Ambrose 1991: 376). The association was especially prominent during the 1964 presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater, the Arizona Republican Senator (1909–1998). Goldwater was characterized by his political opponents and by the media as a ‘Neanderthal’ whose fixation on an anti-Communist agenda threatened the progressive, modernizing policies implemented by John F. Kennedy and his successor President Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) (Middendorf 2006). Such was the scale of the attacks that the conservative newspaper publisher John S. Knight (1894–1981) was moved to defend the candidate: the Arizona senator is getting shabby treatment from most of the news media. Some of the television commentators discuss Goldwater with evident disdain and contempt. Editorial cartoonists portray him as belonging to the Neanderthal age. (Knight 1964)

These references placed emphasis on the object of scorn or ridicule possessing a ‘Neanderthal mind’ or ‘caveman mentality’ but its mobilization was not restricted to one particular political agenda or programme of social reform. The allusion does not favour one specific group or another. What is held in common with all uses of this language of the past is the way in which it serves as a means to criticize contemporary individuals, groups, communities and nation states for the failure to adapt, advance and progress (see McCaughey 2008). Such is the malleability of this discourse, that it has provided a means by which environmentalists, feminists and pacifists have voiced their concerns. The uses for which ‘Neanderthals’ or ‘cavemen’ serve as a metaphor or simile are diverse, but its objective remains the same, to stress the need to disassociate the present from the past in order to maintain a sense of acceleration and advancement. For example, it is this usage of the language of the past that features in Silent Spring (Carson 1962), a seminal assessment of the way in which Western society was damaging the natural environment through intensive farming and pollution. Rachel Carson (1907–1964) condemned this relationship to the planet as redolent of an earlier phase in hominid development within modern society: The ‘control of nature’ is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man. (Carson 1962: 297)

Alongside environmental concerns, the struggle for gender equality was similarly framed in this ancient context, as conservative elements who did not respond

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sufficiently to the campaign for women’s rights during the 1960s were classed as possessing the characteristics of humanity’s ancestors. Opposing attitudes, values and discriminating workplaces were characterized as ‘Neanderthal’, and detractors were ‘cavemen’ or ‘Cro-Magnons’ in this assessment. This reference operated within a dissonant framework as modernity’s own sense of progression was used to highlight the failures of society. By portraying themselves as representing advancement, feminist commentators and scholars were able to undermine the restrictions placed upon women within society and provide a rationale for the acceptance of their position: progress (see Greer 1970). The assumption that humanity’s ancestors occupied a brutal, savage existence was particularly drawn upon as a reference point by the anti-nuclear movement from the 1950s to the 1980s (see Kirchwey 1950). This use of the language of the past acted as a means by which opposing nuclear powers could be defined as possessing a ‘Neanderthal’ or ‘caveman’ attitude that would destroy the world (see Barash and Lipton 1985). The criticism of a ‘Neanderthal mentality’ in relation to the development of nuclear weapons became the object of rebuke for political commentators, scientists and disarmament campaigners (Barash 1986: 188). Indeed, the noted American psychologist Charles E. Osgood (1916– 1991) stated that Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union from the 1960s onwards amounted to a ‘Neanderthal Conception of International Relations’ (Osgood 1980): I suspect that the Neanderthalic bluster has nearly always masked a deeper anxiety. Today, probably more than ever before in history, mutual insecurity rather than struggle for power is the major source of international tensions. (Osgood 1962: 160)

Whilst the Neanderthals and cavemen were evoked to describe political contexts, the terms were also employed as a mode of critiquing social contexts as well. With the alterations in societal norms during the 1960s, the threat posed to established practices was frequently asserted as marking a descent into an earlier stage of human development. Music, fashion and literature, associated with teenagers and ‘youth culture’, were all derided as emanating from a primitive period within the mainstream media as a form of censure. As such, the language of the past was mobilized to protect a sense of advancement within society. The ‘Neanderthal look’ popularized by the British pop bands the Beatles and the Rolling Stones was lamented by commentators as a regression (Carthew 1964). The appearance of these groups on television and the broadcast of their music on the radio were also cast in the same terms:

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Neanderthal music at its best. The British group offers a crude chant and the rockiest sound around. (Anon, Billboard, 1964)

The use of associations and allusions of earlier stage of humanity as a damaging influence on modern society was explored within Brian Aldiss’s science fiction novel Neanderthal Planet (1970). Set in the future, this work of fiction uses the relationship between Neanderthals, modern humans and artificial intelligence as a continuing line of progressions of which humanity is only an intermediary stage (Ruddick 2009: 71). However, this image of brutish Neanderthals and primitive Cro-Magnons was challenged with the publications of authors who set their works in the distant past (see De Paulo 2003). For example, The Inheritors (1955), by the British writer William Golding (1911–1993), Stig of the Dump (1963), by the British author Clive King, Dance of the Tiger (1980), by the Finnish scholar Björn Kurtén (1924–1988), and The Clan of the Cave Bear (1980), The Valley of Horses (1982) and The Mammoth Hunters (1985), by the American author Jean Auel, all provide positive accounts of Neanderthal peoples in line with the revised image from paleontologists of this extinct hominid as a social, cultural and intelligent species (see Drell 2000). Within these fictional accounts, humans are the aggressive group who wreak havoc upon peaceful Neanderthal tribes; but these novels do more than altering the perception of the maligned hominids, they actively assess current human society for its failings and its hubris. It is not the past that is rescued from the condescension of the present; it is the present that is rescued from itself through acknowledging the violence of its origins. In essence, it serves to preserve modernity. It is this protective use of the language of the past that references the ancestors of humanity as a means of shielding and defending the idea of progress which is most clearly discernible within contemporary society. Ancient, extinct hominids are still present within current political, media and public discourses as they provide a point of comparison through which the advancement of the present can be assessed, rectified and emphasized. As such, whether it is applied to sexism, homophobia, socialist politics, conservative politics, youth culture, literature, art or science, to receive the appellation of ‘Neanderthal’ or ‘caveman’ is to be anathematic to the progress of the modern age. As such contemporary political uses of the terms are employed to signify stasis, irrelevance and ultimately extinction. For example, during the Miners’ Strike in Britain of 1984–1985, the opposing Conservative government and the right-wing press frequently characterized the National Union of Miners, its leader Arthur Scargill, striking miners as well as the wider mining industry as a ‘Neanderthal’ relic

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(Walker 1985). The appearance of these terms as a metaphor, allusion or simile ensures that the object of such descriptions is derided and cast as separate from contemporary society. As such, the past is mobilized as a form of social, political and cultural rebuke in a variety of contexts. For example, within a British and Irish context humanity’s ancient ancestors can be observed within contemporary media discourse as a means of critique: Scotland needs to address the hidden sexism in public and private sector salaries or risk being viewed as ‘Neanderthal’, the country’s Equal Opportunities Commissioner has warned. (The Herald, Anon 2006) For most players and officials in the English game, homophobia is the giant pink elephant in the room – something to be studiously ignored at all costs. Hence the depressing realisation that the neanderthal [sic] attitudes which prevailed when Morley was being baited are still flourishing more than a decade on. (Irish Times, Fifield 2009) Rogue Republicans who bombed Londonderry yesterday were branded Neanderthals by Martin McGuinness … ‘These conflict junkies are attempting to drive a city living very much to the future back to the past. People in this city are horrified that there are still these Neanderthals within our society’. (The Mirror, Beattie 2010)

The historical discourse provides a means by which the Neanderthal and the caveman can be made present as a means to assert the progress and improvement in the present. This reference gains its relevance and purpose only through the nature of modernity which characterizes previous eras and people as deficient. The past in such circumstances is cast as an unfortunate and regrettable circumstance from which contemporary society must constantly depart. In contrast to the extinct hominids, the present can be perceived as developing, adapting and accelerating through the use of the language of the past. The modes by which the past is referenced and framed as an object of discourse in the present indicates the purposes of history within political, media and public discourse: to project a sense of advancement into the future. However, within this process, the evocation of the past can also serve as a means to challenge the present, to assess the practices and ideals of society and to argue for an alteration in practice or direction. In this manner, references to ‘CroMagnons’, ‘cavemen’ and ‘Neanderthals’ have become increasingly prominent as adjectives to be applied to habits or values as a means by which various crises within the modern world can be addressed. From issues concerned with the environment, rising levels of obesity and the lifestyles of modern humans, our

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ancestors are resurrected to serve as a point of comparison with a presumed ‘simpler’ era. From ‘caveman diets’, ‘caveman economics’, ‘hunter–gatherer exercises’ or instructions to ‘eat like a Neanderthal’, the re-appearance of extinct hominids as a solution to contemporary anxieties has developed since the 1970s (see Voetglin 1975). Rather than representing an increasing respect for the past, these references demonstrate a fixation with risk and crisis as the detrimental effects of aspects of modernity are brought to bear on society (see Beck 1992). Humanity’s ancestors are unearthed in the present as emblematic of an era shorn of the supposed pressures and complexities of current society; essentially, the past is once again brought to ensure the development and progression of the present. Therefore, ‘Neanderthals’, ‘cavemen’ and ‘Cro-Magnons’ are points of reference that reinforce the sense of the stability of contemporary society and guide its development towards the future. Essentially, we speak about and allude to our ancestors because we are so concerned with ourselves.

Returning to the Stone Age The classification of time periods through geology, climatology and technology is the product of the eighteenth-century scholarly engagement that brought disciplinary and interpretative order to the study of the ancient past (see Mahudel 1746). As the interest in antiquities developed in the 1700s, artefacts and monuments such as Stonehenge (Wiltshire, Britain), which had fascinated scholars with their mysterious origins and age, were placed into an understandable sequence derived from the thesis of progression and advancement (see Rodden 1981; Rowley-Conway 2007) (Figure 2.3). The Danish antiquarian Christian Jürgensen Thomsen (1788–1865) pioneered this categorization with his ordering of human civilization into ages of stone, bronze and iron (Thomsen 1848). Similarly, the assessment of geological strata and the popularization of the theory of glaciation through the work of a number of scholars ensured that the term ‘Ice Age’ became prominent within the late nineteenth century (Croll 1875). The further analysis of fossils and rock formations brought into scientific usage an array of terms for eras, periods and processes. For example, the Palaeozoic (542–251 Ma), Mesozoic (225–65 Ma) and Cenozoic (65 Ma to the present) eras were coined by the Scottish geologist Charles Lyell (Lyell 1833). The development of these terms provided a means by which a distant and remote past could be brought into comprehension but they also emphasized the distinction between past and present. This point of separation has been a

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Figure 2.3 Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England. A ‘Stone Age’ monument.

significant part of the language of the past as specific terms such as ‘the Ice Age’ or ‘the Stone Age’ became incorporated into political, media and public usage. By the 1880s, when used beyond the subject matter to which they were originally developed these expressions had become synonymous with regression, antiquation and anachronism. This reuse was very much a product of the nineteenth-century growth of anthropology as a distinct discipline based on the

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study of indigenous peoples from across the world (Qureshi 2011; Tilley 2011). As a ‘scientific’ study of human groups was undertaken through ethnographic analysis, a means of measuring and classifying development comparable to the natural sciences was formed within the subject area (Stocking 1991). This was based upon the notion of progression and advancement with Western society serving as the apex of human achievement, whilst communities within Africa, Asia, Australia and South America were regarded as constituting an ‘earlier’ level of development and defined as ‘savages’ (Diamond 1974). As such, the English anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor (1832–1917) promoted a cultural uniformitarianism akin to the study of geological processes conducted by Hutton and Lyell (Tylor 1878). In this manner, the past was clearly part of the present and evidenced by the practices and very existence of aboriginal groups across the world: Savage life, carrying on into our own day the life of the Stone Age, may be legitimately claimed as representing remotely ancient conditions of mankind, intellectual and moral as well as material. (Tylor 1871: 324)

The American anthropologist Lewis H. Morgan (1818–1881) utilized the same concepts within his social evolutionary schemata to develop a highly influential framework of analysis. This approach explained how some contemporary communities were living in the ‘past’ whilst Western society lived in the ‘present’: Before man could have attained to the civilized state it was necessary that he should gain all the elements of civilization. This implies an amazing change of condition, first from a primitive savage to a barbarian of the lowest type, and then from the latter to a Greek of the Homeric period, or to a Hebrew of the time of Abraham. The progressive development which history records in the period of civilization was not less true of man in each of the previous periods. (Morgan 1877: 29)

This means of analysing human societies across the globe evidenced the notion of improvement and expansion in the modern era. Within this anthropological framework the ‘Stone Age’ alluded to a backward and deficient culture (Lubbock 1865). For example, the Anglo-Irish anthropologist Hodder Westropp (1820–1885) noted from studies of groups in Australia and the South Pacific that they exhibited characteristics which identified their status within the ‘Stone Age’ (Westropp 1872: 146). With the popularization of these accounts in late Victorian society, a transition of this terminology beyond its initial conception provided a means by which a sense of progress could be emphasized. Indeed, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels utilized this sense of progression

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from the ‘Stone Age’ within their formulation of how societies would advance towards a communist state (Marx 1867; Engels 1884). A scientific language thereby became part of a wider vocabulary to stress development and evolution within wider political, culture and social movements. The usage of these terms within a cultural context can be observed in works by H. G. Wells, A Story of the Stone Age (1900) and The Island of Dr Moreau (1896). In both pieces, the ‘Stone Age’ is either brought back to the present through inhuman experimentation or transcended by invention and ingenuity by the early humans who inhabit that era. The period is one which is represented as abhorrent to notions of progress and civilization and it is this association that defines its place within the historical discourse from the late nineteenth century onwards. Indeed, one of the earliest recorded uses of these definitions within a derogatory political context can be observed within the British Parliamentary debates in March 1898. Speaking with regard to the construction of public buildings, Sir John Leng (1828–1906) remarked upon his opponent’s lack of foresight with a reference to the ancient period: my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester has referred to a number of interesting matters, but he seems to have forgotten that we have survived the stone age and reverted to that of bricks. (HC Deb 29 March 1898 vol. 55 c.1294)

Similarly, within the United States, the association with the ‘Stone Age’ and inability, incompetence and archaic values, aspirations and perspectives in the political sphere was established by the 1890s as a mode of critiquing those in power. At a state and national level, politicians were derided as heralding from the ‘Stone Age’ as they employed new policies or blocked programmes of reform. Principally, the accusation that the ‘Stone Age’ was thriving in the political landscape of the United States was based on the assumption that advancement was being blocked. For example, the prolonged Senatorial debates in the 1890s regarding the issue of arbitration with Britain over its claim to the disputed territory bordering British Guiana and Venezuela was characterized by commentators as an anthropological glimpse of the past surviving in the present: these Senators express social opinions that were held in the glacial period … To spite the President and snub Olney the old Stone Age Senators will probably put off confirmation until after McKinley comes in. That is a modern trait curiously coexisting with their remote ancestral propensities. (New York Times, Anon 1898a)

A few months later, the US Senate was again characterized in the same terms as an assessment of their continued stance at blocking ‘progressive’ international agendas:

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This takes us back to the time when Senators were lauding the manners and customs of the Stone Age and advocating the principles of the cave dwellers in their efforts to defeat the arbitration treaty. (New York Times, Anon 1898b)

This notion of a ‘return to the Stone Age’ to emphasize political and social purpose can also be observed within the cultural sector as the language of the past is brought to effect to critique and to mobilize opinion. The work of American novelist Henry Blake Fuller (1857–1929) is significant in this regard as his work, The Cliff-Dwellers (1893) and With the Procession (1895), contrasted the skyscrapers and opulence of Chicago with the poverty of the majority of its citizens who were condemned to live within this new ‘Stone Age’. The political cartoonist Frederick Burr Opper (1857–1937), working for the New York Journal and the Chicago Examiner and supported by the media tycoon William Randolph Hearst (1863–1951), also used the context of the ‘Stone Age’ to censure figures from industry business and politics as well as the foibles of modern society (Opper 1903) (Figure 2.4). The illustrations by Opper were one of a number of political cartoons of the era that were based

Figure 2.4 ‘This is the third time I’ve seen Skinclothes chased by a Runkosaurus lately. Why doesn’t he keep away from them?’ ‘He does it on purpose. He’s trying to reduce his weight’. Frederick Burr Opper, 1903. Our Antediluvian Ancestors, p. 33.

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within the ‘Stone Age’ to emphasize the failings of contemporary society and to assert the need for progress. For example, the British cartoonist Edward Tennyson Reed (1860–1933), in his work for the satirical magazine Punch, set his subject of the critique of the mores of modern life within the ‘Stone Age’ to question the sense of advancement (Reed 1896, 1902). The use of this aspect of the language of the past at the turn of the twentieth century in the United States is distinctive. From the 1890s onwards to the 1920s, ‘Progressive era’ social and political reformers frequently used references to the ancient eras of the ‘Stone Age’ or the ‘Ice Age’ to forward their programmes of development and improvement (after Hogan 2002). The effects of capitalism and industry on the condition of life for many citizens within the United States were regarded as being akin to a return to the ‘Stone Age’. Campaigns against the abuses of labour, the poor condition of housing and the lack of political representation were phrased as potentially returning the nation to a period divested of the advances of modernity (see Sinclair 1906). One of the most prominent uses of the historical references within the United States during this era was for the extension of the franchise to women. Whilst developing in the late nineteenth century, this movement saw a concerted campaign from the early twentieth century to the granting of suffrage in 1920. During the fight for equality, opponents of the cause could be cited as belonging to the ‘Stone Age’. During the hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary in the US Congress in February 1912, Jean Nelson Penfield, a New York-based suffragist stated: The old assertion that women should not vote because they haven’t as much brains as the men was accepted as a conclusive argument for some time after the stone age, but people do not waste much time considering it now. (United States Congress 1912: 51)

Therefore, the threat of a return of the ‘Stone Age’ served as a bulwark against the conservative tendencies, which acted to block reform and progress. However, during the early twentieth century in the United States it was also used to correct the advance of society and to ensure a sense of renewal. As a leading political figure of the Progressive era, President Theodore Roosevelt drew upon the legacy of ‘Stone Age’ man to promote a rugged, masculine ideal within the youth of the United States (Bederman 1995: 212). In Roosevelt’s accounts of warfare, hunting and camping, the notion of a return to a ‘rough’, honest, virile manhood associated with the ‘Stone Age’ was defined (Roosevelt 1899, 1913). Indeed, Roosevelt was highly influenced by the work of the American palaeontologist and geologist Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857–1935) (see Haraway 1989: 26).

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Within Osborn’s studies, the depiction of the ‘Old Stone Age’ as an era of hunters, artists, tool makers and rugged individuals provided an image of man ‘healed’ of the ‘illnesses’ brought by the pollution, confinement and control of modern life (Osborn 1915). A return to the ideals of the ‘Stone Age’ thereby represented a means by which society within the United States could overcome the problems and divisions which were regarded as having been wrought upon the nation through industrialization and mass migration (Roosevelt 1916). Conversely, during this era, the accusation of ‘Stone Age’ morals could also be used to assess the current state of society and find it wanting. Before his successful election as Vice President of the United States in 1913, Indiana Governor Thomas R. Marshall (1854–1925) lamented the degraded state of many young boys in the cities of the nation: He is the sole survivor of the stone age. Nothing is sacred to him. He is born without the pale of the law, and he has not heard of the gospel. He does not understand in his natural state why anything that is loose does not belong to him, and he does not appreciate grass except as something to walk upon. (Marshall 1912: 329)

The accusation that society’s advancement would be placed in a perilous situation, ensuring the return to the ‘Stone Age’, can also be observed in the criticism of the nascent conservation movement within the United States. The desire to protect the natural environment at the expense of industry was mocked in some quarters as a desire to regress back to some earlier state of development (Knapp 1910). The project of modernity, of advancement and progress, is in this manner ensured by a reinvention of a past era; this is undertaken not for the exercise of reverence for the past but a fear for the present and the future (after Luhmann 1998: 44). Similarly, the ‘Stone Age’ was used during this period to argue for the reform of society within the United States through the campaign for the prohibition of alcohol. For campaigners, the potential of alcohol hindering and even regressing public morality and thereby endangering the social and political advances of the modern era were apparent (see Hughes 1915). As a means of promoting a concern for public health, welfare provision and a fairer society, the fear of lapsing ‘back into the Stone Age’ or desiring to ‘emerge from the Stone Age’ was quite apparent within ‘Progressive era’ politics into the 1920s. Indeed, in detailing the advances that were currently being undertaken within social work across the United States, Robert W. Kelso (1880–1950), the Executive Director of the State Board of Charity in Boston, chose to phrase this movement as a process of advancement from a backward era:

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The Language of the Past In the evolution of our public institutions we are emerging from the Stone Age … That cell is a relic of the Stone Age … We are emerging from the Stone Age. (Kelso 1920: 100–103)

The same allusion was employed by Kelso a few years later in his new position as the President of the National Council on Social Work: Though we are early upon the scene, we are witnessing the passing of the stone age in care and custody. (Kelso 1923: 208)

The politics and social policies of the Progressive era in the United States were, thereby, defined by the lingering spectre of the ‘Stone Age’. As an object of repulsion or a means of reform, this ancient past was returned to in order to correct present-day failings and ensure society maintains a sense of growth, evolution and development. Within Britain, during the 1920s and 1920s, allusions to the ‘Stone Age’ were used as a means by which the values and ideals of the modern age could be preserved and promoted into the future. With economic depression, political uncertainty and social unrest, the fear of a lapse into an uncivilized past was represented within the national and regional newspapers. The reference can be most clearly seen in the reporting of the significant fears of the period, war and unemployment. For example, in 1927, the Reverend T. C. Walters at the Newton Abbot branch of the League of Nations Union, a group designed to support the initiatives of the multinational organization in Geneva, criticized those who opposed the work of this newly founded institution that formed in the wake of the First World War: such people had not grown in thought and mentality out of the Stone Age and the age of fisticuffs. (Western Morning News, Anon 1927)

In the same way, debates regarding the financial state of the nation were also couched within these references: ‘In economic matters we are still in the Stone Age,’ Sir Josiah Stamp told the Manchester Luncheon Club yesterday. (Western Daily Press, Anon 1926b)

During this period, the ‘Stone Age’ was used by campaigners to argue for alteration and reform within politics, society and significantly industry within Britain. In this manner, socialist influences called for change to avoid reverting back to ‘Stone Age’ principles: The idea that industry is simply a profit-making process conducted by individuals without regard to how the community is affected by the conditions

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of the people employed in it belongs to the industrial Stone Age. (Hartlepool Mail, Anon 1926c)

Indeed, this principle was stated in the electioneering of Cynthia Moseley (1898–1933), whose husband Oswald Moseley (1896–1980) later formed the British Union of Fascists, as she attempted to win support for the parliamentary seat of Stoke-on-Trent: If the Diehards … would only follow their rantings to a logical conclusion, they would she said, live back in the Stone Age. That was the only age when everybody was absolutely individualistic. (Western Gazette, Anon 1925)

The anxiety of a failing in society’s advancement was also expressed within the cultural sector within Britain as successive novels during this period engaged with the subject of the nation succumbing to a new ‘Stone Age’ as a result of aerial bombardment by an aggressive foreign power (see Grayzell 2011; Mellor 2011; Saint-Amour 2015). Novels such as Theodore Savage (Hamilton 1922), Valiant Clay (Bell 1934), Invasion from the Air: A Prophetic Novel (McIlraith and Connelly 1934) and The Black Death (Dalton 1934) all feature a return to a ‘Stone Age’ as a direct result of a bombing campaign in Britain. This association with the ‘Stone Age’ and the catastrophic effects wrought by war has defined the usage of this specific aspect of the historical discourse in the latter half of the twentieth century. Whilst influenced by the vision of the devastated cities of Germany and Japan after the Second World War, the notion of reducing an enemy state to ‘Stone Age’ conditions emerged during the operations of the US army in the Vietnam War (1955–1975). In the face of increasing losses from anti-aircraft fire and the desire to ensure favourable terms at any future peace negotiations, the large-scale bombing of targets in Vietnam and Laos was enacted by the US Air Force after 1965. This was expressed in General Curtis LeMay’s (1906–1990) disputed quote that the communist forces in North Vietnam be bombed ‘back to the Stone Age’: My solution … would be to tell them frankly that they’ve got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression, or we’re going to bomb them back into the Stone Age. And we would shove them back into the Stone Age with Air power or Naval power …. (LeMay and Kantor 1965: 565)

Though the accuracy and meaning of the quote is contested it reflected a wider representation within some sections of the media within the United States of the communist forces as either belonging to an earlier savage era or deserving of such a brutal environment (see Landers 2004: 226). The accusation of tactical

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or moral inadequacy in the Vietnam War was also criticized through reference to the ancient past with critical commentaries from journalist phrased in terms of the ‘Stone Age’: Back to the Stone Age … With the opportunity safely to disengage American military personnel and prisoners from the Vietnamese conflict now rapidly receding, President Nixon has resorted once more to naked force. (Anon, New York Times, 1972a)

The notion of visiting upon an enemy, a destructive force that condemns them to existing in an earlier stage of development, has gained greater currency in its use for proceeding conflicts since the conclusion of the Vietnam War. Within media reports in the United States, the demand that enemies of the nation are ‘bombed back to the Stone Age’ is rehearsed during times of war and serves to reassert a strong martial identity and the sense of progress and advancement which belongs to the victor. The role of US soldiers in the Gulf War (1990–1991) was met by the call to return Iraq to the ‘Stone Age’ in sections of the right wing media (see Rokyo 1990). Similarly, operations involving the US military personnel in Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001–2014) and Iraq (2003–2011) were framed within the same allusion. Whilst the reference has almost become a cliché of media representation of the military, the nature of the ‘undeveloped’ and ‘backward’ target has also been used to attempt to correct the potentially ruinous effects of conflict at home and abroad. The New York Times journalist Barry Bearak wrote in response to the calls for action against Afghanistan after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks: If there are Americans clamoring to bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age, they ought to know that this nation does not have so far to go. This is a postapocalyptic place of felled cities, parched land and downtrodden people. (New York Times, Bearak 2001)

As such, the ‘Stone Age’ is brought back to bear upon the present as a means of ensuring progress and the maintenance of values and ideals within the modern era. What those principles entail and how they are defined are fluid and shaped by the political and social perspective of the individual, group or community invoking the ancient era. However, what is consistent is the objective of this historical discourse, to reference the past to serve the present. As such, contemporary uses of the ‘Stone Age’ within the politics, the media and the wider public sphere rely upon the association with this period as brutal, backward and offering a demonstration of contemporary society’s own advanced position. To be termed ‘Stone Age’ in attitude, behaviour or direction is to suffer under the

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opprobrium of modern society. Therefore, the ‘Stone Age’ is made present to censure and to redirect contemporary society towards the future.

Conclusions The function of the language of the past is to preserve modernity, to ensure the sense of advancement and progress is maintained. As such, the figures, eras and objects of a distant past are unearthed and enacted in the present to serve as points of reference upon which this development can be measured, clarified or redirected. The advent of the modern era from the nineteenth century onwards heralded uncertainty, disruption and anxiety as well as a desire to impose order and a sense of improvement (Berman 1970). It is this stability and categorization that is achieved with the evocation of the names and figures of historical eras. Referencing the past as an allusion, metaphor or simile to evidence the purpose and direction of the present is a key feature of the modern age. In this manner, the past appears to be so prevalent in contemporary society because it acts as an imperfect reflection of the current era and reinforces a perception of development. Therefore, the ‘age of the dinosaurs’, the Jurassic era, the primitive and the primeval, Neanderthals, cavemen and the Stone Age do not become less relevant for the present because of their chronological separation. Indeed, their significance is heightened by their apparent physical extinction in the modern world. This evident failure to evolve, adapt and rationalize is incorporated into the historical reference to frame the past as stunted and flawed and therefore as a useful corollary to ensure the preservation and continuation of the present. This mode of talking about the past is not inevitable; it is a product of how contemporary society perceives its forebears and its antecedents on the Earth. These ancient eras are brought back to life in the present as we seek to establish our presence now and in the future.

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The Ancient World

The ancient world, encompassing Classical Greece and Rome, Pharonic Egypt and the civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Near East, is vaunted within the Western society as the origin point of its politics, values, customs and religion (see Highet 1949; Haase and Reinhold 1993). It is these civilizations which are widely regarded as progenitors of the mores and ideals of contemporary life. Indeed, the inheritance of the philosophy, literature and culture of the ancient world has been frequently regarded as the bedrock of the institutions of the modern nation state. For example, Classical Greece or Ancient Rome appears to hold a significant value within contemporary culture as eras of admirable qualities and virtues. Seemingly, as attested by the prevalence of neoclassical architectural motifs and designs within the national and municipal buildings across the United States, Britain, Canada, Europe and Australia; this is an era synonymous with power and authority (Siapkis and Sjögren 2014). However, despite the established tradition of veneration for these civilizations, there is nevertheless an aspect of the language of the past which draws upon this history to demonstrate the values of modernity and its prospects (see Lowe and Shahabudin 2009). Whilst we may speak about the ancient world in reverential terms, as a negative reference or point of critique, the civilizations of antiquity have had a significant effect in forming the modern world. Alongside the scholarship of the ancient world, which has been defined since the eighteenth century, there has emerged a mode of referencing the civilizations, cities, individuals and empires of these past eras which asserts the notion of advancement and progress in the present (see Alexiou 2002). Rather than assuming that the modern world is enthralled with its perceived progenitors, the manner in which the ancient world is referenced or alluded to reveals a separation whilst asserting a desire to accelerate from these origins towards the future. Central to the reference of the empires, cities and characters of Greece, Rome, Egypt and Mesopotamia within the language of the past is the theme of absence, decline and failure.

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Whilst contemporary society might directly marvel and express delight at the achievements of the civilizations of antiquity, it is their fall, extinction and separation from the present which is the object of concern in the way these ancient eras are referred to within the political, media and public sphere as a metaphor, allusion or simile. The ancient world is brought to the present to evidence the advancement of the modern world – to reassure contemporary society of its own progress and stability. As such, the ruined sites, structures and artefacts of these civilizations such as those at Pompeii, Rome, Mycenae, Athens, Thebes or Ur are unearthed through reference and allusion which serve to cast the past as a flawed and imperfect attempt to achieve the advances of the modern age. Whilst the social meanings and cultural values attached to classical traditions have altered from the eighteenth century to the present day, the manner in which this history is used as a point to reflect on the present has remained constant (after Hardwick and Harrison 2013; Jenkins 2015). How we speak about the ancient world as a point of reference is far removed from how we value it as museum visitors, tourists, scholars or audiences. The representation and use of conceptual allusions to Classical Greece and Rome as well as Pharonic Egypt within contemporary society reveals how the past is mobilized to address the anxieties and fears of the present (Hardwick 2003; Hardwick and Stray 2011; Martindale and Thomas 2006). To reference the ancient world as an allusion or metaphor is not only to venerate the past achievements of humanity; it is to reassert the value of progress and advancement. This mode of speaking about the past is a product of the modern age rather than a quality of antiquity.

Ancient Mesopotamia: Babylon and ziggurats The discovery and exploration of the civilizations of Mesopotamia from the eighteenth century onwards by archaeologists and travellers created an immense academic and public interest in the Western world as the narratives, images and the objects of this region were displayed across Europe and North America. Mesopotamia, which covers an approximate area across the routes and tributaries of the Tigris River and the Euphrates River, and which fostered the developments of many interconnecting societies and witnessed the rise of the Sumerian civilization in the fourth millennium BCE, the Akkadian Empire of the late third millennium BCE and the Assyrian and Babylonian cultures which endured until the mid-first millennium BCE, attracted explorers for its

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exotic sights and religious connotations (see Lloyd 1980). The civilizations of Mesopotamia, and particularly the cities of Babylon, Nimrud and Nineveh, had been assigned a value within Western society by their representation in the Bible. For example, from the scholars of the early church such as St Augustine (354–430 CE) to the post-medieval artistic works of William Blake (1757–1827), Babylon has been regarded as the site of rebellion, exile, excess, debauchery and vainglory – from the Tower of Babel, the captivity of the Jews, the Whore of Babylon and the madness of King Nebuchadnezzar (see Finkel and Seymour 2008; Seymour 2014). In the final book of the Bible, Revelations foretells the destruction of the world through the fall of Babylon. Indeed, in the 1611 edition of the King James Bible, the city represents the failure of humanity in the face of the power of the divine as the site is destroyed to make way for the heavenly kingdom on Earth: And a mightie Angel tooke up a stone like a great milstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great citie Babylon bee throwen downe, and shall bee found no more at all. (Revelations 18.21)

Whilst early European explorers marvelled at the sites of Babylon and Nineveh for the inspiring scenes of ruined walls, temples and palaces, it was their association with accounts of great kings and armies from the Old Testament and the apocalyptic visions of the New Testament that entranced visitors (see Niebuhr 1772; Rich 1839). Antiquarian excavations at Nineveh in the nineteenth century provided further architectural and artistic evidence of this civilization. Whilst preserved clay tablets from ancient sites revealed examples of the cuneiform script which was heralded as one of the earliest forms of writing, the work of translating this language served to further develop the growing scholarly interest in the civilization (see Botta and Flandin 1849–1850; Rawlinson 1846). It was the work of the British diplomat and antiquarian Austen Henry Layard (1817–1894) which brought the sites of Ancient Mesopotamia to the public imagination in Britain. Literary interest in the period had already been cultivated by the publication of Lord Byron’s (1788–1824) drama of the fall of the last Assyrian king, Sardanapalus (Byron 1821). These themes were also addressed in the work of the British artist John Martin (1789–1854), whose vast pieces Fall of Nineveh (1829) and Fall of Babylon (1831) illustrated the destruction visited upon the cities. Similarly, the oratorio The Fall of Babylon, depicting the decadence of the moribund empire and arranged by the German composer Louis Spohr (1784–1859), was performed to great acclaim across Britain after 1849 (Spohr 1867). Alongside these works, Layard’s (1849) reports

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of the ruined city of Nineveh and the names of its long-forgotten rulers provided a tragic account of the descent of this kingdom: It is, indeed, one of the most remarkable facts in history that the records of an empire, so renowned for its power and civilisation, should have been entirely lost; and that the site of a city as eminent for its splendour as its extent should for age have been a matter of doubt. (Layard 1849: xix)

The discoveries of Layard were published in popular editions and reported in newspapers in Britain and the United States (Layard 1852). Recreated scenes from Nineveh were also part of the 1854 Crystal Palace exhibition in London. An ‘Assyrian Court’, known also as the ‘Nineveh Court’, was constructed for visitors to witness the magnificence and grandeur of the Mesopotamian civilization (Layard 1854). However, this ‘wondrous’ sight, as it was referred to in the ‘penny guide’ to the attraction, was designed to exercise an individual’s judgement as it was their awe (Anon 1863: 11). Whilst the popularization of this study brought a new dimension to the existing biblical awareness of the civilizations of Mesopotamia, the artefacts and translations derived from excavations formed a mode of discourse that reflected the achievements of the present through the ruins of the past (Malley 2012: 129). Such sentiments can be observed in the newspaper reporting of the exhibition which considered the grand works of a now vanished empire: The Nineveh Court is one of the most striking productions of art … for which the discoveries of Layard have in some measure prepared the public mind. The explorations of Nineveh, with the most recent discoveries, open up to the mind the habits and customs of a people once the most powerful on the earth. (London Standard, Anon 1854a) The Assyrian Court is next to these gigantic figures; its architecture and decorations are of a singular character, yet sufficient to show that the inhabitants of such dwellings were a great and mighty people. (Hereford Journal, Anon 1854b)

The display of scenes from Babylon and Nineveh within the Crystal Palace provided a means by which to reflect upon the grandeur of the British Empire and to assert the notion of progress in the face of the ruins of a previous era (Larsen 2013: 123). In this manner, London as the epicentre of the imperial realm could be rightly regarded as the ‘New Nineveh’, ‘Modern Babylon’ or the ‘New Babylon’, a direct and worthy inheritor of the cities and civilizations of antiquity which reflected the glory of the modern city (Nead 2000). Such associations lauded the achievements of the late nineteenth-century city as the

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metropolis was shown to have ascended to a level unobtainable by its ancient forebears. These sentiments were noted in the contemporary travel guides to the capital. For example, in the lantern slide show published in 1889 entitled Modern Babylon: A trip to London, viewers were entertained with the vision of success; the grandeur of the public spaces, municipal buildings and financial centres were the object of the audience’s gaze (Wilson 1889). In his earlier account of the city, the writer Jeffreys Taylor (1792–1853) made the comparison as a point of pride to highlight to the visitor: Thence we pursue, by the eye, the larger streets and river, until London is lost in the country. There, by the glass, we may plainly discern Harrow, Richmond and the royal towers of Windsor, together with I know not how many villas and villages which surround this modern Babylon. (Taylor 1832: 82)

It is the scale and diversity which the ancient city of Babylon is invested with that ensures that this comparison strengthens its modern counterpart. In this vision of the city, London as a ‘Modern Babylon’ is inherently progressive. With the industrialization of the metropolis during the nineteenth century, this point of association was strengthened so that to speak of the modern city of London in association with this ancient past was to reference the advancement of the present and the potential of its future (Dennis 2008: 46–48; Forgan 2010: 75– 76). Writing under the pseudonym Sidney Daryl, Douglas Straight (1844–1914) detailed this perception in a description of a railway journey to London in his short story The Face in the Mirror: On rattled the train towards the new Babylon – through deep cutting, over towering viaduct, hissing, snorting, whistling, screeching, but always progressing. (Daryl 1869: 464)

London as the ‘New Babylon’ becomes emblematic of an era of development and change. Such associations were also made for the other great metropolises of the era; Manchester, Paris, New York and Chicago were all imagined as the modern equivalent of the ancient city. Rather than serving as a form of rebuke, this point of reference acted as a means of emphasizing achievement and advancement – an orientation towards the future rather than a damning indictment through the past (see Girouard 1985: 343). Indeed, the Socialist Christian reformer Adin Ballou (1803–1890) had no difficulty in reconciling his religious beliefs with the sights of New York when he referred to the city as a ‘Modern Babylon’ during a visit in the 1850s (Ballou 1896: 392). For a city such as New York, the process of mass immigration from Europe had ensured that by the 1890s, the city was rightly referred to as a ‘Modern Babylon’, such was the diversity of the population

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(after Rosenwaike 1972: 67). By 1890, New York’s population was recorded by the census as 1,515,301 with over 40 per cent being classed as ‘foreign-born’, which appeared to commentators and writers to affirm its connection to the Ancient Mesopotamian city (United States Census Office 1897: 393). In this sense, New York was very much ‘the mighty Babylon of the new world’ (Macrae 1870: 66). This status was also reflected in New York’s buildings and the city’s skyline; industrial growth transformed the metropolis during the latter half of the nineteenth century with the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge (1883), the Statue of Liberty (1886) and formation of the first ‘skyscrapers’ in Downtown Manhattan (1890) (Scobey 2002). Speaking to residents before work started on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1869, New York Congressman Demas Barnes (1827–1888) stated how the association with the past would serve the present and the future: This bridge is to be built, appealing as it does to our pride, our gratitude and prosperity. When complete let it illustrate the grandeur of our age … Let Brooklyn now take up the pen of progress. Babylon had her hanging gardens, Nineveh its towers … let us have this great monument to progress. (New York Times, Anon 1869)

Industry and migration in the latter part of the nineteenth century had fuelled the growth of cities such as London and New York and this sense of advancement further encouraged the positive comparison between metropolitan areas and the ancient site of Nineveh, Nimrod and Babylon (see Smith 1888). However, this connection between antiquity and contemporary society also emerged as a point of critique, as references born from the religious connotation of Ancient Mesopotamia with vice and corruption challenged the progress of the modern age. In this manner, to be regarded as the ‘New Babylon’, ‘New Nineveh’ or a ‘Modern Nimrod’ was a rebuke to the people and institutions of contemporary society. It was employed as a corrective device to ensure that the fate of those ancient empires, to suffer decline and decay, would not be replicated in the present (see Mudie 1828). Throughout the nineteenth century, reports of urban crimes were so regularly framed with the fall of the civilization in Ancient Mesopotamia that the notion that deviant elements in society would ensure that a ‘New Babylon’ would be formed within the present-day city became a cliché (see Briggs 1963: 73). Such derogatory assessments of urban life had been present since the medieval period as an accusation of godlessness; however, by the nineteenth century they served to shape the idea of what should constitute progress and advancement (Freeman 2007: 5). For example, the French dramatist Louis-Sébastien Mercier

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(1740–1814) had defined Paris in the early nineteenth century as the ‘new Babylon’ which could deliver upon its inhabitants a fate no ‘less iniquitous than that which of old inflamed the zeal of the prophets’ (Mercier 1817: 78). The excavations of ruined Nineveh and Nimrod during the 1850s brought greater clarity and colour to the accusation that modern cities were descending back to a sinful age. Indeed, the Quaker journal, Friends’ Intelligencer, provided a damning assessment of modern city life by declaring the rise of the ‘Great Modern Babylon’ (see Anon 1858). This is also reflected within the popular culture of the era as Babylon was represented as a site of moral, political and religious corruption. In the classic utopian text News from Nowhere, by the British writer and socialist activist William Morris (1834–1896), the transformation of the ‘modern Babylon’ of nineteenth-century London to the ruined ‘ancient Babylon’ of twenty-secondcentury London is regarded as wholly progressive (Morris 1891: 68). The 1898 theatre production and later novelization of Wilson Barrett’s drama The Daughters of Babylon depicted the struggle of the Jewish exile within a foreign, immoral land (Barrett and Hichens 1899). This point of connection was most clearly defined with the work of the British investigative journalist W. T. Stead (1849–1912), whose work on the Pall Mall Gazette exposing the prevalence of child prostitution in London in July 1885 was made in reference to the sinful city of Ancient Mesopotamia: the Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon. Maidens they were when this morning dawned, but to-night their ruin will be accomplished, and to-morrow they will find themselves within the portals of the maze of London brotheldom. (Pall Mall Gazette, Stead 1885)

The impact of Stead’s article was considerable, raising questions in Parliament and ensuring the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 (see Shults 1972). The reference to the ancient city and its religious equation with iniquity gained greater prominence for Stead’s campaign. However, whilst the ‘Whore of Babylon’ is synonymous with religious damnation, through Stead’s articles, to refer to ‘Babylon’ has become part of a reference to the past that serves as a social judgement (see Walkowitz 1980). Indeed, the extent to which Stead’s use of ‘Babylon’ to represent the abuse of minors and women is notable in the recurring use of this connection throughout the twentieth century (see Montgomery 2001). The historical discourse that evokes Babylon as a point of comparison to evidence the advancement of the current age but which also vilifies present-day society through a similar association with antiquity serves

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the same purpose: to advance the present. The ancient past is referred to through its ruinous nature or its harmful morality as a means by which the present can be stabilized, rectified and projected onto the future. It is this binary purpose that references to Babylon have been invested with through the language of the past which can be noted within the twentieth century. To refer to Babylon is to imagine a new place of identity and modernity or to condemn individuals, groups and states for their excess (see Seymour 2014: 252). Interest in Ancient Mesopotamia and in Babylon from the turn of the new century was fuelled by the publication of the excavations of the site conducted by a team of German scholars from 1899 until the outbreak of the First World War (Seymour 2013: 191–195). Led by Robert Koldewey (1855–1925), the archaeologists uncovered the religious complex of the ziggurat dedicated to the Babylonian god, Marduk, and regarded as the basis of the story of the ‘Tower of Babel’ in the Bible as well as the foundations of the legendary ‘hanging gardens’ of the city (Koldewey 1913). The reports of the site heralded a surge of interest in the archaeology of the region and encouraged the collection and display of unearthed objects in museums across Europe and North America (Bell 1911; Mallowan 1933; Woolley 1929). This public interest in ‘Babylon’ can be noted in the early films of the era, which used references to the ancient city as a portent of the future and as a warning for the present (Hansen 1991). D.W. Griffith’s epic silent film Intolerance (1916) depicts the fall of Babylon as a morality lesson for modern-day American society on the destruction wrought by religious division. Griffith reedited the subject matter for the film The Fall of Babylon (1919), which, whilst illustrating the end of the great metropolis, focused on the role of a shepherdess, whose secret love for King Belshazzar emboldens her to take up arms against his enemies and defend the city (see Mayer 2013). The gender politics of the film reflected both visions of the city as a model of progression and a tool to question the morality of society (see Seymour 2015). The Fall of Babylon opened in New York’s cinemas in 1919 to great acclaim as the initial screening was accompanied by live exotic dance performances, but within the city the reference to the ancient past took on new meanings within the Jazz Age (Mayer 2009: 182–183). The economic boom that resulted from New York’s place as the trading centre for Britain and France during the First World War resulted in the city acquiring the status of a global metropolis of business, finance and culture (see Wilson 2014a). The city as a ‘new Babylon’ attracted artists and authors to the growing entertainment and commercial centres such as the illuminated Broadway and glittering Times Square (Casseres 1920). With this point of reference to Ancient Mesopotamia for advancement there was also

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the use of this reference for the point of damnation. Upon visiting the city in 1918, the evangelical Reverend John Roach Straton (1875–1929) warned its citizens of the perils of licentiousness in a sermon entitled ‘Will New York be destroyed if it does not repent?’: New York should take these things seriously and earnestly to heart. Have we stopped to think that there has never been a Godless city in the history of the human race that was not eventually destroyed? Where is Babylon with its hanging gardens? Where is Nineveh with its vaunting pride? (Straton 1919: 178)

Such dire, apocalyptic warnings were not perhaps just the result of the prominent place that Babylon as representative of evil has held within evangelical Christian  traditions in the United States since the revival movements of the seventeenth century (see Bercovitch 1975). Indeed, in the period after the First World War, the city could well be regarded as appearing to be Babylon in both the lifestyles of its residents but also in the appearance of its streets and buildings. After several decades of the unregulated growth of skyscrapers, the 1916 Zoning Resolution had set forth the requirements for new buildings to limit their height in accordance with the width of the street (New York City Board of Estimate and Apportionment 1916). The effect of this legislation was to encourage architects to design stepped skyscrapers, creating a system of tiers and terraces which observers noted mimicked the recently uncovered ziggurat and gardens of Babylon (Ferriss 1922: 1929). Implanting this ancient form on to the current city appeared to affirm New York’s status as the ‘modern Babylon’: a city of luxury and grandeur (Anon 1923). The construction of the American Radiator Building (1924), the New York Telephone Company Building (1926), the Chanin Building (1929), the General Electric Building (1931), the Chrysler Building (1930) and the Empire State Building (1931) in Manhattan all incorporated the ‘ziggurat’ style of architecture (see Stern et al. 1983). Through these buildings a distinctly modern conception of these ancient references arose as witnesses to these ‘ziggurats of New York’ were encouraged to marvel at the age in which they lived: New Yorkers who have seen the first buildings of the new type approach completion have been surprised to find that our native architecture has been reproduced exactly one more ancient and foreign type – the Babylonian ziggurat, or temple tower of stages. And this is not merely another addition to our historical museum; as economic pressure compels the building of more and more modified skyscrapers New York will become a city of ziggurats. (New York Times, Anon 1920)

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The prominence of New York as a ‘world city’ in the 1920s ensured that this distinctive architectural design became standardized and internationalized with skyscraper design: the ziggurats of the ‘new Babylon’ became the expression of modernity (Ward and Zunz 1992: 63). As New York, Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles appeared to become a modern equivalent of the seat of the Ancient Mesopotamian Empire, notions of Babylon also permeated into wider cultural life. In an era of speculation and excess, The Richest Man in Babylon by George Clason (1874–1957) appeared to herald a modern vision of the city as the book offered a guide to financial management using examples from antiquity (Clason 1926). With such easy associations to Babylon, the modern metropolis appeared to possess a clear point of connection with the opulence of the past. In his discussion of how the future city would be planned, the influential French designer Le Corbusier (1887–1965) focused on the plan of Babylon as an image of modernity (Le Corbusier 1929: 21–24). However, significantly, this reference could be made with the knowledge that whilst the original lay in ruins, the present was advancing boldly into the future. The vision of the modern city, such as New York, demonstrated its progression through its historical association: The stranger gazes at the setback towers of the latest New York skyscrapers, views the throngs of theatregoers in Times Square, looks in at the night clubs and solemnly exclaims: ‘Babylon!’ (New York Times, Robbins 1926)

This concept of advancement was also noted in the way in which Babylon was referred to as part of what was known as the Harlem Renaissance in New York from the 1920s. Harlem had acquired an association with Babylon for the nightlife and cabarets that had developed at the outset of the twentieth century and which only increased with the introduction of prohibition (see Street 1912). However, African American immigration into this area of Harlem had by the early 1920s created a vibrant cultural and political centre which challenged the racial inequality that persisted within the United States (Locke 1925). Drawing upon the religious imaginings of Babylon, the reference served as a symbol of the oppression and opportunity that the modern age had wrought: ‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion’ (Psalm 137). Authors and campaigners drew upon the vision of the Jewish exile in Babylon to define their place within the United States. Such associations had been present from the eighteenth century; for example, the abolitionist campaigner Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) denounced the nation that allowed slavery as ‘Babylon’ (Douglass 1852). In the early twentieth century, for some individuals within the Harlem Renaissance, Babylon became emblematic of modernity – a

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means of shaping the present and projecting this onto the future (see Cohen 1995). One of the early pieces by the poet Langston Hughes (1902–1967) sets its scene by the banks of the Euphrates as a means of conveying exile but also a sense of place for African Americans (Hughes 1921: 71). Arguably the most prominent activist and author within Harlem, James Weldon Johnson (1871– 1938), used the reference to Ancient Mesopotamia to describe the delights and dangers of modern life: This is Babylon, Babylon, That great city of Babylon. (Johnson 1927: 23)

Whilst Babylon forms a place of exile within this aspect of the language of the past it also functions as a home; indeed, it is this ‘double-consciousness’ that marks the advent of the modern age (see Du Bois 1903). The significance of this association is marked by the continuing reference of Babylon within African diasporic communities throughout the twentieth century (see James and Harris 1993). This can be observed in how the reference to Babylon was part of the development of the pan-African movement (Universal Negro Improvement Association), which expanded through the promotional work of Marcus Garvey (1887–1940). Garvey, whilst resident in New York from 1917 to 1923, used biblical damnations of colonialism and advocated a return to Africa for people of African descent (Garvey 1927). This perception of Babylon as the site of oppression was central in the formation of the Rastafarian religion in Jamaica during the 1930s which venerated Garvey’s work and interpreted the Jewish exile in the Old Testament from a pan-Africanist perspective (Davidson 2008). The reference to Babylon serves as a reminder of the oppressive nature of Western culture and is regarded in association with the spiritual homeland in Africa (Edmonds 2003: 43). The predatory nature of ‘Babylon’ in these references which casts it as synonymous with the capitalist, imperialist and racist exploitation of the Western world has been a significant factor in shaping the ideologies of groups and organizations seeking redress or to alter the direction of society. Significantly, these modes of critique do not use the reference to suggest a decline or a regression but for an alternative notion of advancement. Throughout the Civil Rights Movement (1954–1968) in the United States, the use of ‘Babylon’ as a reference to the state served both a religious and political motive (Self 2003). For example, the political leader and human rights activist Malcolm X (1925–1965) evoked the ancient city in a speech of June 1963: Mighty Babylon was only a prophetic picture of America … No one here in this church tonight can deny that America is the mightiest government on earth today, the mightiest, the richest, and the wickedest. And no one in this church

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By the late 1960s, the equation of the United States as Babylon, cruel and iniquitous, became an established part of the ‘Black Power’ movement (Van Deburg 1992). The Black Panther Party, which formed in California in 1966, frequently asserted the evils of Babylon in their socialist programme but ultimately did not advocate removal and relocation from the seat of corruption (see Ogbar 2004). In an interview conducted in 1968, Minister for Information for the Black Panthers, Eldridge Cleaver (1935–1998), defined a state of war for ‘black people right here in Babylon’ (Cleaver 1968: 6). The revolution in this modern Babylon did not entail a physical departure from the corruption but an alteration in the progression of the society in which they existed. In this manner, the language of the past is evoked to prevent regression and enforce advancement: The capitalistic, imperialistic, doggish, pimping of the People must cease by this wanton, sadistic country or perish like Babylon. The People shall smash the glutton roaches running this decadent society and, along with the directing of the Black Panther Party, halt these running dogs and gain true liberation for all. (The Black Panther, Anon 1969: 14)

This reference to Babylon as a radical mode of evaluation within radical American politics can also be observed with the development of environmental, socialist and anti-capitalist groups during the 1970s. These organizations formed in the wake of the escalating war in Vietnam and with the burgeoning countercultural movement that warned of society’s apparent ‘progress’. However revolutionary this discourse, it was through a comparison with the past and its failings that a new direction was vaunted (Goodman 1970). From 1962 to its split in 1969, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) campaigned against the encroachment of ‘Babylon’ onto the lives of individuals (see Weinberg and Gerson 1969). The division of the SDS presaged the formation of the Weather Underground Organisation who launched a bombing campaign of federal and financial institutions throughout the 1970s (see Varon 2004). The group released a communiqué to the nation’s press to mark the advent of their activities in November 1970 which was phrased as a foreboding condemnation of the present through a reference to the past: We are outlaws, free and high – a youth guerrilla underground in the heart of Babylon. (New York Times, Anon 1970)

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Similarly, action groups such as the Youth International Party organized absurd performances within government buildings and businesses throughout the early 1970s in the United States whilst stating their opposition to ‘Babylon’ (see Rubin 1970). Despite the decline of radical politics during the late 1970s after the cessation of the Vietnam War, the use of this historical reference to shape and reform the present and the future was still present with art, literature and culture. In this application, ‘Babylon’ appeared to offer a sense of salvation and hope for the future – a means of addressing the problems within current society. This is present within the post-apocalyptic fiction that developed from the 1930s into the Cold War era with the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In these accounts, where war has consumed the Earth, pockets of human life amongst the carnage remain and use Babylon as a symbol of their survival (Benét 1937; Frank 1959). In the 1960s, the conceptual artist Robert Smithson (1938–1973) repeatedly drew upon the shape of the ziggurat in his work to refer to the challenge and potential of the modern era as Babylon (Smithson 1966). In the same way, the Dutch architect Constant Nieuwenhuys (1920–2005) named his utopian city plan which he developed from 1956 to 1974 as ‘New Babylon’ as a means of creating an alternative space for an improved future (see Lefebvre 1997). For Nieuwenhuys, Babylon described the modern condition of being both exiled and at home: The culture of New Babylon does not result from isolated activities, from exceptional situations, but from the global activity of the whole world population, every human being being engaged in a dynamic relation with his surroundings. (Nieuwenhuys 1974)

This particular New Babylon was not built but aspects of this era’s interests in both the ideology and aesthetic of Babylon can be noted in the 1968 construction of Alexandra Road Estate in London (Figure 3.1). Such concepts reflect a usage of Babylon within intellectual circles as a form of modern utopian existence: diverse, progressive and assured (see Derrida 1985). Certainly, the name of the city and its fall has endured within popular culture as a symbol of the failings of humanity (see Mirzoeff 2005: 151). Indeed, science fiction literature such as William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984) and films such as The Matrix (1999) offer subtle and unsubtle allusions to Babylon and its status as a place of exile and corruption. However, Babylon possesses a quality of hope and expectation within popular culture; the long-running science fiction series Babylon 5 (Straczynski 1994–1998) was set aboard a spaceship whose role was to forge peace between different species. Therefore, whether serving as a biblical damnation of excess,

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Figure 3.1 Alexandra Road Estate, London, 2015.

a celebration of achievement or a model for progress, ‘Babylon’ has been evoked throughout the modern era to redirect the present and to shape the future. This is what Mirzoeff (2005: 6) refers to as ‘Babylonian modernity’. Over the last two decades, references to Babylon within the political and media sectors have ceased to appear. Accusations of a ‘descent to Babylon’ as society grows immoral and culture becomes barbarous are now largely the preserve of

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evangelical groups within the United States. Politicians no longer extol their cities using the association, nor do mainstream commentators vilify groups through this allusion. The decline in usage is evident but understandable in the context of the forces of modernity; advancement and progress are defined and policed through the language of the past. Therefore, Babylon is excavated and displayed once again through discourse during the Gulf War (1990–1991) and the Iraq War (2003–2011) in Britain and the United States. In these contexts, it is used as a means to question the ‘modern’ status of the enemy as inheritors of this ancient site and as a point of reflection on the conduct of the war. For example, during the initial action in the region during the 1990s, the action of coalition forces was regarded through the frame of a troubled ‘Babylon’ as a means of establishing order on the present: Babylon Revisited: Iraq in an Ancient Past: Where Civilization Began and War Is No Stranger. (Washington Post, Ringle 1991)

During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the operations of the US army within the proximity of Babylon was represented as both a means of establishing order and progress but also a way in which the military activities could be censured: A Cultural Divide Tests Guardians of Babylon. (Boston Globe, Healy 2003) US ground troops clashed for the first time with Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard near the ruins of ancient Babylon yesterday. (The Mirror, Roberts 2003) Troops from the US-led force in Iraq have caused widespread damage and severe contamination to the remains of the ancient city of Babylon. (The Guardian, McCarthy and Kennedy 2005)

In this manner, critical appraisals of the political leaders of the multinational force during the Iraq War in 2003 could be phrased in the context of the destruction visited upon the ancient city of Babylon (see Ali 2003). As this usage demonstrates, the meaning and value of ‘Babylon’ within the language of the past is malleable; it occupies a means of critique and a point of justification. What is consistent in this employment of this reference to the ancient world is the manner in which it acts as a corrective device within the present – as a warning from history or a directive for the future. Examining the way in which Babylon has featured within political, media and public discourse as a significant device in the shaping of the modern world since the eighteenth century, changing its politics, its culture and its society, the operation of the language of the past can be observed. The past is referenced and brought into the present as a means of addressing the anxieties of the modern era. This association can regard the

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historical period as regressive but it can also laud its achievements as a nascent, but ultimately flawed, example of modernity’s progress. However, it is this failure of the past that confirms the advance of our own age. Therefore, when we speak of Babylon as a reference, we obscure and belittle this history to talk of our own success, our own desires and our own fears.

Ancient Egypt: Pharaohs and pyramids The presence of Ancient Egypt within contemporary Western society stems from both the biblical representations of the civilization and the formation of the scholarship of the Kingdoms of the Nile from the early nineteenth century (Curl 1982). The civilization itself emerged during the early fourth millennium BCE on the Nile Delta and passing through phases of disintegration and stabilization can be regarded as ceasing in the fifth century CE. Within the Old Testament, Egypt is the land of captivity, slavery and idolatry for the Israelites but the scene of liberation and the delivery of God’s commandments to Moses (Exodus 34.28). Within medieval European religion, art and culture, the struggles of the Israelites in Egypt and the rule of the cruel pharaoh acted as a testament of faith (see Curran 2007). Such religious connotations with Egypt were altered with the extension of European colonial influence in the eighteenth century (Reid 2002). Ancient Egypt was exoticized within Western culture, as its belief system, architecture and culture became tangible and intangible commodities which were incorporated within Western society (after Said 1978). Whilst the terms and names of places, pharaohs and gods of the ancient Kingdom of the Nile had been present within scholarship, the expansion of the historical and archaeological survey of Egypt introduced a range of references and allusions in Britain and the United States. The advance of Napoleon’s French army into Egypt in 1798 brought Egypt to centre of fashionable society (Commission des Sciences et Arts d’Egypte 1809). Inspired by the publication of these accounts, adventurers and explorers raided the tombs and palaces of the ancient kingdom for displays in London and Paris (see Belzoni 1822). The exhibition of the ruins of an ancient empire, during an era when European imperial ambitions were growing, placed particular values onto these artefacts for audiences (Humbert 1994). This is most famously evoked within the work Ozymandias, published in 1818 by the romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822). The poem recounts the encounter with a colossal sculpture of a mighty Egyptian pharaoh whose great works have been

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reduced to rubble and dust, ‘nothing besides remain’ (Shelley 1818: 24). The deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs by Jean-François Champollion (1790– 1832) which adorned the walls of temples and monuments brought further evidence of a kingdom which whilst accomplished was perceived as ultimately flawed (Champollion 1824). Ancient Egypt, from the point of its European ‘discovery’ in the eighteenth century, serves as a cautionary example of the fragility of progress but also the success of the present in comparison to the past. The archaeological exploration of Egypt brought wider usage of this ancient kingdom within political, media and public discourse (see Lane 1836; Wilkinson 1837). Indeed, whilst the display of artefacts and the accounts of excavations in Britain and the United States excited audiences it also encouraged a point of reflection upon the policies and practices of current society (see Gange 2013; Parramore 2008). The tourist expeditions to Egypt mounted in the wake of this popular display in the nineteenth century affirmed the status of Egypt as a tragic narrative of greatness and decline (Gregory 1999; Mitchell 1988). Throughout the nineteenth century, European and American visitors were encouraged to wonder at the spectacle of a civilization that had constructed the Sphinx, the Pyramids and the religious complex at Karnak but had eventually disintegrated (Appleton 1876; Baedeker 1885; Thomas Cook Ltd. 1897; Wilkinson 1847) (Figure 3.2). Popular fiction of the era that set its scene in Ancient Egypt, or in

Figure 3.2 ‘The Pyramids of Geezeh’. Roberts, D. (1842–1849), Egypt & Nubia, Vol. II, London: F.G. Moon, Vol. II, plate 24 (Library of Congress, NE2454.B75).

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another era but which used the setting of the ancient kingdom as a plot device, emphasized the decadence of the antique civilization and the perceived state of nineteenth-century Egypt as apathetic and indolent (see Bulwer-Lytton 1834; Loudon 1828). The British evangelical Anglican vicar and author Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) used the setting of Egypt and its ruined civilization as the basis of the novel Hypatia which detailed the life of the fifth-century CE philosopher (Kingsley 1853). The novel dramatized the death of the female philosopher Hypatia at the hands of an angry mob but also acted as a sermon for contemporary audiences: And now, readers, farewell. I have shown you New Foes under an old face … One word before we part. The same devil who tempted these old Egyptians tempts you. The same God who would have saved these old Egyptians if they had willed, will save you, if you will. Their sins are yours, their errors yours, their doom yours, their deliverance yours. There is nothing new under the sun. The thing which has been, it is that which shall be. (Kingsley 1853: 377)

These uses of Egypt as a reflection upon the state and direction of current society demonstrate the significant place of the ancient civilization within the language of the past as a means to shape political agendas in the modern era. Whilst the exotic, mystical and cultural visions of Egypt within the nineteenth century have been addressed, the role of references and allusions to the pharaohs and pyramids within a political context has been relatively unexplored. This specific aspect of speaking about this ancient past, shaped by both biblical traditions and the popularization of Ancient Egypt during the nineteenth century, has been used to inform political identities and shape policies as a process of orientating contemporary society towards an idea of progress. Such references, allusions and metaphors can be observed in use in the seventeenth century as a mode of critique against the operation of power. During the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639–1651), the parliamentary supporters in England asserted that King Charles I (1600–1649) had conducted himself as a ‘Pharaoh’; Denzil Holles (1599–1680), whose attempted arrest in Parliament augured the outbreak of war, accused the monarch of ensuring the people laboured under the yoke of ‘Egyptian slavery’ (see Holles 1699: 9). The poet and civil servant to the short-lived Commonwealth of England (1649–1660), John Milton (1608–1674), defended the execution of Charles I as a necessary act to rid the country of a tyrannical pharaoh (Milton 1649). Such associations are born out of the close reading of scripture and millennial fervour but also a desire to cast the object of disdain within a historical context whilst claiming the present and future.

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Separating from the past to assert the notion of progress and advancement emphasizes the character of modernity as an acceleration away from history. This process is most clearly identified during the American War of Independence (1775–1783). American colonists mocked the figure of King George III (1738–1820) who was derided within the patriotic literature as a ‘Modern Pharaoh’ (Byrd 2013). Leaders of the movement such as Samuel Adams (1722–1803), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) and Benjamin Franklin (1706– 1790) would term their condition ‘Egyptian slavery’ implemented by a tyrant ‘Pharaoh’ (see Bancroft 1876: 286). Pamphleteers were able to castigate the actions of Britain as an affront to progress by the transplantation of the ancient world onto the modern: the draining therefore their whole money from them by trade and the demanding more by taxes, is absolutely reducing them to Egyptian slavery, of making bricks without straw. (Ray and Bollan 1766: 8)

In his great treatise on political representation in the United States, Common Sense (1776), the English-American activist Thomas Paine (1737–1809) caricatured King George III as ‘the hardened, sullen tempered Pharaoh of England’ who whilst deigning to claim to be the ‘father of this people’ could ‘hear of their slaughter, and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul’ (Paine 1776: 27). The mode of referencing the past was certainly drawn from the influence of scripture but it also emphasized how the emergence of a modern political consciousness forms in comparison with references to the past (Coffey 2014). With the birth of a new republic, the old empire is cast aside as regressive and irrelevant through historical allusion (see Cherry 1998). To be modern is to eschew the trappings of history and precedent to stress advancement in comparison. Whilst this mode of representation served to support the cause for independence and forged the creation of the United States, this use of the language of the past was also employed to frame the debates surrounding the paradox of the existence of enslavement in the ‘Empire of Liberty’ (Wood 2009: 554). From the early nineteenth century, references to ‘Egyptian slavery’, comparisons with ‘Pharaoh’ and discussions of the construction of the pyramids structured debates about race, identity, politics and progress in the United States (Trafton 2004). The use of terms and allusions associated with Ancient Egypt as a means by which a critical political commentary was constructed had been present within the Early Republic. This trend is reflected in the admonishment delivered to President Martin Van Buren (1782–1862) that he was conducting

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himself ‘in the spirit of Pharaoh’ during a citizen’s meeting in Rensselaer County, New York, in March 1838, in response to the president’s perceived indifference to the plight of individuals suffering the effects of the financial crisis of 1837 (Anon 1838a: 7). Similar criticisms were also made by North Carolina Representative Edward Stanly (1810–1872) who stated in Congress that President Van Buren possessed a ‘heart harder than the Pharaoh’s’ for their management of the nation’s finances and its effect on the populace (Stanly 1838: 355). However, Van Buren was also castigated as a ‘modern Pharaoh’ for his stance on the immutability of enslavement as defined by the constitution of the United States (Anon 1838b). Through this past association, whether for social, political or economic policies, Van Buren would appear anachronistic and regressive and his tenure was perhaps unsurprisingly limited to one term from 1837 to 1841. The use of references to Ancient Egypt became a central part of the campaign of the abolitionist movement within the United States from the 1830s onwards. State and national abolitionist societies would refer to the evils and injustices of the past to cast the contemporary practice of enslavement in the southern states as an anathema to the modern age. Abolitionist and reformer Gerrit Smith (1797–1874), speaking at a meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, which had been founded three years earlier by campaigners William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) and Arthur Tappan (1786–1865), viewed the activities of plantation owners in the southern states through the lens of Ancient Egypt: As Pharaoh, the more he was admonished to let them go, hardened his heart the more against his slaves, so it is not improbable that such of the southern slaveholders, as have the Pharaoh spirit are increasing in their severity towards their slaves. (Smith 1836: 15)

Indeed, in the Declaration of the Anti-Slavery Convention (1833), the historical precedent of enslavement in the ancient world was dismissed as a means of establishing the righteousness of freedom in the modern United States. Such was the power of this historical allusion, Garrison frequently invoked this past in order to shape and direct the future in his speeches and writings to promote the abolitionist cause (see Garrison 1852). This work was significant as those supporting the continuation of enslavement as a social and economic measure had attempted to dissociate the cause from any historical association and portray it as a modern institution (see Cobb 1858; Priest 1849; Van Evrie 1863). Despite the disparaging reference to Egypt and pharaohs, the identification with Egypt served as an important part of abolitionist campaigning as well as the emergence of African authors in Britain and the United States (see Douglass 1854). Whilst

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the equation of enslaved Africans as victims of cruel pharaohs was made, so too was the role of ‘Africans as Egyptians’ which accredited members of the African diaspora with the achievements of that ancient civilization (Anon 1836). However, such allusions were rebutted by opponents who highlighted the ‘failure’ of Ancient Egypt whose temples and buildings now stand in ruins as opposed to the ‘progressive’ civilization in Europe and North America (Campbell 1851: 12). As Trafton (2004) has emphasized, referencing pharaohs, pyramids and the Kingdom of the Nile in nineteenth-century society was to engage in a highly politicized discourse on race and identity. With the escalation of tension across the nation over the issue of enslavement, the abolitionist invocation of Pharaonic Egypt through literature, poetry and politics reiterated their drive towards progression and advancement in the United States (Redpath 1860). Within the cities of the north, New York, Philadelphia and Boston, the display of the artefacts in exhibitions from the excavated sites in Egypt served to emphasize the reflected glory of the United States but also the need to reform (Anon 1854c). This perception was the subject of satire in Edgar Allen Poe’s (1809–1849) short story, ‘Some Words with a Mummy’; Poe lampooned the event of ‘unwrapping’ a mummified corpse from Ancient Egypt who when charged with electricity is resurrected and proceeds to undermine contemporary notions regarding history, life and the universe (Poe 1845). However, the first exhibition of Egyptian artefacts in New York was held in 1853; this collection was bought by public subscription and was established as a permanent museum a few years later (see Abbott 1854). Such resources provided a means by which comparisons could be drawn between the current struggle for emancipation and the historical perception of Pharaonic Egypt as the cruel oppressor. Only a few months before the outbreak of civil war in April 1861, the Reverend J. R. W. Sloan (1823–1886) of the Third Reform Presbyterian Church in New York delivered a sermon which addressed this issue: There are many remarkable and striking analogies between our own country at the present time and the condition of Egypt at the period of Israel’s deliverance. Egypt was perhaps the foremost nation in civilization, and in all the elements of national glory, then in existence. We do not hesitate to say that, apart from the barbarism of Slavery and its attendant ferocities, no nation combines so many elements of a high and genuine civilization … as the United States of America. (New York Times, Anon 1861a)

In shaping the debates surrounding the formation of the nation and the morality of enslavement within the United States, the language of the past was

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employed to reference development and a refusal of past forms of government, morals and values. Whilst President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) could declare the United States to be the ‘Egypt of the West’ in December 1862 as civil war engulfed the nation, it was as the meeting point of cultures and nations, the epitome of modernity that he referred to, not the trappings of antiquity (see Lincoln 1910: 91). Indeed, towards the latter half of the nineteenth century, whilst the fascination with the mystical, exotic and sublime nature of Ancient Egypt was at its peak, the civilization was a central part of Western political discourse that expressed the abuse of authority, the excess of the powerful and the tyranny exerted upon the oppressed. For example, this mode of using the past as a reference or allusion in which to frame the present can be observed in the campaign for Irish independence in the late nineteenth century. The suffering of the people of Ireland under England’s cruel ‘Egyptian slavery’ was a well-established motif of nationalist discourse by the 1890s (see Philpin 1987). In fact, as a means of ensuring their claim for progress and righteousness, both Catholic Nationalist and Protestant Unionist supporters asserted themselves as the Israelites who suffer under the rule of a dominant pharaoh (Moran 1884; Witherow 1880). Such references have precedence in the seventeenth century, when with wider turmoil in the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, a historical allusion was forged between the Israelites of Ancient Egypt and the Irish. In this manner, English rule was inflicted upon Ireland as a cruel visitation of the past upon the present: this crying sin did draw down as great, or greater plagues upon Ireland, than the oppression of the Israelites did draw upon the land of Egypt. For the plagues of Egypt, though they were grievous, were but of short continuance; but the plagues of Ireland lasted four hundred years together. (Davis 1666: 189)

Whilst this association persisted as a mode of engagement with the subject of independence, it was during the Home Rule debates from 1860 to 1920 that the language of the past was employed to structure the debates as to how the future of Ireland would be formed. In this usage, the arguments for Home Rule are cast in comparison with the cruelty of pharaoh and the apparent indifference to the populace as inherently modern and progressive (see Harrison 1892). The Irish barrister John F. Taylor (1850–1902), in speaking to a Dublin Law Students’ Debating Society in 1901, framed the struggle for maintaining Irish language, traditions and culture within colonial rule from London as a battle against a tyrannical pharaoh (Anon 1901b). This mode of representation was present within parliamentary debates on the issue as the extension of wider powers to

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Ireland formed a split with the Liberal Party. In the House of Lords in July 1895, the Liberal Lord Roseberry (1847–1929) compared Ancient Egypt and Ireland to forward the ‘progressive’ Home Rule Bill. This was countered by his fellow Liberal the Duke of Argyll (1823–1900) with the debate concerned with the appropriateness of the association: Are the people who are in bondage under Pharaoh, Pharaoh being the English people? Now, my Lords, is that a fair representation of the state of our relations in this central Parliament with the other divisions of the Kingdom? Is it not a gross fraud on the people to talk about bondage and Pharaoh? Can the noble Earl defend such a parallel for one moment in this House? (HC Deb 6 July 1895 vol. 35 c.282)

Rather than forming a debate on scripture, this engagement reveals how the issue is not the validity of Ireland being equivalent to the Ancient Israelites, but that what this represents for progress. The exchange reveals how past associations, references and allusions become the object of political control as the desire to stress advancement and progress is made. Ancient Egypt, pharaohs and pyramids are central in this regard as they can be mobilized to state how current society is moving forwards. Rather than evoking Egypt as a symbolic cause to alter the present, this is a mobilization of the ancient civilization as a means of advancement. This perception of acceleration from the past can be observed in the novels of the late nineteenth century and the fiction and film released at the beginning of the twentieth century (see Henty 1889). These pieces were set in the ancient Kingdom of the Nile or utilized themes from Ancient Egypt within a contemporary context (see Lant 2013). The Mummy’s Foot, originally published in French in 1840 but widely available in Britain and the United States, was one of the first works of literature that locate Ancient Egypt within the supernatural and uncanny (see Gautier 1900). Indeed, later novels such as Louisa May Alcott’s (1832–1888) Lost in a Pyramid; or, The Mummy’s Curse, published in 1869, reflected the Egyptmania of the period but also the development of the figure of the vengeful mummified figure (see Montserrat 1998). Whilst a formative point in the horror genre, this also demonstrates the status of Ancient Egypt as exotic but also as a dangerous intrusion onto the present. Silent era films, whether horror, drama or comedy, such as The Egyptian Mystery (1909), Cleopatra (1912), The Mummy (1911), The Egyptian Mummy (1913), The Dust of Egypt (1915) and the Wraith of the Tomb (1915), all feature Ancient Egypt as the location of malevolent spirits that undermine or attack contemporary society for its hubris, its enquiries and its pretence of advancement. The spectacle of mummies, pharaohs, sphinxes

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and pyramids in film and fiction serves as a reminder of the precarious nature of progress and the past as a regressive and disturbing locale. The continued excavations of sites of antiquity along the Nile River at the beginning of the twentieth century maintained public interest in Egyptian history in Britain and the United States (see Flinders Petrie 1906). However, despite the excitement that followed the discovery of new sites and artefacts, the value of Ancient Egypt within society appears to have remained in its use as a reference point to highlight corruption and vice. In the early 1900s, fraudulent financial speculations on Wall Street in New York had already acquired the moniker of ‘pyramid schemes’, ‘pyramid sales’ or a ‘pyramid system’ (see Ford 1906). Scandals involving such operations were reported as threatening the stability of the markets; drawing on more than just the dimensional similarities, this appellation used the historical discourse of the pyramids as a product of enslaved labour and thereby a symbol of fundamental iniquity (see Anon 1901c). In such circumstances, the character of a ‘modern’ financial marketplace is defended from proscribed practices through their association with a ‘corrupt’ past. Such uses of the pyramid were well established by the early nineteenth century as references to ‘inverting the pyramid’ or ‘strengthening the pyramid’ became part of a political discourse across Western society for advocating reform to established structures within society and a reorientation towards the future (see Cobden 1849: 91). For example, John Melish (1771–1822), the Scottish cartographer of the United States, reflected upon the new democracy forged in the former colonies barely thirty years after their independence through such terms: A government by the people is like a beautiful pyramid with a substantial base – it cannot be overturned; but a despotic government, or a government by a small portion of the people only, is like a pyramid inverted. (Melish 1851: 351)

Major John Cartwright (1740–1824), naval officer and parliamentarian, had lobbied for reform in Britain and the extension of the franchise through the same frame of reference; in his will of 1824 he addressed his countrymen thus: When England shall restore the simplicity of her original polity, she will have a basis sufficient for stability, felicity, and glory … instead of insanely making her state to resemble an inverted pyramid. (Cartwright 1826: 289)

This visual reference could, therefore, also be used as a point of stability within society. In opposition to the views of Cartwright, the noted reformer and philanthropist Robert Fellows (1771–1847) balked at suggestions of universal

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suffrage by regarding the structure of the pyramid as inherently noble, stable and edifying: The great mischief of this new process for subliming our political institutions would be that, if it raised the labouring classes to the top, and depressed the proprietors to the bottom, it would correspond with the effect of inverting the pyramid. (Fellowes 1818: 99)

Such allusions were highly effective in mobilizing support for both mainstream and radical political movements in Britain during this period. Indeed, Cannadine (1998) has described how this visual reference of class structure as a ‘pyramid’ in Britain, which emerged from the early nineteenth century, served as a foundation for alterations in society, politics and economics. This can be particularly noted in the development of the Chartist Movement, which from the 1830s campaigned for the enactment of universal adult male suffrage in Britain alongside significant parliamentary reform. As a means of exposing the inequality within society and the absence of representation for working-class men, the vision of the pyramid was a repeated allusion within the writings of the movement’s leaders and supporters. The Scottish historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) wrote of the necessity of the Chartist cause because of the imbalance of the privilege of so few being burdened by the work of so many: ‘no great nation can stand on the apex of such a pyramid’ (Carlyle 1843: 184). William Lovett (1800–1877) and John Collins (1802–1852), two of the working-class leaders of the Chartist Movement, referred to the tyranny of the institutions of the state that bar access to the majority as ‘hoary pyramids’: Those splendid remains and ruins of kingly dominion, those monuments of human slavery and mindless folly, which now stand in solitary and crumbling majesty, are destined to fall and be forgotten. (Lovett and Collins 1840: 10)

By the end of the nineteenth century, the influence of this discourse could be noted within socialist and suffragist writings that charged contemporary society as unequal and unrepresentative, whilst stating a new direction for the nation’s future beyond the current ‘pyramid of civilisation’ built on the ‘degradation of workers’ (Besant 1887: 57). The association of Egypt with oppression, vice and corruption through references to the pharaoh, mummies or pyramids can be observed within the adventure and horror literature of the period. In Britain, novels such as Cleopatra (Haggard 1889), Morning Star (Haggard 1910), Pharos the Egyptian (Boothby 1899), The Beetle (Marsh 1897) and The Jewel of Seven Stars (Stoker 1903) all explored the haunting quality of a resurrected Ancient

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Egypt which disturbs the progress of contemporary society. This interest in the ancient civilization of the Nile and its place as a reference point within wider society was also developed through the reporting of the excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamen (c.1400 BCE), led by Howard Carter (1874–1939) in the Valley of the Kings (see Carter and Mace 1923). Coverage of the discovery across the world focused on the opulence of the riches found within the tomb and their role in accompanying the pharaoh to the afterlife. Gem-studded relics in Egyptian tomb amaze explorers. (New York Times, Anon 1922a) Royal robes, handsomely embroidered, precious stones, and golden sandals, were beautifully painted hunting scenes. (Derby Daily Telegraph, Anon 1922b)

The unearthing of such treasures and their role in the funerary rites of Tutankhamen served to further exoticize Egypt as a colonial object, but, paradoxically, through extolling the beauty and finery of the tomb it also emphasized the place of the civilization as failed: a relic of antiquity. Rescued by the advances of the modern age, exhibited for the delights and curiosity of contemporary audiences, Tutankhamen became a modern spectacle where present-day advances were witnessed in the relics of the past (see Bauman 2000). This process can also be observed in the representation of Ancient Egypt in film; the cinema screen renders the object of historical fascination into a vision to consume but also a history to compare oneself to. The films The Ten Commandments (1923), The Mummy (1932), The Ghoul (1933) and Cleopatra (1934) are demonstrations of progress as Ancient Egypt is reduced to morality lessons, tragic ruins or desiccated corpses fuelled with murderous anger. This mobilization of past forms to stress the improvement of the present is clearly emphasized in the Egyptian Revival architectural style which reaches its zenith with the Tutankhamen discovery but had emerged in the earlier half of the nineteenth century with the initial phase of ‘Egyptmania’ (Carrott 1978). From the 1820s, the architectural designs and stylistic elements of Ancient Egypt were incorporated into buildings, fashion and jewellery. The role of Egyptian motifs and settings was used extensively in the development of the Rural Cemetery Movement in the 1830s. Egyptian obelisks, pylons, sphinxes and pyramids became incorporated into landscaped graveyards for grieving relatives and visitors alike to reflect upon the passing of time (Loudon 1843). Certainly, the pagan, idolatrous association of Ancient Egypt offended the tastes and sensibilities of some observers to these new cemeteries; the Rules and Regulations (1851: 57) of Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn (constructed in

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1838) lamented the current vogue for such funerary architecture. Regardless of such religious reservations, the value of these designs as a popular point of commemoration ensured that the Ancient Egyptian style became regarded as ‘peculiarly adapted to the abode of the dead’ and to express the fragility of the ‘brief life of mortals’ (Crafts 1855: 79). However, it was within the design of public buildings that the Egyptian Revival style can be most directly observed. Particularly in the United States, courtrooms, assembly halls, prisons, libraries and museums were built with a reference to Ancient Egypt in their façades, porticoes, layout and imagery (Giguere 2014). The utility of this type of building for public works was located in the grandeur of the monumental complexes excavated across the Nile Delta: The character of Egyptian architecture is evidently that of massy grandeur, and may be said to be adapted for giants rather than men, and therefore not so generally appropriate for domestic residences. (Brown 1841: 43)

The role of the ancient civilization within American public buildings has been regarded as a means by which the Early Republic of the United States can draw symbolic and cultural capital from the association in the early nineteenth century. Examples of these buildings in New York, such as the Halls of Justice and House of Detention (1838) in Centre Street in Downtown Manhattan and the Croton Distributing Reservoir (1842) on 42nd Street and 5th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, were constructed as imposing pieces to emphasize their utilitarian significance and also the growth of the metropolis as the ‘Empire City’ (Lippard 1864). Similarly, the Customs House (1881) and the Sixth Precinct Station (1897) in New Orleans were built in the Egyptian style to reflect the importance of the city as a national and international trading post. Nevertheless, whilst this architectural allusion extends the history and culture of the United States beyond its colonial origins, its reference can also be assessed as a process of perfecting upon the past. This process can also be observed with the establishment of settlements in the United States with Egyptian place names; Memphis, Tennessee, established in 1819 on a delta plain though to be reminiscent of the Nile was named as a demonstration of what the city would achieve beyond its ancient namesake (Young 1912: 65). Whilst Egypt’s civilization lapsed into ruinous decay, the new towns, cities and public buildings of the nation demonstrated that the United States had not only inherited this legacy, it had improved upon it. This was clearly expressed with the display of Ancient Egyptian architecture and design during the World’s Fair Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in

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1893. Whilst a recreated temple, based on a design from Luxor, was available for visitors to explore in the central space of the exposition, the Western Electric Company had improved upon this ancient design in their exhibition space (Truman 1893: 355). To delight and entertain visitors, the company had constructed an Egyptian temple within the display hall which was illuminated inside and out with an array of incandescent bulbs. The ancient scene had, thereby, been electrified and enhanced as the temple was decorated with modern occupations rendered into Egyptian art, telephone operators dressed in Egyptian dress and telegraph workers depicted in Egyptian friezes (Davis 1893: 314). The reporting of the temple, which was apparently hugely popular with visitors, focused on the enjoyable incongruity of the inhabitants of Ancient Egypt ‘engaged in electrical vocations’ (Anon 1893). In this manner, the inefficient and backward past has been developed and enhanced by the present; Ancient Egypt has been made modern but to demonstrate the progress of contemporary society rather than the successes of the antique civilization. From architecture, film and literature, pharaohs, pyramids and sphinxes had acquired the perception of the exotic within Britain and the United States, but also as a dangerous element that could disrupt the established order, a tyrannical process of government and a point by which contemporary society can establish its superiority. During the early twentieth century to reference Ancient Egypt as a metaphor, allusion or simile, beyond the discussion of the excavations or exhibitions of the civilization of the Nile Valley, was to highlight corruption, inequality, vanity and greed. In Britain, within a local and national press, framing events and actions at home or abroad in this manner enabled a critique of policy and practice and significantly provided a basis for improvement for the future. For example, social and political upheaval in Russia was placed into the landscape of Ancient Egypt: There are those who speak of the Russian despotism as if the Csar were a modern Pharaoh. (Coventry Herald, Anon 1901d)

Similarly, stories of atrocities committed by Belgian colonists in the Congo, which caused international outrage, could be re-imagined on the banks of the Nile: Gain was in each instance at the root of the evil, causing King Leopold to become a modern Pharaoh. (Western Times, Anon 1907)

Indeed, the debates surrounding the attempt by the Liberal government from 1909 to 1912 to push through a progressive budget to guarantee a degree of

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welfare protection, which was halted by a Conservative-dominated House of Lords, was cast in the light of the ‘oppressive’ civilization: Surely it is not right that men endowed with reason and commonsense should be forced, with their wives and children, to die of starvation in the streets, or yet to submit to the dictates and behests of a set of modern pharaohs. (Derbyshire Courier, Anon 1912a)

With the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, the epithet of a ‘modern Pharaoh’ was immediately applied to the German Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859–1941). The associations of idolatry, paganism, cruelty and tyranny were called upon within this reference as newspapers in Britain as well within as the wider empire in Canada, Australia and New Zealand: For the pyramid-builder was a heathen at heart, master of millions, lord of slaves, broken by his own superstitions: the Kaiser is a modern Pharaoh, and that he may not build a modern pyramid to his own vainglory the British from the seven seas are mustering to fight. (New Zealand Herald, Tomunga 1914)

In an era of dictatorships and totalitarian regimes, the twentieth century witnessed the resurrection of the ‘pharaoh’ through reference and allusion as a means by which the actions of others could be cast as regressive and a departure from the progress of society. Alongside the use of the term ‘pharaoh’, the trappings and accoutrements of Ancient Egypt could be mobilized to cast critical aspersions onto regimes or foreign powers which were regarded to be departing from modernity. For example, during the Third Reich in Germany (1933–1945), Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) was cast as a ‘pharaoh’ within a critical media and political discourse in Britain for both the persecution of Jewish-German communities, the oppression of labour unions as well as the grandiose state plans of the regime (see Gannon 1971). Regional newspapers, whether through editorials, letters to the editors, the reporting of local talks by visitors with first-hand experience or featured articles, addressed the concerns raised by the regime in Germany through a historical discourse that evoked Ancient Egypt: What, in fact, has Hitler done to the great German unemployed army of eight millions … these men work like slaves – they represent the modern equivalent of the bondage armies of the Egyptian Pharaohs. (Biggleswade Chronicle, Anon 1934) a new Pharaoh has arisen whose name was Hitler and whose concentration camps with their forced labour, task masters and whips, were exact replicas of the conditions under which the Israelites laboured under Pharaoh. (Dover Express, Anon 1940a)

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Indeed, the White Paper released by the British Government in October 1939 which exposed the treatment of German nationals in detention camps within the Third Reich was widely reported in Britain as the discovery of ‘Ancient Egyptian’ practices being conducted in the present (Foreign Office 1939). In the local and national presses, reports of atrocities and brutality were framed as the actions of a despotic pharaoh conducting practices of cruelty that had not been seen since antiquity (see Anon 1939a). With the fall of the Third Reich at the end of the Second World War, the formation of the Eastern Bloc under the influence of the Soviet Union and the emergence of details of the purges and imprisonments under Joseph Stalin (1878–1953), the use of references to Ancient Egypt was mobilized to expose another cruel regime (Anon 1949). The accusation of the use of slave labour, the tyranny of the regime over the people and the pursuit of self-aggrandizement ensured that the allusion was well used within Anglo-American critiques of the Soviet Union (see Orr 1952: 34). It was this aspect of the historical discourse that was part of the future President Ronald Reagan’s (1911–2004) notable speech in support of Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign in 1964. In this address focused on the role of the United States in opposing the Soviet Union, he asked the American people whether they could endure or see others endure life ‘in slavery under the pharaohs?’ (Reagan 1964). The popular connection between horror, oppression and violence with Ancient Egypt had already been made by the 1940s through the figure of the reanimated corpse of the mummy with the series of films, The Mummy’s Hand (1940), The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), The Mummy’s Ghost (1944) and The Mummy’s Curse (1944). This allusion between Ancient Egypt and the actions of an evil regime were reinforced through the cinematic epics of 1950s, whose Old Testament subjects revealed an Ancient Egypt of luxury for an elite class who cruelly oppressed the righteous masses who yearned to be free (Nadel 1993). Films such as The Egyptian (1954), Land of the Pharaohs (1955) and The Ten Commandments (1956) emphasized the association between the exercise and the abuse of power in the ancient civilization (see Huckvale 2012: 7; Richards 2008: 133; Solomon 2001: 3). The scandal and intrigue of this civilization on the Nile was also the subject of the historical fiction based in Ancient Egypt that has

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been published since the 1950s for adults and children (Harris 1968, 1970, 1972). These novels continue the exotic themes of the setting observed in the travel guides and adventure stories of the nineteenth century (see Smith 1994, 2001, 2007, 2014). However, whether told from the view of slaves, servants, pharaohs or gods, they focus on the religious and political structures of the society, their failings and their ability or inability to progress and reform (see Mailer 1983). By the 1960s, to mention the pharaohs, pyramids and Ancient Egypt as a metaphor or simile was to define the object of concern as excessive, errant and expensive. From the 1960s onwards, newspaper cartoonists in Britain would depict domestic or international political leaders as pharaohs, their ideologies as mummified corpses or their latest policy or project illustrated as grandiose but ultimately flawed pyramid. For example, Victor Weisz (1913–1966) in the Daily Mirror in September 1958 set Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (1894–1986) as an Egyptian mummy holding on to the last vestiges of colonial policy which threatened to disturb current society (Weisz 1958). Paul Rigby (1924–2006), working for The Sun newspaper in 1973, referenced the Egyptian pyramids in his comment on the nuclear proliferation between the United States and the Soviet Union where the ‘New Pyramids’ had been formed from tanks, fighter aircraft and the skulls of the dead (Rigby 1973). The landscape of Ancient Egypt was similarly used by Nicolas Garland in the Daily Telegraph, who commented upon the recently elected Conservative Party’s clashes with the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in 1980 as entering into the tomb of ‘King TUC’; depictions of TUC leaders in Egyptian friezes are visible in this piece as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) can be observed declaring her disbelief in the haunting spirits that might lie within (Garland 1980). Through reference within political, media and public discourse, the civilization of Ancient Egypt is brought into the present to both criticize the direction of contemporary society but also to reaffirm a sense of progress. From the mundane to the significant, these allusions serve to ensure that the past is used as a statement of threatening inferiority which could disturb the progress made within the present. In such uses, as a metaphor and simile, it can be deployed to cast a political opponent or ideology as dangerous and anachronistic. For example, during the General Election of 2001, the use of the then former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to curry support for the Conservative Party was framed as an Egyptian scene: Rebury the Mummy: Blair’s Plea to Bury Thatcher Legacy in Flood of Labour Votes. (Daily Record, Smith and Sinclair 2001)

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Issues of inequality and uneven distribution of resources can be framed with an association of the ancient civilization: Pyramid swindle is back. (Daily Mail, Anon 1997b)

Poorly structured economic systems are imagined as the disintegrating architecture of Ancient Egypt. This was a particular feature of the 2008 ‘Credit Crunch’ where the operations of banks and financial institutions were frequently understood in the context of the landscape and setting of antiquity: But as the housing market collapsed, and people couldn’t cover their mortgages or sell their houses, the bonds lost value and, therefore, the banks that held them lost capital, and the whole pyramid started to crumble. (New York Times, Friedman 2008)

Finally, the image of the pharaoh can still serve to remind wider society of an abuse of power. Indeed, the cartoonist Peter Brookes responded to former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s declared support for the Egyptian army’s intervention in the democratic process in Egypt in July 2013 by depicting the former leader as a glittering pharaoh, displaying the emblems of tear-gas canisters and bullets as the objects of state (Brookes 2013). In the reflection of Ancient Egypt, we are able to observe our own advances and censure those who appear to depart from these values. This can be witnessed in the contemporary allusions to this civilization; whether in popular culture, from the re-visioning of Ancient Egypt as an alien civilization from another planet in the Stargate film (1994), a revamp of earlier horror films in The Mummy (1999), or in architecture, such as the Grand Louvre Pyramids (completed 1989) and the Luxor Las Vegas Hotel and Casino (completed 1993) (see MacDonald and Rice 2003). Meskell (2004) has argued that these constructed artefacts of the present evidence a particular engagement with the Ancient Egyptian past in Western culture that emphasizes the physical and the sensuous. Nevertheless, they also demonstrate how a mode of referring to Ancient Egypt has developed within the modern world. Whilst the specific ideas and identities attached to the civilization may alter with social changes and cultural mores, the significance of Ancient Egypt within modernity is in its ruined state. It forms a site of memory for a culture that seeks to assert its own advances against the perceived ‘failures’ of the past. Whilst the ingenuity and ability of this civilization may be respected and preserved for posterity, its actual value is as a visual and verbal allusion that casts the past as inferior, the present as an improvement and the future as the exclusive preserve of those who are truly modern.

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Classical Greece and Ancient Rome The role of Classical Greece (800 BCE–500 CE) and Ancient Rome (700 BCE– 500 CE) within Western civilization is a well-established point of scholarship as the origins of the institutions of government, military and society in modern nation states are firmly rooted within classical history (Freeman 2014). The art, architecture philosophy, politics and literature of the Ancient Greek city states of Athens, Sparta, Olympia, Thebes and Corinth are heralded for their development, whilst the martial achievement, commercialism, civic engineering and imperial growth of the Roman Empire are remarked upon for their advancement. It is within these historical eras that writers have traditionally located the origins of the modern world (see Daly 2014). However, rather than forming some unbroken line of tradition, the sense of ‘inheritance’ and ‘legacy’, with regard to Classical Greece and Ancient Rome, is a product of the recurring process of discovery and interpretation of these civilizations that has occurred since the denouement of these cultures. From early medieval kings declaring their status as ‘Roman emperors’ to Renaissance artists applying ‘classical’ traditions, and Enlightenment philosophers inspired by Ancient Greek thought; these are civilisations that have been imagined and re-imagined. Whilst physically never being ‘discovered’ as with Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, due to the wealth of documentary and material traces left by the Greek and Roman cultures, these are civilizations that have been ‘recovered’ for wider social, cultural and political purposes. Whilst this use of classical motifs has been a feature of Western culture since the end of antiquity (c.500 BCE), the value and meaning of those associations does not necessarily denote achievement, power and pride in the present. Indeed, metaphors, allusions and similes to antiquity have been mobilized in the modern era to stress failure, corruption and ruin. Through visual and textual references, a feature of the modern era is not the valorization of Ancient Greece and Rome; it is the use of these civilizations to indict authority, criticize excess, lament a decline in morality and redirect society towards the future. Certainly, disparaging assessments of Rome can be located within scripture – as a cruel, oppressive imperialist power, a persecutor of the faithful or a corrupt state requiring salvation (Acts 23.11). This commentary has influenced the perception of the classical world within Western culture; however, it is within the modern era and the development of antiquarianism that the use of this past beyond a direct religious reference can be observed. The ruins of these once

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glorious civilizations serve as a contemplative mirror in which progress and advancement can be measured (Hell and Schönle 2010). This process is evident within the Roman and Greek plays of William Shakespeare (1564–1616). Whilst drawn from classical sources, these dramas project the concerns of early modern England through the objects of antiquity (after Greenblatt 1980). Antony and Cleopatra (first performed 1606), Coriolanus (first performed 1609), Julius Caesar (first performed 1599), Timon of Athens (first performed 1607), Titus Andronicus (first performed 1594) and Troilus and Cressida (first performed 1609) portray the greed, brutality and dishonesty of the ancient world for contemporary audiences (see Miola 1983). Indeed, by the late seventeenth century, the merits of ancient or modern became the object of intellectual debate within England and France, marking what was known as the ‘Battle of the Books’ (Levine 1991). The academic debate centred upon whether the classical authors had so excelled in art, literature and philosophy that successive generations were forever cast to play the inferior part; or, that modern authors, knowledgeable of the latest advances, were able to detail the nature of society far more clearly (see Temple 1690). This was famously satirized by the Irish writer Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), as a conflagration in a library, where books, authors and critics come alive and fight over their respected right to claim superiority (Swift 1704). Whilst the debate merely subsided rather than being resolved, its emergence marked a point where a metaphorical mode of thinking about the relationship between the ancient past and the present could be noted. In this manner, the classical traditions of Greece and Rome were cast as remnants of former age from which current society could reconstruct and potentially improve (Wotton 1694). This orientation towards the present as directing the objects of antiquity for its own intellectual cultivation is a marked distinction in the use of the past. A characteristic of this alteration is in the interest in ruins as a point in which modern society could observe itself. The seventeenth-century English scholar Thomas Browne (1605–1682) also reflected upon this theme with the excavation of a Roman burial urn in Norfolk: But these are sad and sepulchral pitchers, which have no joyful voices; silently expressing old mortality, the ruins of forgotten times, and can only speak with life, how long in this corruptible frame some parts may be uncorrupted; yet able to outlast bones long unborn, and noblest pile among us. (Browne 1658: 4)

It was this contemplative ‘aesthetics of ruin’ that became part of the Grand Tour for members of the European gentry from the late seventeenth century

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onwards (Sweet 2012). Whilst educated in the classical traditions, the site of antiquity in Greece and Italy was invested with the myths and epic histories of these civilizations, but the decaying temples, public buildings and monuments served as a startling reminder of failure and a curtailment to advancement and progress (Chaney 1998). These were societies of stature and endeavour that were seemingly halted in the very midst of their greatness. In the case of the ruins of Pompeii, destroyed by the eruption of Mount Etna in 79 CE but whose ashes preserved the detail of Greco-Roman life and culture, this sense of desolation was heightened for visitors to the ancient city (see Hales and Paul 2011). The rise in popularity of the Grand Tour in the eighteenth century and its growth in the nineteenth century was due to the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) which had reduced the dangers of such expeditions and ensured the development of a burgeoning field of travel guides and literature (Chard 1999). The focus of these publications was on the awe-inspiring sight of the ruins of the ancient world, as travellers were encouraged to consider the relics of the past, the wonders of another age, but also to place themselves as surveyors of a tragic scene (see Black 2003). The eighteenth-century Irish writer Thomas Nugent (c.1700–1772), whilst travelling through Italy, regarded the crumbling edifices of imperial power as a poignant indication of failure: All the way you see a great number of ancient ruins, the melancholy remains of the Roman magnificence. (Nugent 1749: 212)

Such assessments of antiquity on the Grand Tour during this period provided a reassertion of the values and ideals of the present as no matter the scale of the vestiges of classical civilization in Greece and Italy they were regarded as possessing a desolate air that haunted contemporary society (see Colt Hoare 1819; Mission 1695; Moore 1781; Wheler 1682). These evocative accounts also began to be the subject of authors and artists as the desolation of the ancient civilizations acquired a poetic status (see Diderot 1821). The remnants of a pagan culture served as inspiration for a romantic aesthetic, which whilst asserting a sense of loss for the past enabled the perspective of the educated observer to focus more upon the future (see Mortier 1974) For example, the Irish novelist and poet Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774), whilst travelling through Europe, regarded the remains of Ancient Rome in Italy as a telling indictment of current society and forewarnings of the dangers of its own hubris: Yet still the loss of wealth is here supplied. By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride. (Goldsmith 1764)

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This anxious reflection upon the past as a means of understanding the present and future is a feature of both the literary and factual accounts of travel to Italy during the eighteenth and nineteenth century (Batten 1978). Indeed, the notion of failure, disappointment and regret that was to be found amongst the vestiges of a once glorious civilization indicates the emergence of a different appreciation of such sites within the modern age (Janowitz 1990). Visitors to Rome, Naples or Athens remarked upon the disconnection from the past that sites were supposed to evoke and a far more immediate association with the present and the future (see Smollett 1766). The Scottish author James Boswell (1740–1795) commented upon this process during his visit to Rome in the 1760s: We viewed the celebrated Forum. I experienced sublime and melancholy emotions as I thought of all the great affairs which had taken place there, and saw the place now all in ruins, with the wretched huts of carpenters and other artisans occupying the site of that rostrum from which Cicero had flung forth his stunning eloquence. (Boswell 1765: 60)

Similarly, Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812) reflected this perception as he lamented the state of Rome, where, amongst ‘broken thrones and temples’, the narrator is moved to regard his own era: ‘What are our woes and sufferance?’ (Byron 1812: 233). Touring the sites of Classical Greece and Ancient Rome, reflecting upon the antiquities that marked out the achievements of these cultures, therefore, did not cultivate a sense of inferiority but rather a sense of improvement. The past would serve as an emblem of what modern society could become but also as a demonstration of the progress and advancement since the age of antiquity. Such alterations in the way in which the ruins were perceived can be observed in the artistic, architectural and literary works within the ‘revival’ style which would be termed ‘neoclassicism’ by the nineteenth century. Within this tradition, in both content and form, the works of classical scholars such as the engineer Vitruvius (c.70 BCE–c.15 BCE), the poet Ovid (43 BCE–17 CE) and the philosopher Plato (c.428 BCE–348 BCE) were used as guiding principles to physically, culturally and morally reshape eighteenth-century society (see Winckelmann 1762). Rather than assume this amounted to a colonization of the past onto the present, it is a more accurate assertion to say it witnessed the styles, values and associations of these ancient civilizations being ‘improved’ to suit modern tastes, lifestyles and appreciations (see Ware et al. 1731). The ruins of the past were physically and imaginatively reanimated, not merely as some vapid homage to a heroic age, but as a means of stressing advancement for contemporary society. As the English essayist Alexander Pope (1688–1744)

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remarked, ‘the wit of Rome and Greece’ and ‘Rome’s ancient Genius’ which had long since departed its native lands were now tools of cultivation and criticism for the current age (Pope 1711: 42). By transposing the ancient landscapes of Athens or Republican or Imperial Rome onto the present, classical allusions did not just sanctify the past but heralded the future. The idea of forming ‘new’ versions of these ancient empires had been an ambition of kings, emperors and the Church since the end of antiquity. Indeed, Charlemagne (c.740–814), King of the Franks, had attempted to forge a ‘New Rome’ in his capital of Aachen, claiming the title of emperor and forging the Holy Roman Empire which would endure until the early nineteenth century. However, rather than attempt to resurrect the past, the engagement with classicism from the seventeenth century through antiquarian study formed a sense of contemporary society improving upon this history. In this spirit, in 1691 the English author John Dunton (1659–1733) would establish the Athenian Society in London, consisting of scholars who would address any issue raised by readers of their publication, The Athenian Mercury (1691–1697) (Berry 2003). In the collection of these newsletters published in 1704, the émigré French Hugenot poet Peter Motteux (1663–1718) claimed this sense of improvement for the group and its readers across the country as well as London specifically: By whom once more old learned Athens lives, Our great Metropolis new Fame receives (Anon 1704: ii)

The associations between London and the formation of a ‘New Rome’ or a ‘New Athens’ became prominent in the seventeenth century as England’s acquisition of colonial territories brought a comparison with the empires of antiquity (de Souligné 1701). Such allusions could be placed on an intellectual scale but they were also realized within a physical setting as the neoclassical style served as inspiration for the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666 (see McKellar 1999). Sir Christopher Wren’s (1632–1723) initial rebuilding programme of municipal buildings, churches and streets in the capital was imagined as constituting a modern version of the centre of power for the Roman Empire and Ancient Greece (Anon 1749). Whilst these plans were considerably altered as architectural aesthetics gave way to practical and political considerations, London was ‘improved’ through this design as over fifty neoclassical parish churches and the imposing St Paul’s Cathedral were constructed in this style (see Halton 1708). With such an imposing skyline, dominated by the spires of neoclassic churches, the claim of London as the modern-day version of the cities

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of antiquity was apparent within the wider cultural imagination. The writer and essayist Daniel Defoe (1660–1731), in his tour of Britain, would note with firm conviction that London had risen above its counterparts both past and present: New squares and new streets rising up every day to such a prodigy of buildings, that nothing in the world does, or ever did equal it, except old Rome in Trajan’s Time. (Defoe 1725: 95)

Such analogies provided a means by which England’s mercantile empire could be envisaged as not the inheritor of classical traditions but the improver of the ancient world (see Dodsley 1761). After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, this association of London as the ‘New Rome’ also served to demonstrate the sense of progression and advancement from the ‘tyranny of popery’ (after Ayres 1997). A similar use of this correspondence between past and present can be observed with the urban planning and design of the United States after the War of Independence where neoclassical styles became an expression of the new nation (see Wood 2009). This can be most clearly demonstrated in the emergence of the classical ‘Federalist Style’ that characterized the initial governmental buildings of the new republic (Craig 1978). With the decision by Congress to build the nation’s new capital on the banks of the Potomac River in 1792, the French American designer Pierre L’Enfant (1754–1825) conceived a plan inspired by principles of classical symmetry and order (L’Enfant 1792). Whilst not enacted completely, the profusion of columns, rotundas, friezes and antique ornamentation in the newly constructed city was influential. The style was emulated across the Early Republic as a means of expressing the classical values of democracy and liberty but this was no simple assertion of the traditions of the past. In the writings of Thomas Jefferson, a respect for antiquity and its moral and political virtues is expressed alongside the merits of neoclassical design (Onuf and Cole 2011). However, within these same discussions, Jefferson asserts the danger of such analogies, where the past represents a dark and threatening place. In a letter dated to May 1786: I shall not wonder to see the scenes of ancient Rome and Carthage, renewed in our day; and if not pursued to the same issue, it may be, because the republic of modern powers will not permit the extinction of any one of its members. (Jefferson 1829: 13)

Whilst the new republic took upon the trappings of the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome, this was a means by which the future could be asserted rather than return to the past. Indeed, the verbal or visual analogy of Classical Greece and Republican Rome were used as a means to assert the strength of the new

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democracy in comparison to the ruined edifices of the ancient world. Though the naming of new settlements after ancient centres of power and knowledge, heroes of antiquity or classical mythology such as Athens (Georgia), Atlanta (Georgia), Aurelius (New York), Cicero (New York), Cincinnati (Ohio) Corinth (New York), Herculaneum (Missouri), Rome (Maine), Rome (Pennsylvania), Ithaca (New York) and Syracuse (New York) brought an ancient landscape to the new republic, it was the progress and advancement of the nation that was emphasized. David Humphreys (1752–1818), United States Minister to Portugal and Spain as well as a writer and poet, remarked in verse in a work entitled ‘A Poem on the Industry of the United States of America’: Where art thou, Athens! thy high spirits lost! Where, Sparta! that defied all Asia’s host! And where (in dust her mould’ring trophies hurl’d) Imperial Rome, the mistress of the world! (Humphreys 1804: 101)

Therefore, whilst adorning the towns and cities of the nation with neoclassical architecture and its cities with ancient names this was a vision of the future which was heralded. This use of the civilizations of Greece and Rome as a metaphor or allusion in a critical capacity to emphasize the development in the modern era can also be witnessed in the very formation of the United States. Shalev (2009) has highlighted this process in the patriotic pamphlets of the late eighteenth century before and after the War of Independence that cast George III and Members of Parliament as a latter-day ‘Nero’, ‘Caligula’ or a corrupt ‘Emperor of Rome’. Philip Morin Freneau (1752–1832), the ‘Poet of the Revolution’, who frequently set his works on the formation of the United States within an ancient setting of ruined empires and despotic rulers, declared George III to be as unspeakable as ‘Cain, Nimrod, Nero’; indeed, the King was characterized as a tyrant and an example of a ‘modern Nero’ (Freneau 1786: 155–156). Referencing the notoriously venal rulers of the Roman Empire, such as Nero (37–68 CE) or Caligula (12–41 CE), did not just provide a demonstration of the moral qualities of the new republic, it also cast opponents as anachronistic whilst the present and the future were to be held by those proclaiming to be modern. This is not a product of American individualism or the formation of a ‘New Rome in the West’; it is the result of the relationship with the ancient world that is formed during this era. Indeed, the return to the past, and a specifically classical past through allusion and reference, to assert the values of the present can be observed with the emergence of a ‘print culture’ during the seventeenth century (Hall 1996). It was the English poet John Milton who declared Charles I to have been ‘more

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a Nero than Nero himself ’ (Milton 1692: 10). Similarly, the English playwright Jospeh Addison (1672–1719) used the setting of Ancient Rome as a commentary on modern concerns of liberty and tyranny in his popular dramatic work Cato (Addison 1730). The proliferation of such terms can be witnessed within eighteenth-century England as sardonic pamphleteers lampooned the figure of the monarch as a pompous ‘Nero’ (Carretta 1990). For the British satirical artist William Hogarth (1697–1764), the figure of Nero and other Roman emperors served as a visual reference for corruption and greed of individuals, officials and institutions. In The Four Stages of Cruelty (published 1751) the increasing violence of the central character of ‘Tom Nero’ is chartered leading to his own brutal execution and dissection. Similarly, in The Rake’s Progress (published 1735) an orgiastic brothel scene is depicted with a portrait of Nero and other Roman emperors looking down upon the display (Bierne 2015: 62). In this manner, the reference to the classical world served to allude to iniquity and vice, rather than glory and grandeur. The image of a corrupt, ruined empire, haunting popular culture as a symbol of decay, which emerged with tours of Italy and Greece, is most vividly exposed in Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776). In this work, overt and implicit analogies and references to the ancient civilization and the British Empire were made as a means by which the current imperial power could improve upon the failings of its illustrious predecessor (Gibbon 1776: 2). For Gibbon, the fall of Rome, an event he considered to be a veritable revolution which reverberated across the world, was a thinly veiled analogy for the weaknesses of decadence and apathy which could be similarly observed within Britain’s imperial growth (after Sachs 2010). The development of this allusion to the empires of antiquity in both Britain and the United States from the seventeenth century onwards reflects the emphasis of classical education but also the significance of print culture. It is this mode of communication that formed what Habermas (1989) termed the ‘public sphere’ during this era and established a distinct historical discourse regarding Classical Greece and Ancient Rome. In this assessment, the development of art, industry, literature and bourgeoisie society from the 1700s created a critical arena where the role of individuals and the actions of authority were contested and negotiated (Habermas 1989: 27–29). Within this progressive ‘public sphere’, the importance of the classics for education was established, but the function of metaphors, allusions and similes to the ancient world as a corrective device was also maintained. Within political, media and public discourse from the later seventeenth century, to refer to emperors, Caesar, Rome, Athens or Byzantium as a means of critically

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defining the contemporary world, was to describe sloth, iniquity and veniality (see Edwards 1999). The sites and objects of antiquity are thereby unearthed in the present through terms and phrases to assert the primacy of contemporary society and its direction towards the future. The uses of the language of the past can be observed in Britain at the outset of the nineteenth century with the Napoleonic Wars. The French Emperor Napoleon (1769–1821) was castigated in the British newspapers for the imperial grandeur of his ambitions as, whilst styled as a ‘new Augustus’ in France, the moniker of a ‘modern Nero’ was applied in Britain. Every new advance, enactment or proclamation by the emperor was met with the same antiqueinspired derision: But whatever may have been the motives of this unwarrantable act, no new atrocity on the part of the modern Nero can excite our astonishment, although it must certainly provoke our honest indignation. (Royal Cornwall Gazette, Anon 1804) this modern Nero is amusing himself at Paris with balls and fetes, as though everything were in the best state of prosperity; and while his soldiers are writing by thousands in the agonies of death. (Northampton Mercury, Anon 1808)

The figures of corrupt emperors, the decadence of a civilization and its cruelty became a standard feature of public discourse during the nineteenth century as a means to highlight the strengths and deficiencies of the present. These references to antiquity are not paeans to the glories of Greece or Rome; they are indictments of contemporary politics, culture and society. Whilst this era witnessed the strengthening of the neoclassical tradition in art and architecture, which could appear to laud the virtues of the ancient world, these allusions emphasized the presence or the necessity of progress in the modern era (Richardson 2013). This process is reflected in the growth of museums in the nineteenth century as a means of educating and ‘cultivating’ the populace (Bennett 1995). For example, the British Museum, founded in London with the legacy of Hans Sloane (1660– 1753), served to evoke a sense of greatness for the modern city rather than playing out the tragedy of the fall of Athens or Rome: In our own metropolis are exhibited those very pieces which were the boast of antiquity, and the school of rival genius; a new Athens has arisen within the walls of the British Empire, open with becoming liberality to persons of every age, and sex, and nation. (Anon 1817: 108)

This association was heightened as the museum was transformed between 1825 and 1850 into a neoclassical structure through the design of Robert Smirke

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(1780–1867). An imposing façade of eight columns supporting a portico that greeted visitors from Great Russell Street was constructed to house the array of antiquities from the ancient civilizations. Indeed, with the tympanum of the portico decorated with an allegorical depiction of The Progress of Civilisation by Richard Westmacott (1775–1856), this was the declaration of the power of the present through the past. Whilst such a setting and the exhibits featured emphasized the simplicity of classical architecture, this was a display of improvement for the objects presented, for visitors and for wider society. A guidebook published to accompany the completion of Smirke’s design for the museum asked patrons to ponder the progression of the eras: Religion tames the savage; Paganism makes him a crouching sensualist; the Egyptian sees a God in the stars of heaven; and then the mathematician, the musician, the poet, and the painter set to work, and these prophets of mysterious beauties realise civilised mankind. (Blanchard Jerrold 1852: 6)

It is, therefore, within the references and allusions to the ruins of the past that the present observes itself and proclaims its own significance. This can be observed within the political sphere as debates in the Houses of Parliament were framed around the history of Greece and Rome during the nineteenth century (Butler 2012). The vestiges of these civilizations became terms of censure during this era as issues of progress and development were considered. For example, debates in the British Parliament regarding the civil disorder in Ireland regarding the traditional payments of tithes to the established Church, known as the Tithe War (1830–1836), were couched in terms of ancient empires, slavery and liberty: Such abominable laws as those connected with tithes in Ireland were never in force even in the worst days of the Roman empire [sic] – they were written in characters of blood, and more fit for the inhabitants of Barbary, than for a people calling themselves a nation of freemen. (HC Deb 8 February 1832 vol. 10 c.74)

The British policy in Ireland is thereby rendered cruel, barbaric and through an allusion to Ancient Rome. Similarly, the outbreak of the Anglo-Sikh War of 1846 between the British East India Company and the Sikh Empire also formed an opportunity to evoke the classics as a means of criticizing the behaviour witnessed within the Indian army: believed that the annals of even the Roman Empire, in its latter days, could produce no sensuality more debasing and degrading than that which seemed to have reigned in the camp of Lahore. (HC Deb 2 March 1846 vol. 84 c.405)

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Such is the use of the comparison between past and present that its application has no political hue, nor does it have an attachment to a specific ideology. Its function as part of the language of the past is to preserve a sense of advancement and to censure those who are regarded as deviating from that progression. Therefore, witnessing such debates in the British Parliament, engaging with an imperial context in both Ireland and India, the nineteenth-century analogy between ancient and current empires can be regarded as more than a simple piece of shorthand for politicians, journalists or authors. It represents a dynamic engagement with the past to assert the values of the present and the future. During a domestic context, the use of this allusion is also significant in the public sphere as a means by which the progression of society could be altered and redirected. During the 1840s, the issue of economic and electoral reform in Britain was based in asserting the necessity for modernization and the removal of the outmoded, inefficient and corrupt habits of the past. For example, the problem of gerrymandering or ‘rotten boroughs’, the practice of returning multiple Members of Parliament despite the absence of voters in the constituency, could be cast in the context of the ancient world: The magnitude which election vice has now attained in free and happy England dwarfs the political views of ancient Rome, and, in many instances, those of universal notoriety in this country before the passing of the Reform Bill. (Wexford Independent, Anon 1840a)

Such associations were also well used within the parliamentary and public debates regarding the highly contested Corn Laws which imposed high tariffs on imported grain in Britain to protect the profits of landowners from 1815 to 1846. Within Tory parliamentary commentary and conservative newspaper representation, the analogy of ‘Rome’ being overrun with barbarians was raised as a result of the removal of the protective tariffs in Britain (see Dalbiac 1841). The utility and need for the repeal of this market manipulation was stated by Liberal politicians and supportive newspapers through references to the venal practices of Roman emperors (see Thompson 1834: 56). These accounts might refer to the glory of Rome or Athens, but they would also emphasize an overt reference to the iniquities of government and the hierarchical nature of this classical past. The Anti-Corn Law League (1838–1846) drew upon the imagery of oppression and enslavement in the ancient world as a rationale for modernizing this legislation and ‘liberating’ the people (Prentice 1853). In this manner, allusions to antiquity serve as a lesson in civics, not out of regard for its achievements but through its association with regression as this reference is mobilized to pass comment on

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the present. This use of the ancient world in a critical capacity became a central part of the public sphere by the late nineteenth century. Politicians, industrialists or prominent figures could be framed within popular discourse as ‘acting like a Roman emperor’, presiding over a ‘ruined empire’ or the excesses and vice of ‘the last days of Rome’. This association can be observed in operation within the national and municipal politics of the United States during the latter half of the nineteenth century (see Malamud 2009). Corrupt politicians or the operation of party machines were framed as following ‘Roman’ practices and ideals. Indeed, William H. Tweed (1823–1878), who presided over the corrupt Democratic Party’s Tammany Hall operation in New York from the 1850s, was depicted in the opposition press as a decadent and dangerous Roman emperor. Driven by the work of the political cartoonist Thomas Nast, Tweed appeared dressed in imperial garb whilst watching the ‘Tammany Tiger’ devouring democracy in a coliseum (Nast 1871a). Tweed’s fall was also rendered in a classical scene with Tweed the broken emperor sitting amongst the ruins of his corruption (Nast 1871b). Cast within a classical setting, the downfall of Tweed and Tammany Hall could be referenced as ridding the city of a ‘new Caesar’ (Wingate 1876). Before ‘Boss Tweed’ was brought low through such ancient reference points, Nast also remarked upon the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson (1808–1875) in March 1869 as the downfall of a ‘bogus Caesar’ (Nast 1869). With the advent of mass political culture formed through industrialization and urbanization during the nineteenth century, it was the classical world that represented greed, excess and vice within the public sphere. References to these civilizations were also brought to bear on public morality in this era as observed with the trial of Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) in 1895 for gross indecency (Dowling 1994). Intriguingly, the association between ‘Hellenism’ and subversive behaviour that was widely reported during the trial served to as a damning indictment of modern culture but also the idea of progress and development for contemporary society in ‘Greek love’ (Roessel 2002: 170). Alongside such high-profile incidences, the metaphors, allusions and similes to Ancient Greece and Rome were developed through popular culture within Britain and the United States during the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras (Goldhill 2011). The novels and dramas of this period that were set in antiquity were frequently cast as assertions of contemporary values and morality. Largely Christian in tone, these works depict the sinful nature of authority which represses a minority religious, social or cultural group who are ultimately able to obtain their freedom (Barrett 1897; Bernard Shaw 1901; Sienkiewisz 1896;

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Wallace 1880). It is these scenes of corruption and ultimately progress against the forces of tradition that also became a key feature in the early cinematic depiction of Ancient Greece and Rome (Joshel et al. 2001). As the new medium of film developed in popularity, some of the earliest productions in Britain and the United States returned to the sites of antiquity to attract viewers (Wyke 1997). Adaptations of novels or dramas such as Ben Hur (1907), Julius Caesar (1908), Cleopatra (1917) and The King of Kings (1927) provided a modern setting of the cinema for accounts of a venal, ancient past. Whilst the subject matter of these films asserted the advancement of the modern age through the foibles and the failings of these historical eras, the cinemas showing these productions also took upon the titles of antiquity as a further evidence of progression from the classical world. From 1900 and throughout the twentieth century, cinemas in Britain and in the United States were adorned with the names or adapted monikers from the ancient world: ●

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Odeon Metropole Coliseum or colosseum Astoria Alexandria Lyceum Apollo Adelphi Corinthian Olympia Palaceum Tivoli Lyric Arcadia Capitol Empire Atheneum Hippodrome Palladium

Not only did these building bear the names of antiquity, they were also designed to mimic the sites of the ancient world as columns, porticos, friezes and architraves welcomed patrons to participate in a new mode of entertainment within the setting of the past. This was perhaps a continuation of the neoclassical theatre

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designs of the eighteenth century but the media displayed within these buildings demonstrated a particular relationship to the past. For example, in May 1911 the Olympia Electric Theatre was opened in Chichester in southern England, attracting large crowds to watch the latest innovations in film (Figure 3.3). The building was appropriately decorated within the neoclassical tradition with an

Figure 3.3 Olympia Electric Theatre, Chichester, 2015.

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ornate tympanum and advertised to investors and attendees as an innovation in leisure time in the city (Portsmouth Evening News, Anon 1910). The past is claimed as modern through this process – improved upon and cultivated until it is equated with progress. These physical and titular references to the ancient world serve to demonstrate the advancement of the present into the future. The continuing use of the civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome within cinema after the Second World War, in films such as Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), Julius Caesar (1953), The Robe (1953), Ben-Hur (1959) and Spartacus (1960), ensured that these eras maintained a purpose within contemporary society of reflecting progressive values in the present. These ‘swords and sandals’ epics, filmed in the wide-angled CinemaScope or Technirama and suffused with the richness of Technicolor, provided a stage upon which the opulence and grandeur of antiquity could be observed alongside its social, moral and political corruption (see Wyke 1997). With these settings, the references to the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome in a wider context acted as rebuke to those who appeared to be deviating from the inexorable path towards advancement. With the rise of the social welfare state in Britain after 1945 and a gradually permissive society, the comparison of a perceived decay within current society could be made with the allusion of the failings of the ancient world. Public figures within the political, social and religious sphere responded to perceived shifts in society’s values by invoking the shortcomings of antiquity: Bishop Southwell … draws a parallel between the contemporary social scene and the decline of the ancient civilisation … the Roman Empire … had become … an organised conspiracy among all classes of society to get something for nothing. (Nottingham Evening Post, Anon 1948) The symptoms which led to the final disintegration of the Roman Empire to be found in the modern world … the reduction of families, the abandonment of the countryside … mass unemployment and the doling out of free bread. (Western Morning News, Anon 1950)

Within Britain, the allusion to the decadence and failure of the Roman Empire and of Classical Greece was also a significant feature of the debates surrounding the legalization of homosexuality which culminated in the passing of the Sexual Offences Act 1967. Debates within Parliament focused not just on the historical precedence for homosexuality in antiquity, but on the potential for the disintegration of society in a comparable manner to the fall of the ancient Mediterranean civilizations. For example, during discussions on the 1958 report on ‘Homosexual Offences and Prostitution’, Members of Parliament

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were encouraged to look upon the ruins of Ancient Greece as a symbol of what could befall the nation if they were to condone this sexual activity (HC Deb. 26 November 1958 vol. 596 c.429). What is notable in these debates is the manner in which the present and future were argued for in the context of the past. Indeed, the Conservative politician William Shepherd (1910–2002) warned colleagues in Parliament of the dangers for society for such permissiveness by evoking the ancient world: In the fifth century B.C., in Greece there was a great outburst of what we would call pederast activity, which the Greeks called homosexual activity, somewhat confusingly … If one goes to almost any degenerate period in history, one sees the great upsurge of homosexuality. (HC Deb. 11 February 1966 vol. 724 c.818)

Whilst the past served as a point of critique in the face of change, demonstrating the failures of history and the necessity for improvement, this heritage was also used to affirm the nature of progress by asserting the development of the modern era. In this manner, Ancient Greece and Rome were forwarded as a point by which current society could improve upon (see HL Deb. 12 May 1965 vol. 266 c.94). As such, the past itself possesses no innate quality that serves to define it for one agenda or another; its usefulness is to serve as a foil by which the present can assert its own significance. This is the purpose of the historical discourse and it is through the reference to the civilizations of Greece and Rome that the advancement of the modern age is maintained. In effect, this is an aspect of the heritage of the ancient world as allusions, metaphors and similes connected to this past are ‘unearthed’ and displayed to highlight the condition of contemporary life. As such, when issues of authority, liberty, morality and identity are discussed in current society, it is through the association of Greece and Rome (see Wyke 2012). This can be observed particularly in the context of international politics, where a critical media and political opposition can use this discourse to assess the actions of public figures to be deficient or deleterious (see Wyke 2006: 315). For example, the policies of US President George W. Bush, who held office between 2001 and 2008, and President Barack Obama, who has held office since 2009, can be cited negatively with such classical allusions: President George W. Bush with the power to order an American invasion of Iraq whenever it occurred to him to do so, for whatever reason he might deem glorious or convenient. Akin to the ancient Roman practice of enthroning a dictator at moments of severe crisis. (Harper’s Magazine, Lapham 2002) No wonder President George W. Bush has the air of Julius Caesar about him. (The Mirror, Parry 2003)

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Like a latter-day Roman emperor sitting in life-or-death judgment on his gladiators, Obama then pronounces on the fate of each suspect. (Daily Mail, Harnden 2012) If ‘Emperor Obama’ ignores the American people and announces an amnesty plan that he himself has said over and over again exceeds his constitutional authority. (Time, Rogers 2014)

To be accused of acting ‘like a Roman emperor’ or associated with Caesar, Augustus, Nero or Caligula is to be cast outside the modern era and into a period that significantly does not convey a sense of progress and advancement. The abuse of power, the dereliction of duty and the irresponsibility of government, therefore, appear to wear the appearance of a classical garb within the language of the past. The presence of the ancient world within the modern is quite striking in this respect. Its ruin and its failure provide a point by which contemporary society can demonstrate its ability to improve upon the past. In this manner, any public figure may be regarded within these references to demonstrate their inappropriate status for the modern world. Such a perception does not rely on a specific quality of antiquity; it is formed through a sense of maintaining or policing progress in the present. Whilst the association with the civilizations of Greece and Rome bears cultural significance so that society can speak of the grandeur and wonder of these cultures, it is in the use of these eras as points of allusion that we can observe the relationship between the past and the present. We reference the ancient world so much within contemporary society not because of its history but because it evidences the advancement of modernity.

Conclusions The civilizations of Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome are regarded as the basis of Western culture. However, the value of these cultures within contemporary society cannot be regarded in such straightforward terms. With the discovery, invention or recovery of these cultures during the modern era, a means of stressing the present through the association with the ancient world can be observed. From the emergence of a print culture during the seventeenth century, references, allusions and metaphors to Babylon, Rome or Athens can be witnessed as a means by which a modern world is shaped and directed towards the future. In this manner, the past is regarded as backward, deficient or in need of development. Therefore, Ancient Mesopotamia can be observed on the streets of early twentieth-century New York whilst it also functions within

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contemporary debates regarding urban planning and policy as it represents a site of improvement. Pharaonic Egypt is resurrected through visual culture within the modern period as it reinforces a sense of advancement for contemporary audiences. Whilst the era of Greece and Rome is enacted within a current political setting as it highlights the anachronisms, corruption or cruelty of present-day leaders. The ancient world is used for these purposes not because it possesses some universal lessons regarding the nature of humanity. It is because of the status of the past within current society – broken, inefficient, dangerous and the means by which the stability and progress of the future can be asserted.

4

The Medieval World

Introductory The medieval period or the ‘Middle Ages’ (500–1500 CE) has been regarded within the Western world as the era that witnessed the formation of modern concepts of nation states, global capitalism and systems of government (Gossman 1968). From the emergence of the early medieval kingdoms in Western Europe after the end of the Roman Empire, the formation of intellectual, literary and cultural traditions in response to technological advances and the growth of administrative and legislative principles to adjust to international trade, this period has been assessed as a formative point for contemporary, Western society (Bloch and Nichols 1996). From extolling the virtues of the architecture of the period, admiring the achievements of medieval theologians and celebrating the poetry, drama and music of the Middle Ages, this is seemingly a history that is respected and cherished. Indeed, the enduring popularity of castles, palaces and historic cities for tourists would indicate a revered status for the medieval period. However, in recent years scholars have assessed the cultural value and social significance of the ‘Middle Ages’ within contemporary society (see Biddick 1998; Ortenberg 2006). This study of ‘medievalism’ has examined how the ‘medieval’ has been used within art, cultural and literature from the eighteenth century to the present day (see Alexander 2007; Ashton 2015). This assessment has demonstrated how the period of medieval European history has been consistently rediscovered in the modern era as a means of establishing national identity, moral virtue, aesthetics and political idealism (Camille 2009; Chandler 1970). The manner in which aspects of medieval culture have been ‘reinvented’ in this process would appear to assert the value of this age for contemporary society (Pugh and Weisl 2012). However, what is apparent in the way in which aspects of the ‘Middle Ages’ are referenced is the reliance on the assumption of past inferiority, present-day advances and future expectations (after Eco 1976:

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82). Within the language of the past, the medieval is cast as an infantile, brutish version of the contemporary world. The enduring fascination with this period can, therefore, be regarded as a consequence of a drive to affirm the advances of the present rather than the achievements of the past. Therefore, the significance of the medieval world for contemporary reference is in its failure. Whilst we may directly regard the period with admiration and concern, as a metaphor, analogy or simile, we do not necessarily consider the wonders of the age rather we seek to use this era as a device to highlight deficiencies in the present and guide our future progress. The status of the medieval world as a ‘pre-modern’ society ensures that it becomes associated with anachronism and crudity. The means by which we discuss this era through reference and allusion stresses a sense of detachment from the past and a degree of progress and acceleration within the present. The medieval world is used to reflect the advances of the modern. Despite the seemingly valued place of the culture of the Middle Ages, it is the association with inadequacy, inadaptability and ineptitude that is brought to bear in referencing this past. This discourse does not arise from a particular event, attitude or quality of the past, but rather an attitude of the present. In the process of stressing the contemporary and the future, the past becomes a point to avoid or to improve upon. The means of referring to the ‘medieval’ in the language of the past achieves these aims as it separates and frames the medieval world as distant and potentially disruptive. Describing an individual, action or event within this historical context acts as warning. To unearth the ‘Middle Ages’ through terms or phrases in the current age indicates a threat to the advances of modernity. It is in this sense that the medieval world haunts contemporary society. This presence of the past continues as it is employed as a corrective term to ensure and maintain progress. The medieval in the contemporary world is so pervasive because we use it to stress how modern we are.

The medieval, the Middle Ages and the Dark Ages The delineation of eras and chronological periods for the study of the postRoman world was a product of the antiquarian study of the seventeenth century which sought to classify the cultures and societies that shaped European political and national cultures. Within Britain, the study and cataloguing of coins, pottery and earthworks from seemingly ancient pasts after the end of Roman rule formed a particular mode of engagement with the period. In the absence

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of written history, beyond the chronicles from monastic scholars such as Bede (672–735 CE) and Gildas (516–570 CE), the era appeared to contrast sharply with the records and documents inherited from the Roman period. Such was this lacuna that the Oxford antiquarian Anthony Wood (1632–1695) was moved to remark in Athenae Oxonienses, his history of the writers and Bishops of the Oxford colleges, that this was a very peculiar time: Afterwards when the Northern Nations invaded Europe, and the Saxons at last seated themselves in Britain: all Arts and Sciences fell in the ruin of the Roman Empire, and from whence commenc’d the dark Age of Barbarity, Superstition and Ignorance. (Wood 1692: ii)

Such assessments provided a framework of reference and a means of understanding the physical remains discovered across the country by antiquarians. Rather than forming a vague term of classification it also reflected the judgement of the era of one dominated by false idols, ridiculous beliefs and arcane practices (see Innes 1729). As such, the notion of the ‘Dark Ages’ also became a means by which opposition to the Catholic Church could be stressed within England, as a metaphor to demonstrate the irreligious practices of Rome (Sharpe 1718; Wells 1707). In this manner, the ‘Dark Age’ could also refer to England before the Reformation as it could to the perceived ‘misrule’ and heretical teachings of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church (Bingham 1719). Whether used as a point of religious comparison or as a scholarly historical term, it denoted a derogatory assessment of the object of analysis. Indeed, the English historian Bevil Higgons (1670–1735) examined the status of knowledge after the end of Roman rule in Britain to be based upon ‘lazy Monks in the dark Age when the Ignorance of Mankind made them capable of believing any absurdity’ (Higgons 1727: 5). As such, by the latter half of the eighteenth century, the ‘Dark Ages’ served historians and antiquarians as a term by which they could ascribe to a broad period or geographic region that suffered a dearth of historical texts (see Kimber 1746). However, the utility of the ‘Dark Ages’ as a term within these accounts derives from a sense of current improvement just as much as it remarks upon a sense of decline from the Roman world. In this reasoning, to have emerged from the ‘Dark Ages’ evidences the achievements of the age and historical accounts that detail such a transition emphasized this progression (see Henry 1774). In keeping with this usage of the term, the significance of references and allusions to the ‘Dark Ages’ within the wider political sphere of the late eighteenth century also reiterated the sense of a current state of improvement in contrast to a barbaric era. For example, reflecting

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upon the era of revolutions in the late nineteenth century, with France, Haiti and the United States all experiencing upheaval, Richard Price (1723–1791), the Welsh non-conformist preacher, affirmed the principle of progression and the advances of modern society to emerge from the ‘Dark Ages’: A dark age may follow an enlightened age; but, in this case, the light, after being smothered for a time, will break out again with a brighter lustre. (Price 1785: 4)

The notion of contemporary improvement through the term the ‘Dark Ages’ thereby reassures the present of its own status as advanced. This can be observed in the aftermath of the American War of Independence, as politicians and patriotic ministers assured the new republic of its newly won status as a progression from British colonial rule. Samuel Blair (1741–1818), the Presbyterian chaplain of the United States House of Representatives, spoke in 1792 of the need for advancement into the future to avoid the past as the liberties won from Britain appeared to be threatened: The dark ages, as they are called, were emphatically the torpor of the human race, the sleep, in which every horrid and disgustful dream tortured and disfigured the perverted mind. (Blair 1798: 211–212)

In a period of development and progression, the fear of the ‘Dark Ages’ became all apparent as it threatened to negate the achievements of society. It was this notion of the ‘Dark Ages’, a period before the advances of the present, that became a central part of popular culture and intellectualism during this era (Burke 1767; Walpole 1769). Therefore, by 1800 to regard something as of the ‘Dark Ages’, regardless of whether it was a historical period, religious nonconformist, political opponent or the current social milieu, was to associate it with disruption, disintegration and despair. This aspect of the language of the past that references historical periods in this manner serves to emphasize the present and its separation from this history. Such uses of this allusion can be noted in the early nineteenth century in Britain as the term is applied to a series of issues to debate the direction of society. One of the most prominent of these was the process of Catholic emancipation, where civil restrictions on practicing Catholics which had been present in England since the Reformation in the sixteenth century were gradually ameliorated. This culminated in the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829 which enabled Catholics elected in their constituencies to take a seat in Parliament. What marked these arguments regarding how contemporary society should be structured is the reference to the past. Providing greater representation for this religious minority, or, continuing

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the controls of a presumed dissident group was framed with allusion to the ‘Dark Ages’. The political, religious and media representation of this issue assessed the prevalence of bigotry or the need for stability through the use of the ‘Dark Ages’. For example, addressing his Bristol congregation in 1813 the evangelical Reverend William Thorp (1772–1833) remarked that allowing such measures would ensure a return to a barbaric past: Popery … hath ever been the ally of despotism, both during the dark ages and since the reformation, while Protestantism has been the guardian angel of civil liberty. (Thorp 1813: 25)

The same theme was explored by the Reverend George Burges (1764–1853) in his Norfolk parish who argued that a degree of religious toleration for Catholics would usher in a ‘dark age’ where ‘the crozier (would) … triumph over the crown’ (Burges 1813: 38). Throughout the early 1800s, similar concerns were expressed by religious and political commentators that a new ‘dark age’ would descend in response to Catholic emancipation in Britain (Bagnall 1829). This ‘Catholic Question’ was also rehearsed within the local and national newspapers during this era. This was also framed as a return to an era of superstition and falsehoods with a descent into a ‘dark age’ if emancipation was successful (Anon 1826; Anon 1829). Within Parliament, a return to the ‘Dark Ages’ was palpable in the debates regarding Catholic emancipation in the early nineteenth century; regularly invoked as a reference, the period served to act as a criticism or warning against any perceived threat to the progression of society. Arguments for and against the measure were constructed through this language of the past. For example, the Scottish politician, Lord Binning (1780–1858), asserted in 1812 that the restrictions as they stand were a product of a bygone age: It is for the Catholics alone all our illiberality [sic] is reserved; they alone are unchangeable; with all the vices of their ancestors, and all their own to answer for, emerged in all the bigotry of the dark ages, and therefore unworthy of credit or countenance in the present day. (HC Deb 23 April 1812 vol. 22 c.817)

In contrast, the English Tory Parliamentarian Sir Robert Inglis (1786–1855), a staunch supporter of the Church of England, could offer a damning indictment of ‘popish’ practices through the same historical reference: that church is at this day as grasping, as despotic, as exclusive, as in those ages, which by an unnecessary courtesy to the present, so far as Rome is concerned, we call the dark ages. (HC Deb 10 May 1825 vol. 13 c.498)

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As such, the ‘Dark Ages’ become a means by which the progress and direction of society in the present day could be gauged. As British society responded to the pressures for change in the early nineteenth century, it was through the reference to the past that this progress was regarded and assessed. The same allusion to the ‘Dark Ages’ can also be noted in the campaigns during the same periods in both the United States and Britain to abolish the trade of enslaved peoples. Such conveyances were undertaken to emphasize the corrupting nature of this practice and the regressive effects it had for society (see Channing 1836: 162; Treadwell 1838: 280). Indeed, anti-slavery societies in New England in the 1830s would frequently characterize the practice of enslavement as a ‘relic’ of the ‘Dark Ages’ (see Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society 1836). In the same manner, the English Baptist minister Benjamin Godwin (1785–1871) would use the past to chastize the present and its presumed notions of development: What a strange and afflicting state of society is here presented to our view! And that, not in the dark ages of ignorance and barbarity, but in the Nineteenth century, amidst the wide diffusion of knowledge, the numerous and everincreasing plans of benevolence, and the strong professions of liberality, which mark the present age! (Goodwin 1836: 50)

In this usage, the ‘Dark Ages’ represent a barbarous period that contrasts with the enlightened status of the later era. The existence of these brutal historical remnants in the present, therefore, represents a source of stagnation and degeneration. The progress of society has been halted in this allusion. The use of this language of the past to address various issues of reform and change within society evidences the way in which the processes of modernity stresses development and advancement from the past into the future. A similar use of the terms ‘medieval’ and the ‘Middle Ages’ can also be noted during this period as the reference to this historical era provided a means of stressing present-day advances. Whilst the etymology of these particular classifications can be traced to the 1400s, the use of such divisions within a scholarly, political and popular sphere was a result of the rise of antiquarianism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The study of the literature, architecture and culture of the post-Roman world within Britain and Europe had formed ‘medieval’ and ‘Middle Ages’ as a vocabulary to emphasize the status of the present and its development. In Britain, by the seventeenth century, the use of ‘Middle Ages’ referred to the formative development of national cultures, an infancy from which the modern era had emerged (see Heylyn 1633; Horseman 1685). However, it is within the eighteenth century that reference to the ‘Middle Ages’

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accrued social and cultural relevance through its use by theologians, historians and antiquarians as a means of stressing development and progress (Mortimer 1764; Potter 1740). For scholars, this was an era of waste, inefficiency and brutality: It is well known, that, during the middle ages of Christianity, the Western world was disturbed by a long succession of war and rapine. Almost all the nations of the earth were then in motion; as if one general spirit of discontent agitated them all, and made them thirst after others’ lives and possessions. (Bever 1781: 586)

The ‘Middle Ages’ formed a means by which the advancement of contemporary society could be highlighted: ‘its progress from rudeness to refinement’ (Stuart 1778). Whilst constituting an inferior era, the ‘Middle Ages’ also attracted a sense of romance for its status: the ruined castles, crumbling monasteries and legends of heroism and endeavour spurred a whole genre of literature. This is reflected in the publication of the manuscripts supposedly written by the early medieval poet Ossian, but actually written by the Scottish author and politician James Macpherson (1736–1796) (Macpherson 1760). Indeed, the ‘Romantic’ tradition within English literature was formed in relation to this era, as poets and authors regarded the piles of stones from the ‘Middle Ages’ as an appropriate setting to depict the maelstrom of the modern age (Wordsworth and Coleridge 1798). Such renderings of this historical era can also be regarded within the novels of the Scottish author Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) who drew upon antiquarian studies and the literature and legends of the period. Works such as Ivanhoe (1819), The Monastery (1820), Kenilworth (1821) and The Betrothed (1825), which were all set between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries, emphasized the importance of maintaining noble, chivalric qualities of endurance, morality and honour within a brutal, corrupting world. Similarly, Charles Reade’s (1818– 1884) highly popular novel The Cloister and the Hearth (Reade 1862) explored the notion of duty and obligation in a dangerous period. The perception that the era marked a crude period in society’s development within Britain, the position of this history as a ‘national’ story and the epic qualities of the romantic literature inspired by this past enabled the reference and allusion to the ‘Middle Ages’ to assume the qualities of a corrective element and a point of criticism within nineteenth-century political and public discourse. To use the term as a metaphor or allusion to an individual, object, place or practice could, therefore, denote its inability to assume a place within the modern world or to emphasize the dislocation of contemporary society from the improving qualities of the past. In an era of a rapidly changing social, political and industrial landscape,

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the future and direction of British society was formed and reformed during the nineteenth century through referencing the ‘Middle Ages’ (see Playfair 1805). The development of the term ‘medieval’ was also central to this process as this definition that emerged from the scholarly assessment of the historical period was in use by the early nineteenth century to refer to the transitional period from the ‘Classical Era’ to the present day. ‘Medieval’ as a modern Latin translation of the ‘Middle Ages’ was coined in the 1800s as a classificatory designation in the study of the culture, aesthetics and society of the past (see Lee 1801). The growing interest in the Romantic Movement within literature and the revival of the ‘Gothic’ style of architecture in Britain and throughout Europe during the early nineteenth century ensured that the historical era of the ‘medieval period’ and the ‘Middle Ages’ was becoming increasingly present. Augustus Pugin (1812–1852), the English architect who led the Gothic Revival that saw the urban landscape of Britain transformed during the nineteenth century, regarded the artistry of the period as an uplifting presence which could address the ills of Victorian Britain: Such effects as these can only be produced on the mind by buildings, the composition of which has emanated from men who were thoroughly embued [sic] with devotion for, and faith in, the religion for whose worship they were erected. (Pugin 1836: 2)

In this manner, the ecclesiastical architecture of the Middle Ages served as a reference point for religious, national and civic architecture in the nineteenth century. As the processes of urbanization and industrialization had removed society from its ‘traditional’ bearings, this ‘medieval’ would serve to stabilize the nation (Pugin 1841). Such a direct reference to the historical period can also be noted in the work of the art critic and political campaigner John Ruskin (1819–1900). The artists patronized by Ruskin, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882), John Everett Millais (1829–1896) and William Holman Hunt (1827–1910), referred to medieval themes and designs in their work as a means of returning to a ‘truthful’ rendering of beauty (Ruskin 1851). However, far from forming some reactionary nostalgia, this notion of the ‘medieval’ was mobilized as a means of improving the present and guiding its progress (Ruskin 1854: 4–5). The notion of ‘honesty’, ‘virtue’ and ‘truth’ presented within the romantic imagination fuelled the transition of this ostensibly aesthetic movement into a political movement as reformers heralded the connection with labour that had been evaporated by mechanization and mass production (Ruskin 1862). This was a desire to correct the excesses of industrialized society through

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the improvement of ‘medieval’ traditions not to replace one mode of brutal oppression with another: We don’t want either the life or the decorations of the thirteenth century back again; and the circumstances with which you must surround your workmen are those simply of happy modern English life … All that gorgeousness of the middle ages, beautiful as it sounds in description, noble as in many respects it was in reality, had, nevertheless, for foundation and for end, nothing but the pride of life … which supported itself by violence and robbery, and led in the end to the destruction both of the arts themselves and the States in which they nourished. (Ruskin 1859: 25)

Therefore, what was required was a fusion of the labour traditions of the Middle Ages with the social and political advances of the modern age. By the mid-nineteenth century, the association of medievalism with a particularly ‘English’ socialism was present within intellectual discourse and expressed most clearly within the writings and designs of William Morris (see Morris 1858). For Morris, the era represented a mode of existence which ensured that individuals were neither alienated from each other nor from their work (Morris 1884). As such, the ‘Arts and Crafts’ movement that developed under Morris and referenced medieval designs and ornamentation was not an insistence on a fabricated, imagined past of the ‘Middle Ages’ but a point of improvement for the present and the future (Morris 1893). Indeed, Morris sets his utopian vision of society as an improvement upon medieval principles by forming a socialist community (Morris 1891). Therefore, to be cast as ‘medieval’ or possessing qualities of the ‘Middle Ages’ during the latter half of the nineteenth century provides both a description of idealism and also a site of development for contemporary society (Ashbee 1906). These associations formed a focus for the emergence of ‘Christian Socialism’ in Britain from the 1850s onwards where the piety of the medieval era was stressed alongside the modern relationship to labour (Jarrett 1913; Ludlow 1851). This analogy was also used as the basis of the early formation of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ conception of communism, as the ‘medieval’ era was used to assail the modern era for its failures to progress the lives of its citizens. In Engels’s study of conditions of the working classes in England, the past serves as a means to indict the present: In short there is little to choose between the position of the medieval serf and the free worker of the present day. If anything, the situation of the factory operative is less enviable than that of the medieval serf. (Engels 1845: 208)

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Therefore, the terms of ‘medieval’, the ‘Middle Ages’ or the ‘Dark Ages’ were used by scholars, architects and artists as a means to chart the direction or form the status of contemporary society in the late nineteenth century; within the wider political and public sphere the association was also used to guide and structure the present. The denotations became used as a metaphor or allusion for politicians and commentators to emphasize the presence or absence of development as well as the nature of that development. Whether used to clarify economic, political or social elements, the historical frame of reference reinforces a sense of progress and direction. For example, debates in the British Parliament during the 1840s frequently drew upon the ‘Middle Ages’ as a qualifying term to emphasize the anachronism of policy and practice. In the debates regarding governmental structures or religious reform in Ireland and the effects of the Irish Famine (1845–1852), the era served as a reference point to admonish the present and reorientate society towards the future. Sir James Tennant (1804–1869), Tory Member of Parliament for Belfast, regarded municipal changes in Ireland as an indicator of a departure from the past: It was contrary to all experience to say that institutions and forms of municipal government, which might have been very necessary during the middle ages, and very suitable to a turbulent state of society, in which commerce was insecure and social relations undefined, must as a matter of course be indispensable or even applicable to the same objects now. (HC Deb 9 March 1840 vol. 52 c.1061).

Similarly, Richard Milnes (1809–1885), Tory Member of Parliament for Pontefract in Yorkshire, argued in a debate regarding civil unrest in Ireland that the nation’s Catholicism could be regarded as a relic that could be ameliorated in time to ensure a stable rule of law across the British Isles: It had been well said during that debate, as well as on other occasions, that the Irish people were by far the most religious people in the world – that, even in the present incredulous age, they remained firmly and sincerely attached to the faith of their forefathers, and that they continue to be, as it were, a great remnant of the Middle Ages which time had left behind. (HC Deb 19 February 1844 vol. 72 c.1162)

The function of this reference as a point of rebuke can be observed in the debates regarding financial reform in the wake of the famine in Ireland. Edward Cardwell (1813–1886), whilst Liberal Member of Parliament for Liverpool, implored his fellow Parliamentarians to regard the scale of suffering as akin to a far more brutal period of human existence: Whilst you are in the act of performing this, before you yet feel the pressure severely, what comes upon you? One of the greatest calamities that ever

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afflicted any country in the world; one which the noble Lord at the head of the Government told us revived in the present day the mournful recollections of the Middle Ages. (HC Deb 10 May 1847 vol. 92 c.629)

Certainly, the form of this historical discourse with reference to the colonial policy in Ireland emphasizes the presumed ‘antiquated’ status of the country’s institutions and thereby the necessity of rule from London. However, it also emphasizes how the concepts of the ‘Middle Ages’ are used to direct and debate the nature of progress within this era. The reconstruction of the Palace of Westminster from 1840 after a devastating fire was undertaken within the Gothic Revival style under the influence of Augustus Pugin, providing a suitable setting for the return of the ‘medieval era’ within British politics (Figure 4.1). Indeed, debates regarding the pursuit of the Crimean War (1854–1856) resorted to accusations that the imperial conflict with Russia had seen the British army reduced to a pitiable level of organization and existence with a direct parallel with the medieval past. Augustus Stafford, Tory Member of Parliament for Northamptonshire, spoke to Parliament of the abject condition of the British army during debates in January 1855: A French officer, alluding to our Commissariat and other departments, remarked to him that we seemed to follow the system of the middle ages rather than

Figure 4.1 Palace of Westminster, London, 2015.

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the principles of modern military science. (HC Deb 29 January 1855 vol. 136 c.1131–1132)

The potential enlistment of foreign mercenaries into the ranks of the British army to support the war effort was also met with an accusation of a reversion to an ignoble era. Edward Ball (1806–1884), Tory Member of Parliament for Cambridgeshire, questioned the loyalty of such troops and the suitability of such schemes of the present-day armed forces: The noble Lord … might quote the precedents of past times in favour of it … back to the Middle Ages … but as civilisation advanced, nations and Governments were endeavouring to improve the customs under which war was carried on. (HC Deb 19 December 1854 vol. 136 c.550)

Such references were also undertaken within a growing concern in Britain to preserve and present the buildings and artefacts of the medieval period to the public. The Medieval Court in the Great Exhibition of 1851, which displayed the finest modern renditions of Gothic Revival art and architecture, cultivated a concern for the formation of a permanent collection of this work. The opening of the South Kensington Museum in 1854, which became the Victoria and Albert Museum in the late nineteenth century, provided a focus for design and industry and served as an ideal centre for propagating this artistic style (Fergusson 1857). The museum provided a focus for the ‘pilgrims’ of England in the 1850s to ‘make use of a beautiful medieval myth’ but for the purposes of the future (BeresfordHope 1858). The use of the medieval to guide the progress of Victorian society was also present within the literature of the period. Themes and settings derived from medieval legend and romance which served as thinly veiled allusions to the political, cultural and industrial changes within nineteenth-century Britain were provided by authors and poets such as Robert Browning (1812–1889), Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) and Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–1882). For these authors, the medieval was a source of stability in the tumultuous present; works such as Tennyson’s Idylls of the King (1859) provided an affirmation of the progress and direction of contemporary Victorian society through a medieval reference. Similarly, Charles Kingsley’s Hereward the Wake (1866), set in the tumultuous era after the Norman conquest, emphasized nobility and stability in the face of change. In the context of the scientific advances of the latter nineteenth century, which saw the introduction of the railways as well as the beginnings of electrification, the ‘Middle Ages’ acted as a point through which the future could be shaped.

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Therefore, by the end of the nineteenth century in Britain, to refer to the appearance of the ‘medieval’ within contemporary society was both a condemnation for the failure to adapt and advance as well as a means by which the modern age could improve. Indeed, the two central characters in Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) use the physical form of the medieval era to reference the strict moral code that they endure in the present: The cathedral has had its day! How modern you are! So would you be if you had lived so much in the Middle Ages as I have done …. (Hardy 1895: 158)

The development of new technological forms by the turn of the twentieth century had ensured that acceleration and speed became the defining quality of the present day. As such, whilst the art and aesthetics of the era of the ‘Middle Ages’ formed the basis for social change in the 1800s, by the early 1900s it was the squalor, deprivation and inefficient nature of the medieval period that served as a reference to inform and direct the modern era. When confronted with the remnants of the medieval past, the response from the present was to develop and move beyond the associations of a distant, undeveloped age. It was in the cities particularly that a desire to move beyond the ‘Middle Ages’ was most clearly expressed as the capacity of housing, transportation and sanitation was deemed inadequate. A commentator in the conservative magazine The Spectator remarked in 1899 regarding cities in Britain: These were well enough under mediaeval conditions, but they are singularly ill-fitted for the needs of modern life. Yet in such places as Sheffield, Leeds, Birmingham, Salford, the majority of the streets are mere dingy lanes, some of them congested with traffic, all of them with a vitiated atmosphere, where influenza and tuberculosis find their victims with a fatal ease. (Anon 1899: 9)

From London, Manchester and Glasgow to the cities of New York, Boston and Chicago, the ‘medieval’ city was imagined by reformers, charities and politicians as persisting within the modern as a damnation of the presumed advances of the new age. Within reports in Britain and the United States, buildings, plumbing, streets and people were described as being from the ‘Middle Ages’ or ‘medieval’. Indeed, the profusion of ‘tenement’ housing in the United States, whose name derives from the medieval practice of subdividing buildings into accommodation, provided a further reference point to the past. The density of cities like New York and Chicago was cast as evidence of the existence of the past

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deforming the progress of the modern; the Belgian-born, American physician Felix Oswald (1845–1906) described this as ‘the mists of the middle ages still linger’ (Oswald 1904: 312). For reformers, in both the United States and Britain this particular reference to the past represented a failure of the present and a portent to what might befall the current era if this decline was not addressed: … where we find medieval conditions prevailing, we look upon them not as a misfortune simply, but as a result of criminal neglect and ignorance. (Bailey 1906: 213)

The institutions of the metropolis, including schools, hospitals and jails, were also phrased in the same context as possessing a character or quality from the ‘Middle Ages’. This allusion served to emphasize the need for reform and development. For example, New York Governor William Sulzer (1863–1941) spoke to the State Senate of the need of replacing the state’s major jail facility of Sing Sing, north of New York, as the current site fell below expectations of a modern age, a relic ‘of the horrors and inhumanity of the middle ages’ (Sulzer 1914: 165). It is during this period that the metaphorical use of this past to direct the present can be most clearly seen in the ‘invention’ of the ‘medieval slum’, ‘medieval squalor’ and the ‘medieval ghetto’. Rather than constituting an aspect of the historical era itself, these associations are formed from the perception of the past from a modern standpoint, of stressing distance and separation and emphasizing the need for acceleration and development. All three of these categories began to be observed within the early twentieth-century city by reformers and campaigners as they sought to establish a rationale for addressing the problems of the city. In this manner, during the 1920s and 1930s, the urban centres of Britain were judged on the basis of their ‘antiquated’ living conditions as populations were removed from their homes in a programme of slum clearances. Whilst destroying significant aspects of the historical environment, such actions reinforced the perception of the historical period as a threatening influence on the present (Quigly and Goldie 1934). Rescuing individuals from the medieval ‘slums’ and ‘squalor’ emphasized the progressive nature of society and this was reflected in the provisions of the Housing Acts passed by Parliament in 1924 and 1930. Slum clearances in Gateshead, Exeter, Plymouth, York, Gloucester, Aberdeen and Edinburgh modernized towns and cities, altering living conditions as well as the passage of thoroughfares to accommodate new modes of transportation. Therefore, to be regarded as ‘medieval’, whether literally, or, figuratively, seemingly constituted an affront to the mores and values of present-day society.

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The same concern can be seen in the formation of the ‘medieval ghetto’ within the political discourse in the United States in the early twentieth century, where allusions to the historical era operated to encourage the formation of public housing policies by highlighting the regression of urban populations to a far more brutal state of existence (see National Housing Association 1931). In the 1935 Senate Hearing on ‘Slum Housing’, the house heard that the nation had been ‘medieval’ in its approach to providing for its citizens (United States Congress 1935: 24). This usage of the historical discourse in this regard is intended to ensure a sense of progress and direction (see Ascher 1934). Such concerns can also be witnessed in the use of the ‘medieval ghetto’ within the social surveys of the era associated with the development of the Chicago School of Sociology. Scholars such as Louis Wirth (1897–1952) and Harvey Zorbaugh (1896–1965) examined the streets of Chicago for the processes of civilization and within the low-cost, immigrant neighbourhoods, the ‘medieval’ was observed to be functioning in the present to the detriment of society: Maxwell Street, the ghetto’s great outdoor market, is full of colour, action, shouts, odours, and dirt. It resembles a medieval European fair more than the market of a great city of today. (Wirth 1928: 232) Most of the foreign colonies in American cities are after the pattern of the medieval ghetto especially the Negro quarters or black belts, the Chinatowns and the Little Italies. They have their own traditions and customs are their own regulations and laws to which the Mafia and Tong wars bear evidence. (Zorbaugh 1929: 140)

The regard for reform within society during the twentieth century is thereby intimately entwined with the desire to escape the ‘medieval conditions’ of the past. The allusion that casts contemporary practices as evident of the ‘Middle Ages’ operates to drive society forward. Indeed, during the Great Depression in the United States after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the various programmes initiated to stimulate the economy or to provide for individuals were undertaken to address the ‘medieval’ conditions in modern America. Harold Ickes (1874– 1952), Public Works Administrator for the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945), decried the state of housing in Brooklyn in 1936 as ‘medieval squalor’ (Anon 1936). Similarly, commentators highlighted the absence of an advance from ‘medieval times’ as a key reason for the failure of the modern economy (London 1932: 18). Within the context of an economic downturn, the institutions of the state were encouraged to transform to meet

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the challenges posed by current conditions and to move beyond the ‘antiquated survivals of medieval institutions’ that they had become (Rubinow 1930). The introduction of the Social Security Act of 1935, which established the principle of the federal provision of old age pensions, disability payments, maternity welfare, health care and unemployment insurance, was debated in the context of ameliorating the ‘medieval conditions’ of the poorest citizens of the United States (Department of Health, Education and Welfare 1935). In September 1935, one month after the passing of this progressive legislation, attendants at the industrial relations conference in Silver Bay, Upstate New York, were reminded that this marked a new era within the nation: Social Security Laws Are Here For All Time: No Chance of Going Back to Medieval Conditions, Delegates Told. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Anon 1935)

It is perhaps appropriate that during these debates the conception and development of the Cloisters Museums and Gardens in New York were taking place (Figure 4.2). Opened in 1938 in Fort Tryon Park in the Washington Heights area of Manhattan, the museum was formed from the remains of several European medieval abbeys and was used to display an extensive collection of gothic art from the Middle Ages. The positive reception that greeted the museum’s opening focused on the transition of the atmosphere of the ‘old world’ to the ‘new’ but also how such a setting transformed and improved the relics, which had been rescued from dereliction in France, Spain and Italy (Anon 1935; Anon 1938). Whilst highlighting the aesthetic value of the era, the museum provided a means of reflection upon the development of modern society as the paintings, sculpture and tapestries from across medieval Europe had been collected and ordered for the modern visitor. As such, the ‘recreated’ medieval setting had ensured that the ‘Middle Ages’ were modernized. This is a significant aspect of the language of the past, as the association between the ‘medieval’, the ‘Middle Ages’ and the ‘Dark Ages’ as a site of improvement or with an unacceptable condition within contemporary society which needs to be remedied has been dominant in the latter half of the twentieth century. In post-1945 Britain, the drive to reform and modernize society emphasized in social programmes of the Labour government but also evidenced across a range of manufacturing, public and financial issues was made in reference to the historical era of the Middle Ages. Within the local and national media, the appellation served as a social critique, as a means to condemn the dereliction of responsibility by officials, institutions and the wider public to enable advancement.

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Figure 4.2 The Cloisters Museum, Fort Tryon Park, Manhattan, New York, 2010.

For a variety of concerns, social, industrial, economic and cultural, to be regarded as ‘from the Middle Ages’ demands immediate action and remedies: ‘It seems hard to believe that in 1945 people live in conditions which existed in the Middle age’ commented the Coroner. (Bedfordshire Times and Independent, Anon 1945a)

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Scheme Can’t Help Medieval Highlands: Minister attacks hydro-electric plans. (Sunday Post (Lanarkshire), Anon 1945b) Village life is medieval – better join with city: Councillor. (Lincolnshire Echo, Anon 1946) Court Waiting Rooms Medieval Says Prison M.O [Medical Officer]. (Lincolnshire Echo, Anon, 1947)

The notion of the medieval slum, the ghetto and the squalor of the Middle Ages is used as an allusion here as a shocking indictment of the failure of modernity. What is also apparent is the presence in Britain after the 1960s of a use of these historical eras to refer to corruption and abuse of power. As industrial relations worsened between the government and trade unions, the accusation of ‘medieval’ practices, attitudes associated with the ‘Middle Ages’ and threats of relapse into the ‘Dark Ages’ were levelled at both sides. Within Parliament, disputes during the 1970s on the negotiations between the state and representatives of organized labour unions used the terms to critique policy and practice as authoritarian and anachronistic. During a debate on the Trade Unions Relations Bill in 1974, Conservative Member of Parliament for Farnham in Surrey, Maurice Macmillan (1921–1984), characterized the union’s practices of self-government as emanating from the ‘Middle Ages’: We are to leave the protection of the individual trade union member, in terms of the Bill, to an independent court set up by the trade unions – a court like the courts of the medieval barons judging their subjects in their own way. Let us hope that they are more merciful. (HC Deb 3 December 1974 vol. 882 c.1437)

Conversely, Tony Benn (1925–2014), Labour Member of Parliament for Bristol, regarded the Conservative government’s handling of trade disputes and economic crises in 1971 by providing a historical comparison from a ‘brutal’ age: Everyone knows what the Treasury does when there is inflation. Like the oldfashioned medieval surgeon who pulls out a hacksaw and cuts off a leg, the Treasury introduces deflationary measures. (HC Deb 26 January 1971 vol. 810 c.361)

Norman Lamont, Conservative Member of Parliament for Kingston upon Thames, spoke in 1984 of the corrupting influences of the trade unions and their determination to ensure the regression of British industry: We have had restricted practices in our shipbuilding industry that have been positively medieval. The debate within the unions recently has been not about pay, but about working practices. If we want to have a shipbuilding industry, we

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simply cannot afford to maintain restrictive practices of that kind. (HC Deb 1 February 1984 vol. 53 c.353)

The use of the historical era to characterize opponents as morally or intellectually corrupt is a product of modernity that establishes a distance between the past and its progression into the future. Therefore, as a reference, metaphor or allusion within contemporary society, ‘medieval’ or the ‘Middle Ages’ highlights the failure to advance. This constitutes the defining feature of that which is ostracized from the modern era: the anachronistic. However, the return to the ‘Middle Ages’ or a recovery of a ‘medieval’ character, form or ethos can be noted within politics, art and culture in Britain and the United States since the 1970s. Folk culture, environmental concerns and anti-capitalist agendas have sought to locate within this historical period an alternative route for modern life. Whilst not advocating a ‘return’ to this past, it demonstrates a drive to preserve the present and direct the future by improving upon this historical basis. Wider contemporary references to the ‘medieval’ continue this process of acceleration from the past and indicating progression through emphasizing the incongruous nature of the presence of the ‘Middle Ages’ within the modern. For example, it is for this reason that the British Medical Journal could report in 1997 that ‘Half of the world lives in medieval squalor’ (Hope 1997). This synthesized the work of the United Nations report on global access to resources, support and development, which highlighted the failure of Western societies to ensure equality across the globe and the threats to lives that it would bring: ‘when you have a medieval level of sanitation, you have a medieval level of disease’ (Khan 1997: 5). The equation of the ‘Middle Ages’ with an inferior and damaging influence is pervasive within contemporary society. Within the media, regardless of the context, to apply the prefix of ‘medieval’ as an adjective appears to form a derogatory allusion between the past and the present and the absence of progress in the latter: Slobbo the Savage; Trial Told of ‘Medieval Cruelty’ by Serb Chief. (Daily Record, Anon 2002) Community Pay-Back Is a Return to Days of Medieval Justice. (Liverpool Echo, Makin 2008) Medieval Housing Group Criticized. (Western Mail (Cardiff ), Anon, 2009)

Besides the malleability of these terms, their application to evidence progress and development has ensured that when this history is evoked as a reference point in the contemporary political and media sectors it possesses a means of

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affirming a predominantly Western worldview (after Dinshaw 1999). This is most evident in the representation of the rise of Islamic militancy across the world after the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the outbreak of the Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1980) (Foucault 1978). The call for an anti-Western, theocratic state as a response to the forces of modernity has been expressed as the objective by extremist groups responsible for terrorist atrocities and repressive regimes. However, these acts are frequently placed in a historical context within the political, media and public sphere in Britain and the United States. Such visions of medieval culture within the contemporary world served to emphasize the incompatibility of this mode of government with Western values and ideals. Therefore, the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan (1996–2001) as an Islamic Emirate was regarded as a stark return to a brutal past, theologically, politically and morally: The Taliban preach an almost medieval brand of Islam. (Boston Globe, Bradlee 1996) Investigators saw firsthand the medieval punishments meted out by the Taliban’s sin police. (Washington Post, Mann 1998) The rebel Islamic fundamentalist Taliban have overrun the country and imposed a medieval order on society. Women are beaten for not wearing a veil, and people’s hands are cut off for thieving. (Daily Mail, Spillius 1996)

In effect, the assessment of the practices of the Taliban as belonging to a bygone era of barbarism and brutality provides a clear indication of how the historical discourse is used to critique and assess the modern world (after Davis 2008). With the invasion of Afghanistan by a multinational force after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, the ‘medieval’ state that the nation was regarded as existing in under the Taliban was widely cited as a rationale for military intervention. Media reports during September and November 2001 focused upon the treatment of women, the rule of law and civil liberties, which were all defined as belonging to the ‘Middle Ages’ and thereby in need of reform: Humanitarian reasons alone cry out for it: The Taliban are a barbaric band of theocratic thugs, who treat their own people with medieval brutality. (Boston Globe, Lehigh 2001)

Operation Enduring Freedom, the coalition-led campaign that ousted the Taliban from power in Afghanistan was also set as a battle of medieval and the modern, with the technologically advanced equipment of Western armed forces compared against the horse-bound Afghan troops. With the success of

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military operations in Afghanistan, the people of the region were described in media reports as emerging from the ‘medieval shadow’ of its former rulers and moving, albeit with difficulty, into the present (Kurtz 2001; Salopek 2001). The association between Islamic extremism and the ‘medieval’ was also reiterated with the rise of an insurgent force in Iraq and Syria in 2011. Naming themselves ‘Islamic State’, their conduct of war, the operation of control in occupied territories, the treatment of women, their sectarian religious violence and the execution of foreign prisoners have all been presented within the media and political spheres in Britain and the United States as predominantly ‘medieval’: The bloodthirsty fanatics of the so-called Islamic State are creating a medieval horror story in 21st century northern Iraq. (Daily Record, McLeod 2014) the basic mindset and actions of so many groups in the Middle East is wholly gruesome and a throwback to medieval butchery. (Liverpool Echo, Riley 2014) there is an underlying medieval impetus to the Islamic State’s rhetoric and actions. Beheadings of innocents, burnings of prisoners, crucifixions, the enslavement and sale of women and children, the literal sacking of cities. (The Washington Post, Starvidis 2015).

In this manner, the actions of the extremist organization are cast not only as barbaric and savage but an anathema to the modern age. The very presence of such an organization in contemporary society thereby provides commentators and politicians alike with further evidence for action against such groups. It is the ‘medieval’ barbarism, cruelty, attitudes, ideology and religion of this extremist group that was used to convey a need to take action. The British Prime Minister David Cameron, whilst speaking at the United Nations Security Council in September 2014 to encourage support for military intervention against ‘Islamic State’ in Syria, emphasized the ‘medieval’ character of the group’s atrocities (UN 2014). The humanitarian crimes committed by this extremist organization are thereby accentuated because of the allusion drawn to the historical era and the obstacle it places in the progression of society. However, the indictment of a failure to advance and develop is not purely an attributed character placed upon a religious or ethnic ‘other’. Indeed, the accusation and implied criticism that political groups or leaders possess ‘medieval’ attributes are evident within a variety of contexts. For example, the policies and character of President G.W. Bush brought such assessments regarding his tenure in the White House: The result is what may be the nation’s first medieval presidency – one in which reality is ignored for the administration’s own prevailing vision. And just as in

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medieval days, this willful ignorance can lead to terrible consequences. (Los Angeles Times, Gabler 2003)

Therefore, to be ‘medieval’, to appear to be from ‘the Middle Ages’ or to be seen as emanating from the ‘Dark Ages’ emphasizes the dislocation and alienation from the present and from the future. This historical discourse demonstrates the way in which modern states have sought to separate themselves from their historical development and then use this past to shape and direct the progression of society, politics, culture and economics. The ‘Middle Ages’ are thereby very much present within the contemporary world rather than consigned away as some forgotten era of Western civilization. However, it is not the specific qualities and character of the medieval period that ensures that it retains a place within the modern world. Whilst the architecture, aesthetics and culture of the Middle Ages attracts attention and admiration, it is the way in which the period forms a reference point for modernity that ensures its relevancy within political, media and public discourse. The medieval era forms a point of improvement and a means of criticism as contemporary notions of progress and advancement are defined in relation to this history. The ‘Middle Ages’ are returned to not because they hold some universal truth that can inform contemporary society, but that it constitutes a means of reflecting upon the development and direction of our own time.

Monarchs, lords and barons The presence of the ‘medieval’ era within contemporary society can be assessed alongside the institutions, figures and functions of the ‘Middle Ages’ that are evoked in response to current issues. Whilst the study of this historical period from the eighteenth century onwards has ensured a legacy in the phrases and allusions that are drawn upon in contemporary discourse, it has also provided a litany of terms that also form a means of establishing the progress of modern society. This process has also been shaped by the array of cultural representations of this history within literature, art, film and television. As such, medieval kings, queens, barons, peasants and serfs can still be observed within contemporary political, media and public discourse. This usage of the language of the past provides a means of stressing the advancement of contemporary society. The contexts in which these references, metaphors and allusions are made have varied but the same meaning behind their usage can be observed; that the past represents a crude and unrefined era that should be improved upon within the

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present. The features of the ‘Middle Ages’ are referred to in order to demonstrate the progress of the modern era. The figure of the medieval monarch and the nobility is a particularly significant aspect of the historical discourse as it is through this allusion that issues of power, corruption and responsibility are defined in the modern era. The perception of kingship, queenship and lordship in the Middle Ages has been formed through literary and dramatic representations since the 1600s. The historical Shakespeare plays set within the medieval era, such as King Lear (1606), Hamlet (1603), Henry IV (1600), Henry V (1599), Henry VI (1592), Macbeth (1611) or Richard III (1592), depict the heroism and nobility of monarchs and nobles but also expose the delusions, greed and irresponsibility of rulers. Medieval kings and queens and courtly drama had become a literary and musical trope by the eighteenth century with authors, dramatists and composers using the historical scene as a backdrop to reveal codes of chivalric honour amongst the intrigue and the abuse of power (see Hurd 1762). The nineteenth century saw the emergence of a fascination with the Middle Ages, as medieval dignity and gallantry became an object of national identity, religious revivalism and moral aspiration (Morris 1984). Stories of kings, queens and the nobility became fashionable as Arthurian legends and romantic epics formed an ever-burgeoning literary genre (Girouard 1981). Indeed, such was the lure of the noble monarch and knights that it briefly inspired a political movement promoted by Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) in ‘Young England’. This group sought to remedy the effects of industry and the clamour for greater political representation by implementing a rule that equated with a benign medieval king or lord (Disraeli 1835). This political group did not succeed in forcing the reform agenda. Indeed, their insistence upon a return to the nobility of the Middle Ages was confronted by opponents who regarded such policies as a barrier to progression. The announcement of the candidature for one of the ‘Young England’ members, John Manner (1818–1906), for the seat of Liverpool was covered by the local newspaper, the Liverpool Mercury, with the headline ‘The feudal candidate for Liverpool’ (Anon 1847). However, the reference to the abuse of power and a critique of current concerns through an allusion to this past also emerges by the 1860s through the assessment of political and social issues within both Britain and the United States. In response to the pressures of war and industrialization, the medieval was used in the United States as a means of identifying the corruption within contemporary society. Joseph Holt (1807–1894), Postmaster General and later

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Judge Advocate of the US army during the Civil War, declared in his home state of Kentucky in 1861 that secession of the states from the Union would see a return to a barbarous age: Thus we should have brought back to us the days of the robber Barons with their moated castles and marauding retainers. This doctrine when analyzed is simply a declaration that no physical force shall ever be employed in executing the laws or upholding the Government. (Louisville Journal, Anon 1861b)

Such allusions became commonplace as ignoble medieval barons appear to terrorize Anglo-American society in the latter half of the nineteenth century as this reference is evoked to highlight a failure to adapt to a modern age. For example, the scandal of the brutal repression of the Morant Bay Rebellion, Jamaica, in 1865 by British Governor Edward Eyre (1815–1901) was denounced during the coverage of the Governor’s trial as the actions of a ‘medieval baron’ (Anon 1868). The use of this reference to highlight the inappropriateness of actions for a modern society is evident in the context of the debates between industrialists, governments and labour interests in Britain and the United States after 1870. Barons from the ‘Middle Ages’ and medieval ‘robber barons’ were used as a recourse to the operation of power, but they also form a dialogue as to how the present and the future should be structured. In the United States, the term was frequently applied to industrialists who appeared to disregard wider social interests for the pursuit of profit: Shut off from the attacks, the remonstrances [sic], and even the approach of the public by these unquestioning servants of the corporate will, the managers of the railway are like the robber barons of the Middle Ages. (New York Times, Anon 1873). The day of the robber baron is not over. He robs railroad passengers and railroad stockholders, as of yore. (New York Times, Anon 1883)

To cast the practices of industry as akin to medieval extortion reveals the way in which the past is reduced to a brutal and uncivilized era, but significantly demonstrates how contemporary society should progress. Wider cultural references during this era also focused on a means by which the medieval past could be improved upon. For example, Mark Twain’s (1835–1910) work of science fiction A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889), where a time-travelling nineteenth-century resident of Hartford, Connecticut, is placed within King Arthur’s Court, sees the protagonist attempt to introduce modern

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technology and culture to a ‘backward era’ (Twain 1889). Similarly, Howard Pyle’s (1853–1911) novel for juveniles Men of Iron (Pyle 1891) examines how a young knight in the fifteenth-century England goes against established traditions of rank in order to avenge his father and preserve his family’s honour. The romantic novels of the late nineteenth century, which were set in the Middle Ages, such as Prince Otto (Stevenson 1885) or When Knighthood Was in Flower (Major 1898), provided an idealized vision of modern social mores and values as heroic men and honourable ladies were tested and by their virtue succeeded in improving themselves and their own era. Therefore, to speak of the past demands a particular orientation towards the future. As such, the figures of authority in the Middle Ages have become a means by which progress and advancement can be demonstrated and policed through the language of the past. Within Britain, during the late nineteenth century the connotation of the corrupt rule of medieval lords and barons was also used to draw references to the Norman Conquest after the Battle of Hastings (1066) (Clive 1985). By the early twentieth century, these allusions to the past had become part of an established mode of criticism against the vicissitudes of capitalism (see Josephson 1934). Such associations were strengthened by the increasing volume of film and literature that represented the medieval world. From adaptations of Shakespeare plays, such as The Life and Death of King Richard III (1912), cinematic developments of novels, such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), or revisions of existing myths and legends, such as the action-filled Robin Hood (1922), the cinema became the medium through which the brutality and regressive nature of the medieval world could be witnessed. Whilst honour, love and chivalry were the redeeming factors of these accounts, the cruelty and tyranny of kings and lords were the arresting image. These visual cues could support the uses of references to the medieval world in the context of both the global depression during the 1930s and the rise of Fascist regimes in Italy and Germany from the 1920s. References to ‘robber barons’ would denounce corporations for their insensitivity to the plight of the working family, whilst commentaries on the operation of power and the development of international diplomacy would see Benito Mussolini or Adolf Hitler denounced as ‘medieval barons’ or ‘medieval tyrants’. Indeed, the Reverend E.A. Burroughs (1885–1934), Bishop of Ripon, denounced Nazi Germany in 1934 on the basis of its policies appearing to emanate from the Middle Ages: We are out against Nazism, not because it is militarist in language and trappings but because it is medieval in its very soul. (Lincolnshire Echo, Anon 1933a)

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Similarly, Rabbi Louis I. Newman of Temple Rodeph Sholom in Manhattan evoked the same perspective of the Nazi leader as a medieval tormenter in his speech to Jewish charity groups in Brooklyn in 1933: If Hitler has his way the Jews will be placed in a special legal category with laws like those of the Middle Ages governing them. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Anon 1933b)

American journalist Frank Hanighen (1899–1964) made the allusion from his perspective as European correspondent as he witnessed the operation of power within Nazi Germany concentrated in the wealthy industrialists: He is a Robber Baron of the Rhine – new style. His rule, like those medieval prototypes, is truly patriarchal over the vassal miners and factory hands. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Hanighen 1934)

The ‘barbarism’ and ‘cruelty’ of the rulers of the ‘Middle Ages’ were evoked in both Britain and the United States at a regional and local level to describe the treatment of Jewish communities, women and minorities within Germany during the 1930s, whilst notions of honour, chivalry and fealty may be the subject of medieval romances and highly important in morale during the war as testified to the wartime Laurence Oliver (1907–1989) film Henry V (1944). However, it is the actions of tyrannical kings, pitiless lords and merciless barons that pervade the way in which this past is referenced. From the 1950s, these allusions to the medieval era were further coloured by the ‘golden age’ of films depicting the historical period. Examples such as Prince Valiant (1954), King Richard and the Crusaders (1954), Lady Godiva of Coventry (1955), Richard III (1955), the animated Disney film The Sword in the Stone (1963) and Camelot (1967) all provide the setting of a medieval world which is beset with cruelty and danger from which an individual or group attempts to modernize and improve (see Elliot 2010). This mode of representation of the Middle Ages is detailed within the film adaptation of the 1966 drama, The Lion in Winter (1968). The squabbles, power struggles and oddities of medieval rule are detailed in this account of the relationship between King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. The perception of a dysfunctional rule over a barbarous era pervades the references to this historical era within contemporary political and media discourse. ‘Medieval kings’, ‘Lords of the Manor’ and ‘barons’ were drawn upon to demonstrate the incompatibility between the actions of those in power with the needs of contemporary society. As such, this era becomes a discursive tool to

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negotiate power relations and direct progress. Governments, industry or private individuals can be cast with this associate to criticize the operation of authority over society. For example, during disputes in Parliament in April 1979 regarding the operation of private companies and the favourable terms provided to them by the state, the Labour Member of Parliament Bob Cryer (1934–1994) assessed corporate interests as directly from the ‘Middle Ages’: Does my right hon. Friend accept that some private enterprise multinationals behave like medieval barons, as Thorn did last year in Bradford when it sacked 2,300 people, put them on the dole, imported hundreds of thousands of items from abroad, stamped them with English names and sold them in the United Kingdom? (HC Deb 2 April 1979a vol. 965 c.922)

Such associations were of particular relevance considering the descent into the ‘winter of discontent’ in Britain during 1978–1979 where the Labour government frequently clashed with union interests over pay and condition. The reference to the medieval during this era served to denounce the cruel operation of power. As such, politicians or public figures could be accused of acting in a manner more appropriate to an earlier epoch as a means of addressing the failure of the modern era to meet the expectations of advancement and development. For example, whilst locked deep in the ‘winter of discontent’, the Labour Member of Parliament Brian Sedgemore (1937–2015) assessed the actions of the Labour government under Prime Minister James Callaghan (1912–2005) as evident of a historical mindset: One factor that emerges is that in our modern society the British Prime Minister certainly has more power than any medieval king and can certainly stand tall beside any of the dictators of the modern world. (HC Deb 15 January 1979b vol. 960 c.1401)

The same framework of reference can also be observed in the equally politically and economically turbulent period of the 1970s in the United States. President Richard Nixon’s tenure in the White House before his fall after the Watergate Scandal of 1972 was regarded by political opponents, such as the Democratic Representative from Arizona, Morris Udall (1922–1998), as akin to a ‘medieval court’ with favourites vying amongst themselves for personal betterment rather than the public good (Anon 1972b). Similarly, Meade Esposito (1907–1993), the Brooklyn Democratic leader who was convicted of making illegal gratuities in 1987, was critically framed as a ‘medieval king’ holding court with his barons by sections of the press as he presided over patronage and privilege in the borough (Hertzberg 1972). Contemporary

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cultural representations of the Middle Ages echoed these sentiments as kings and noblemen were depicted as incompetent, vain and brutal. Such ideas can be found in the comedy Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail (1975) or the graphic adaptation of The Canterbury Tales (1972). The representation of this past as an era of brutal, absurd violence, underscored by the machinations or vainglory of its rulers, has provided an appropriate setting for the presence of allusions to the Middle Ages within contemporary society. References to medieval kings, lords or barons provide a format for casting the individual, action or object of disdain as ill-equipped or improper for the modern age. Therefore, issues of public morality can be governed by these associations such as the scandal in Britain in 1998 that enveloped the then Lord Chancellor Derry Irvine regarding his expenses: Storm as law chief grabs £1m paintings; He Behaves like Medieval Baron and Is National Joke. (Daily Mirror, Woodward 1998)

Similarly, the savagery of contemporary political life can be rendered into a scene from the Middle Ages as a critique of the political classes: Life as a medieval baron was more secure than life as a modern-day cabinet minister. (New Statesman, Milne 1998)

Corporate interests can also be framed in such a manner, to ensure that the wanton greed of businesses is dismissed as an aberration within the contemporary era and thereby removed from the present as well as the future: However the Consumers Association accused Vauxhall of behaving like a ‘medieval baron’, offering limited savings at its discretion. (The Scotsman, Fracassini 1999)

The medieval ruler, whether a king, lord or baron, is an analogy used to police the excessive power wielded by individuals or government as it immediately casts actions as irrelevant and potentially dangerous for the current age. In this respect, the past is regarded as repressive and authoritarian as an improved present and future is created in comparison. Using this historical discourse, the powerful can be rendered into objects of derision. This can be observed during the tenure of Prime Minister Tony Blair where at several junctures, due to the policy decisions taken regarding issues of military involvement, parliamentary reform and the health service, he was regarded as operating as a ‘medieval king’ (see Blackman 2001; Eastham 2000; Galloway 2003). The reference or allusion to a historical era emphasizes the acceleration of the present away from the past and its desire to avoid a return or a regression to an earlier, presumably inferior age.

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Feudalism, serfs and peasants Whilst references to the medieval nobility provide such politically and socially loaded associations and assessments of both history and current society, allusions to the lower ranks of the social hierarchy within the Middle Ages are also present and used for similar effect. As ‘robber barons’ and medieval kings appear to still rampage across contemporary society causing damage and outrage in their wake, the medieval serf and peasant can be witnessed with the political, media and public discourse in Britain and the United States. Metaphors and allusions to this aspect of history are also accompanied by references to ‘feudalism’ as a structure of authority that operated within the Middle Ages (Figure 4.3). Through these associations, the sense of progress within the modern age is maintained. ‘Peasant’ and ‘serf ’ as a designation for the labouring classes become widely used within Britain by the fourteenth century but it is not until the formation of an antiquarian scholarship of the medieval era in the eighteenth century and the delineation of ‘feudalism’ as a term of enquiry (Spelman 1698). The term ‘feudal’, itself coined in the early sixteenth century to describe the centuries old practice of a grant of land in return in exchange for service, becomes a tool for the burgeoning study of the period by the early eighteenth century. For scholars and contemporary commentators, the term represented a relic, an object of derision that became increasingly significant for lamenting the absence of progress within Georgian Britain. It was in this aspect that ‘feudal’ began to be applied to decry the persistence of ‘feudal’ orders within society. This can be most clearly observed with the Battle of Culloden in 1746 that saw the defeat of the Jacobite cause, which was to return the House of Stuart to the throne of the kingdom and which was supported by the Scottish Highlanders. This battle and the later clearances of Scottish estates for agricultural and economic improvement brought a clear association with feudalism and its use as an allusion to indicate an obstacle to the forces of modernity (see Willison 1746). In the aftermath of Culloden, the Scottish antiquarian and author John Pinkerton (1758–1826), whilst notorious for forging evidence to support his claim of a ‘Germanic’ ethnicity for the Scots, labelled feudalism a cruel tyranny that still haunted his country: ‘sons are willing to be slaves to tyrants … such is the spirit of the feudal system … which hath thrown Scotland a whole century behind England in point of civil liberty’ (Pinkerton 1785: 369). Indeed, the Jacobite cause was equated with a return to ‘medieval feudalism’ as a threat to the institutions of the state, and the direction of society was established (Smith 1771). The events after the Battle of Culloden were marked by the break up of

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Figure 4.3 Photograph of the ruined Clitheroe Castle, Lancashire. A thirteenthcentury castle keep on a Norman motte.

the established and ‘antiquated’ ‘feudal system’ that was regarded as damaging to contemporary society (MacDowall Bankton 1747). The removal of such anachronistic forms of authority in Scotland was heralded as ensuring the emergence of the nation into the modern age: ‘Feudalism is now no more: it has disappeared before the spirit of commerce’ (Ross 1782: 160). With such

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uses of the language of the past, the present is reformed away from its past and orientated towards the future. Therefore, by the end of the eighteenth century, ‘feudalism’ as a reference had moved beyond the realm of scholarly enquiry to form the basis of social and political assessment. As an example of this shift, the period of economic and political reforms in Britain during the 1830s and 1840s that saw the ending of the Corn Laws and the Reform Act of 1832 was phrased in the context of the ending of the ‘feudalism of the Middle Ages’ within the coverage of national and local newspapers. The newly enfranchised and the disenfranchised were encouraged to support the forces of modernism to reshape the future and avoid the past: There can be no doubt that feudalism is yet alive, not only in essence, but nearly as much in fact as it was in the days of old when ‘the baron’ had power of life and death over his vassals, and the gallows-tree stood as an instrument of terror in the immediate precincts of his castle. (Leicester Chronicle, Anon 1841a)

Indeed, in Britain during this era, a critical use of the historical discourse to champion progress and advancement against the vested interests of traditional structures can be observed to emerge as the Tory Party, for their associations with the landowning classes, became the object of scorn. Articles that assessed the actions of the Tories as ‘Feudal Tyrants’ (Leicestershire Mercury, Anon 1841b) or their policies as ‘Feudal Barbarism’ (Leicestershire Mercury, Anon 1840b) provided a medieval setting for debates about reform. Indeed, it is through the association with the past that arguments about the present and future of society were engaged. This vision of feudalism also influenced the development of communism as a political theory (Marx and Engels 1888). Whilst the ‘feudal’ mode of production equated to a distinct historical epoch, the presence of ‘feudal servitude’ within modern nation states was also evident of the operation of the ‘false consciousnesses’ of capitalism, which did not advance society but increased the means of exploitation (Engels 1845: 54). By the 1830s, feudalism had become a reference point for current political debate as had the lowest social distinctions formed through a feudal system: peasants and serfs. Although these terms had been used within medieval European society to refer to the agricultural labouring classes, by the nineteenth century they denoted a use of power and a societal structure that was deemed abhorrent to current values and ideals. Framing economic and cultural practices as ‘feudal’ or regarding individuals and groups as having descended into the status of a ‘medieval serf ’ or a ‘medieval peasant’ revealed the threat to progress within a rapidly changing world. This was applied equally within the political

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and media sector by reformers during the 1840s to the conditions and political representation of the industrial proletariat within Britain, the tenant farmer in Ireland and the enslaved field-hand working in plantations in the Caribbean. Indeed, the latter was, in part, formed in opposition to the proponents of slavery regarding the ‘feudal system’ as an appropriate model (see McDonnell 1824: 219). In this era of change, the vestiges of the past formed vital components in shaping the future: It is true that the state of feudal slavery has in name been abolished in this country, and that the Norman lord can no longer brand with his mark his Saxon serf and bondsman. But the spirit of (feudal) Slavery still exists; it operates in our laws and institutions, and in the form of class and caste legislation, permeates the entire frame of our social system. (Leeds Times, Anon 1840c) The modern feudal lords do not, it is true, exercise the direct and irresponsible power of life and death, prisonage and scourging, over their vassals … but indirectly their power is just the same – for they can evict from houses, they can exterminate from lands, they can kill by famine. (Reynolds’s Newspaper, Anon 1851b)

Using these historical references as an allusion or comparison ensures that the past is brought back into the present to demonstrate the cruelty and iniquity that is being inflicted upon the greater mass of the population. Such uses of the historical discourse became common features of campaigns for reform in the nineteenth century as the nature of society was altered to enable a wider level of rights and representation (see Partridge 1872). Indeed, the campaign for female suffrage in Britain and the United States during this era was based upon ridding the nation of apparently ‘feudal’ structures that denied women equal access to the vote (Cady Stanton et al. 1881). In this manner, ‘feudal systems’ were associated with a backward and repressive regime that barred women from the workplace, from the voting booth and limited them to the home (Cook 1885). Therefore, women’s suffrage groups could demonstrate the need to accelerate away from the past that constrains the present to ensure a stable and progressive future. Just as ‘medieval feudalism’ was used to ensure representation and the rights of women, the same references are also evoked in the late nineteenth century to ensure wider social and economic security. As the concerns for ‘robber barons’ of industry were stated in the United States, the era of a ‘new feudalism’ was warned against by reform-minded politicians. President James Garfield (1831– 1881) cautioned against such processes in a speech delivered in Hudson, Ohio, in July 1873 entitled ‘The Future of the Republic’:

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the analogy between the industrial condition of society at the present time and the feudalism of the Middle Ages is both striking and instructive. (Garfield 1882: 66)

The return of the character of the ‘Middle Ages’ with the arrival of the new century ensured support for reform and restitution. The failure of the past is used to direct and guide contemporary society. Therefore, feudalism, serfs from the ‘Middle Ages’ and ‘medieval peasants’ are also present within the twentieth century and serve the same purpose of guarding and ensuring advancement. In this manner, the history of the Middle Ages acquires a degenerative status within political, media and public discourse as it reminds the present of a failure to adapt and to develop. Indeed, the threat of lapsing into a ‘feudal’ society is a frequent recourse within the twentieth century when encountering threats to stability. This is apparent during the First World War where Hohenzollern Germany was referred to as an anachronistic ‘feudal’ state by media within Britain and the United States. For example: Germany, enslaved to feudal Prussia has returned to barbarism. (Edinburgh Evening News, Anon 1914) Isolated, mediaeval, apart from the impulse which stirs the modern world, Germany, dragging Austria at her heels, makes her last stand, a military, feudal, absolutist state. (New York Times, Anon 1917)

Whilst serving as wartime propaganda, it also provided the basis for post-war reconstruction as the feudal trappings of Germany and Austria-Hungary were regarded as redundant for a modern world (United States Congress 1919). The same associations were made between Nazi Germany and forms of ‘barbaric feudalism’ during the Second World War as the advance of the German army was regarded as condemning occupied peoples to a state of feudal rule: Nazi Workers are Serfs. (Derby Daily Telegraph, Anon 1940) Poles to be serfs. (Yorkshire Evening Post, Anon 1939)

However, in the post-war era, the concept of feudalism was used in Britain to discuss post-colonial politics and the decline of Britain’s global influence. With the development of independence movements within the former colonial possessions, the notion of imperialism, Britain’s right to rule and the effect on occupied peoples was brought to the fore within the political sphere during the 1950s and 1960s. As either a ‘feudal’ authority or supporting ‘feudal’ regimes, the legitimacy of operations across the globe was assessed on the anachronism of ‘medieval’ concepts in a modern world. For example, the Labour politician

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Hugh Gaitskell (1906–1963) stated in Parliament during a debate on nationalism in the Middle East that Britain’s outmoded policies had caused more damage because of its regressive nature: there is no denying that in Iraq itself the régime there was rather feudal in its character … we have been regarded also, for reasons largely historical – let me concede that, because of our alliances with the Governments concerned – as the opponents of social revolution. (HC Deb 16 July 1958 vol. 591 c.1255)

Similarly, in response to Britain’s involvement in the Suez Crisis, the ‘feudal’ nature of colonial policies was used to debate the justification of action or to critique the absence of action. The Labour Member of Parliament Tony Benn criticized the absence of support from Britain in shaping the new world from the shackles of its medieval past: It is a great mistake to think that when one is pouring dollars into feudal Arab countries one can expect not to upset the feudal system … towards the battle of the Arab countries against Western imperialism, Her Majesty’s Government made no contribution. (HC Deb 15 May 1957 vol. 570 c.473)

As Britain’s role within the world was reduced, the operation of power or the support of power that was classed as ‘feudal’ or which rendered citizens of colonial states into a state of ‘medieval servitude’ was used as a way in which a ‘modern’ nation could be presented. During this period, the terms ‘feudal’ and ‘peasant’ were also used within Britain and the United States to assess the rise of China after the formation of the People’s Republic in 1949 by Mao Zedong (1893–1976) (Cohen 2005: 60–61). In political and media discourse, during the 1930s the stage of China’s development was classed as medieval ‘feudalism’, whilst the policies of the Chinese government were regarded as inhibiting the development of the Chinese peasant class (see Tawney 1932). As such, ‘feudal’ communist China could be regarded as backward and beyond the modern world leading to colonial influence. In the period after 1949, China was presented within discussions in the Houses of Parliament in Britain during debates on trade and politics as having advanced from ‘feudalism’: What has happened in China is one of the most important events of our generation. Feudalism has been destroyed. (HC Deb. 4 November 1952 vol. 507 c.126) for the first time for centuries the old shackles of tradition and feudalism have been broken away. (HL Deb. 28 April 1953 vol. 182 c.34)

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However, whilst some sections heralded the formation of the People’s Republic of China as the end of feudal rule, the anxiety formed through the spread of communism ensured that the same medieval references were also used to critique China within Britain and the United States. From the 1970s onwards, the repeated use of ‘peasant’ to describe the rural Chinese labourers within political statements and media reports emphasizes the backward nature of the communist state and how large sections of its society are isolated in conditions redolent of the Middle Ages. Therefore, despite the economic and industrial advances of China, the nation can still be framed as insufficient and anachronistic through the appearance of the medieval, feudal peasant: In Fujian Province, along the coast a visitor happened to see a Ming Dynasty silk drawing of a lone peasant in a straw hat and treading a waterwheel to irrigate a vast rice field. Later that day the visitor was driven … past a vast rice field, and the peasant was still there, still slowly treading the waterwheel. (Chicago Tribune, McNulty 1982)

Indeed, coverage of the democratic uprisings in China during the late 1980s, which culminated in the student protest during June 1989 in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, asserted the ‘peasant’ status of Chinese farmers to highlight the failure of the Chinese state to modernize and adapt: Feudalism is gone because it did not serve people. Tiananmen Square is testament that the tight, economic and political control over people in China is doomed. (Chicago Tribune, Neikirk 1989)

This use of the historical discourse, the application of references to a ‘western’ medieval past as a means of affirming contemporary values and shaping the future emphasize the manner in which the forces of modernity operate to stress advancement and acceleration over a perceived decline or regression (Giddens 1990). To ensure this process, the past has to be referred to within a derogatory or negative connotation to emphasize the present and the potential for society. Divesting ourselves of the vestiges of the past is a means by which we become modern and this is revealed in the way ‘feudalism’, ‘serfs’ or ‘peasants’ are referred to or alluded to within contemporary society. Making such a comparison enables the assessment of governments, corporations, individuals and acts as an affront to a forward-thinking, progressive society. The reference does not belong to one particular political perspective or another; it serves to evidence the inappropriate position of an opposing agenda. Therefore, it can be applied for various purposes in various contexts, whilst a common feature of its

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usage is an attempt to ensure the progress of the present and the status of the future. Across the political, media and public spheres, the medieval can still be witnessed within the modern, not as a quaint object of aesthetic interest, but a dangerous relic that requires banishment: Teachers Treated like Cash-Strapped Serfs. (The Mirror, McHugh 2013) Perhaps the word is feudalism. Medieval peasants received protection from their lords in return for a fixed proportion of their produce. That’s roughly the relationship we now have with financial institutions. (New Statesman, Wilby 2010) there is a chance that if you modify your home – whether it be a new garage, conservatory or toilet – you are breaching feudal conditions or burdens and in law your superior or superiors can insist that you tear it down. (Daily Mail, Wallace 1999)

Therefore, the Middle Ages do not appear to be over. Feudalism, peasants and serfs loom large within contemporary society on a regular basis as this era is evoked to confront threats to the stability and progress of the present. These features of medieval society serve as demonstrations of contemporary progress and advancement as it is through the denigration of this era that current values and ideals can be strengthened and protected.

Conclusions The romance of the Middle Ages would appear to still captivate readers of historical fiction, visitors to castles and gardens as well as viewers of television or cinematic period dramas. The medieval era certainly possesses an evocative quality, summoning images of knights, ladies and quests seemingly automatically. The aesthetic and religious qualities of the period are admired for their contribution to modern Western society. However, to consider that an infatuation with the medieval exists would be to misapprehend the ways in which this past functions as a reference point for our own time. As a metaphor, analogy or simile, the Middle Ages are brought into the present as a means of distancing ourselves from the past not to admire the perspective. Such uses of history can be observed within the references to kings, barons and feudalism, but it can also be witnessed within a far wider lexicon associated with the medieval era. Crusades, pilgrimages and plagues are asserted within modern society as a mode of judging

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the acts that stabilize or threaten the progression of the present. Indeed, during the initial response to the identification of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, references to a ‘plague’ equivalent to the Middle Ages within the media coverage acted to separate the public from this illness (see Sontag 1989). Indeed, such allusions to ‘plagues’ still persist within sections of the media and the political sphere. Referring to HIV/AIDS within this medieval context ensures that its causes and its place within society are rendered into an object that threatens the progress of society whilst those afflicted with the condition are ostracized and alienated from the ‘modern’ world. Therefore, the language of the past ‘polices’ the present and the future, an act that demonstrates the sense of progress inherent within the modern era. The medieval is placed as obsolete and redundant; the past is an encumbrance to contemporary society. By referencing the historical era in such a manner the present and future of advancement are maintained.

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Introduction The manner in which recent history is incorporated into the language of the past evidences the function of this mode of engaging with previous eras: to separate, enhance and guide the present. To incorporate the events of modern history into this form of representation, beyond the discovered ruins and objects of a distant past, emphasizes the sheer acceleration of the present beyond the bounds of a perceived limiting and dysfunctional past. To draw upon such a recent history as a means to stress development from allusion, reference and metaphor indicates the speed at which a disassociation from historical processes is made within the modern era (after Noys 2014). This process has often been interpreted as individuals, groups and communities within Western societies, through the processes of industrialization and global capitalism, losing their association with traditional structures of values, ideals and culture. Indeed, this relationship to the past has been the object of concern within the study of remembrance, commemoration and historical memory (see Nora 1985; Yerushalmi 1984). The consequence of this development has been assessed as a cultivation of a fabricated, commercialized concept of the past that reduces history to an object of consumption (Wallace 1996). Such assessments have formed a key part of the development of a distinct ‘heritage studies’, which examines the presentation and reception of historic sites (Lowenthal 1985; Wright 1985). However, whilst these studies focus provide an important, critical assessment of the alienation and commoditization of the past from the present, they can neglect an assessment of why these historical eras are reduced to such inertia through their use as a reference. In effect, the past is formed into a passive of deficient account to stress the advancement of the contemporary era that engages with it. This is apparent in the ways in which the history of the modern era is discussed within the current political, media and public sphere.

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Rather than regarding this engagement as performing an act of memory or forming a sense of heritage, this process of imagining the past in the present reflects a broader cultural response of the modern era (after O’Brien and Roseberry 1991). The references to the events and issues of recent history are used to emphasize separation and the progression of contemporary society. Therefore, the past is not rendered into an object of consumerism simply by market forces or industrialization; it is diminished and denigrated through metaphor, allusion and simile by the processes of modernization. Certainly, the issues are intertwined, but assessing this issue purely on the basis of capitalist exploitation obscures the cultural and ideological basis of the function of the historical reference (after Althusser 1969). We speak about the recent past not because it is pertinent to our own condition but due to its value in giving the clearest indication of our progress. From the formation of adjectives referencing historical periods to the direct allusion to the conflicts of the modern era, the representation of industrialization and war serves to ensure that the perception of development in the present is secured. Whilst nostalgia for ‘bygone ages’ represented in fashion, leisure and entertainment may appear to indicate a respect or a longing for the recent past, this constitutes a further means by which the past can be improved upon but certainly not returned to. Even in the midst of a wistful, romantic vision of the past, the way in which historical references are drawn indicates a drive towards progress. The function of the language of the past is to separate contemporary society from the regressive effects of the past and in so doing preserve the sense of direction and development in the present and the future.

Progress and poverty: The Victorian era The characterization of an era or period as distinct in character has been the preserve of the modern era as antiquarian scholarship and historians from the eighteenth century onwards have classified and structured the past into phases of development. A feature of the modern age is the rapidity in which phases have been defined. Almost immediately upon the death of George IV (1762–1830), the period following the Hanoverian succession in 1714 of George I (1660– 1727) was termed the ‘Georgian era’ by biographers, keen to detail an age whose ‘influence is actually felt by the existing community of Great Britain’ (Clarke 1832: 1). Indeed, even in the moment of their inception, epochs have been labelled and attributed with specific values, concerns and agendas. References to

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the ‘Victorian era’ as a historical concern can be traced to just over a year after the coronation of Queen Victoria (1819–1901) in 1837 (Maunder 1839). What is also discernible is the way in which these periods become part of the language of the past that references progress and development. To make allusions to preceding periods is to form a critical engagement with the past that controls and directs a sense of direction for the present. However, this association with history does not form a straightforward point of comparison; historical periods of the modern era are used to guide and direct the present as much as to challenge the presumption of advancement. These historical terms are not always employed in a derogatory manner which reduces the past to an inefficient or inept comparison with the present. They are used to maintain and preserve current society whilst providing for advancement into the future. It is perhaps the ‘Victorian era’ or the ‘Victorians’ which best illustrates the complex use of the reference of eras and periods in the modern age (see Taylor and Wolff 2004). This historical epoch appears contradictory in its usage, from evoking the misery of industrialization to providing an apt adjective to affirm moral norms. Whether used to condemn contemporary society for its failings by association with the ‘Victorians’ as a corrupt or cruel past, or to correct current groups or communities for their wantonness by reference to the moral rigour of the ‘Victorians’, the purpose of such allusions is to improve modern society. As such, the past is evoked to sustain; the Victorians are thereby still amongst us as it is within this era that we can observe the problems and the potentials of progress (Figure 5.1). The development of a distinct ‘Victorian era’ was initially expressed within art, architecture, science and literature from the 1850s as a means to classify the stylistic and technological changes that had occurred by the mid-nineteenth century. The temperance campaigner Clara Lucas Balfour (1808–1878), who published widely and travelled the nation on extensive speaking tours, remarked upon the significance of the era in 1852 whilst lecturing in Oxford: the Victorian era – so memorable in scientific triumphs and literary progress … when such an amount of moral purity was associated with the first family in the land, that its example must exercise a wide-spread influence on the civilisation and purification of society at large. (Oxford Chronicle and Reading Gazette, Anon 1852)

The spirit of progress and advancement was also replicated within politics and popular culture as observers remarked upon the way in which the age had witnessed such economic developments and imperial expansion (see Carrington

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Figure 5.1 Statue of Queen Victoria, 1893. Kensington Gardens, London, 2015.

1862). However, associated with the twentieth anniversary of the coronation, by the late 1850s a critical assessment of the era was emerging which was used to highlight how poverty, oppression, disease and famine in Britain, Ireland and across the Empire had characterized the age rather than moral and scientific development:

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The Victorian era has been signalled by a series of national disasters – and are not the managers of the state responsible for its calamities? (Belfast Mercury, Anon 1857)

In this manner, the period acquires a sense of judgement, where the cost or character of progress is measured and found to be deleterious (see Chadwick 1842). In this manner, to reference the ‘Victorian era’ was to question the nature of society in an attempt to alter current ideas and change its course that appeared corrupted and regressive. From the 1860s, reformers and radicals would highlight the ‘Victorian era’ as one of iniquity, using the corruption of the age to campaign for improved housing, working conditions and greater representation (Mearns 1883). Such associations were also coloured by the rise of the ‘social novel’ during this era, which characterized the struggles and hardships of industrial, urban and rural working-class life (Cazamian 1904). Works published throughout the Victorian era, such as Oliver Twist (Dickens 1839), Jessie Phillips (Trollope 1843), Mary Barton (Gaskell 1848), Alton Locke (Kingsley 1850), Hard Times (Dickens 1854), North and South (Gaskell 1855) and Felix Holt (Eliot 1866), vividly illustrated the contrasting image of progress and abject poverty which would become synonymous with the age. On the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897, this contrasting image of the era was debated in the political and media spheres. For some commentators, it provided a means of extolling the heroes and achievements of the age (Escott 1897). However, in the aftermath of the commemorative year, during a debate in Parliament over taxation in Ireland, the Dublin Member of Parliament William Field (1843–1935) questioned the assumed progress of the era: We have heard a great deal about the glories of the Victorian Era. Let me point out what the glories of the Victorian Era have been to Ireland … in 1837 our population was 8,024,000, and our taxation was £5,175,000 … In 1897 our population had dwindled to 4,545,000, and our taxation … was £8,146,000 … That is the result of 60 years of the Victorian Era to the Irish people. (HC Deb 5 July 1898 vol. 60 cc.1190)

With the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, the period became a vital part of structuring and directing twentieth-century British politics and social movements, as through reference and allusion the era has been used to highlight the deficiencies and the developments of the modern era (see Taylor and Wolff 2004). Significantly, the term transitions from a historical denotation, to describe the period of time during the reign of the monarch, to become applicable to a wide range of issues and concerns. Indeed, in the first

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two decades of the twentieth century, to use the adjective ‘Victorian’ as a means of describing current attitudes, ideals, housing, sanitation, sexuality education or working conditions was to immediately provide a damning account of failure and an inability to modernize. Certainly, the accounts of the condition of life for the majority of individuals that were published in Britain and the United States from the late nineteenth century into the new century appeared to undermine claims for progress during the Victorian era (Booth 1902; Riis 1890; Rowntree 1902). Referring to the period in this manner provided a means by which society’s development could be measured; the Victorian age becomes part of the language of the past as it can be phrased as inadequate or flawed and thereby reflective of contemporary advances (see Ford 1907). As Britain was beset by a variety of concerns regarding the reform of politics and society during the early twentieth century, the past became a point by which the acceleration of the present could be demonstrated. In 1909, during a debate in the House of Lords on defence, Thomas Legh, 2nd Baron Newton (1857–1942), complained that the characterization of the opposition by the reforming Liberal government was based on this historical separation from the ‘Victorian era’: When he is in agreement with the Government he is treated as a sort of military pontiff to doubt whose opinion is akin to blasphemy, but when he disagrees with the views of the Government he is airily dismissed as holding early Victorian notions, and those notions are consigned with other archaic opinions to that lumber-room which is supposed to exist in the political world. (HL Deb 13 July 1909 vol. 2 c.437)

The association is made clear within political discourse during the first decade of the twentieth century; to be referenced as ‘Victorian’ in outlook or action is to suffer the indignity and infamy of anachronism. Historical accuracy of the period is not important in this regard, whether the period witnessed a far more diverse and complex set of experiences is immaterial; what is central is the imperative that such references provide in forming a movement away from the past and the creation of a sense of progress. During debates in Parliament, on subjects ranging from female suffrage to reorganization of the House of Lords, the epithet ‘Victorian’ was used to demonstrate the reluctance of opponents to adapt to the new era within society. There is no political ideology attached to such references as both Liberal and Tory politicians employed the term to decry opposing policies as derived from a defunct era. For example, the Liberal Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, Josiah Wedgwood, 1st Baron Wedgwood

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(1872–1943), remarked upon a bill for working-class housing with reference to nineteenth century reforming zeal: I should like to hand this Bill down as a type of the sloppy Fabian legislation of the mid-Victorian era … It appears to be a Bill for satisfying the consciences of the intellectual and refined classes rather than for satisfying the just claims of the workers. (HC Deb 15 March 1912 vol. 35 c.1449)

In a debate a year later on the same matter, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Nottingham South, Lord Henry Cavendish-Bentinck (1863– 1931), argued against the use of ‘early Victorian economics’ as recourse for solving the issue of housing for the rural poor. Indeed, this statement was placed in the context of a warning of the perils of another age and the injustice inflicted upon sections of society: What have early Victorian economics done for the agricultural labourer? (HC Deb 18 April 1913 vol. 51 c.2283)

Whilst paeans to the achievements of the Victorians were still provided by historians, increasingly the popular usage of the term in Britain was as a means of rebuke or criticism (Dornan 1902). Indeed, the film adaptations of the Victorian ‘social novels’ exacerbated this perception, as the cruelty of David Copperfield (1913), the injustice of Nicholas Nickleby (1912), the tragedy of The Old Curiosity Shop (1914) or the brutality of Hard Times (1915) portrayed the age for contemporary viewers as an era of poverty and destitution. Whilst uplifting and patriotic accounts of the events and characters of the period were provided in film adaptations of novels and stage-plays, such as The Victoria Cross (1912), Florence Nightingale (1915) and Disraeli (1916), it was the actions of individuals to reform the era which served as the subject of these depictions. The cinema screen, therefore, became a frame through which the failures and shortcomings of the past were brought to the attention of the present (see Joyce 1997). This assessment of the ‘Victorian era’ as representing an inadequate and insufficient approach was also redefined in the wake of the losses of the First World War in Britain (see Fussell 1975). The conflict had witnessed the evocation of the imperial, military traditions of Victorian Britain as a means of recruitment and to sustain morale (see Hynes 1991). However, the catastrophic losses at the battles of the Somme (1916), Passchendaele (1917) and Gallipoli (1915) for some authors and artists rendered the highfalutin ‘Victorian’ ideals of sacrifice, honour and duty obsolete in an industrialized war (see Sassoon 1918), what H.G. Wells referred to as the ‘patriotic’ ‘self-flattery’ of the ‘Victorian era’ (Wells 1916: 256).

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The glorious Victorian past appeared to be defunct and associated, in the words of the poet Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), with the falsehoods of an older generation (Kipling 1922). Such was the perception of the age, that even the attempts by politicians to rescue the reputation of the Victorian era, to emphasize the moral and intellectual achievements of the epoch could not prevent its assessment as inferior to the current period (Asquith 1918; Strachey 1918). Whilst the memorials to the dead in villages, towns and cities of Britain and on the former battlefields in France, Flanders, Gallipoli and Salonika were formed with Victorian ideals of sacrifice to the nation, such notions appeared to be increasingly irrelevant in a turbulent post-war world (Winter 1992). In the years immediately after the First World War, the reference to the possession of a ‘Victorian attitude’ towards current concerns emphasized not only an inability to grasp new ideas but also indifference and at times cruelty. To be ‘Victorian’ in attitudes towards sex, gender, politics and culture was to be deemed inadequate for contemporary society. In Britain, at a regional and national level, the allusion was applied to a range of contexts from issues of social welfare, labour rights and the reform of politics. For example, in 1921 the provision of meals for schoolchildren in the Gloucestershire area was debated within the local education committee as a matter of outdated notions being confronted by a progressive modern era: Mr Edwards expressed the view that the Chairman’s speech revealed a Victorian attitude of mind, rather than a 1921 post-war attitude towards a question of that description. (Gloucester Citizen, Anon 1921)

Similarly, issues of relations between workers, employers and the government could be phrased using this historical discourse to ensure castigate labour relations for the absence of development. With the government control of the coal mines during the war of 1914–1918, the industry’s release back to private companies was regarded by the local press in coal-mining areas as a political, social and chronological regression: As soon as it was decided to make an end of Government control, they jumped clean back to the mid-Victorian attitude of the autocratic employer. (Derby Daily Telegraph, Wood 1921)

Certainly, this usage was not the only reference made to the era during this time as the term was debated for its meanings and values; a revival of Victorian art, architecture and fashion during the 1920s and 1930s also provided scope for reassessments of the period (see Baumann 1927). This process was encouraged

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by events such as the Victorian Exhibition, set in place in 1931 in a house in Mayfair as a charitable endeavour to raise money for St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London (after Burton 2004). Each room within the house was decorated with various styles of the nineteenth century and the organizing committee offered guides to the decorative arts present during the Victorian era for visitors which were sold by ladies attired in Victorian costume (Committee of the Victorian Exhibition 1931). This display fostered a desire for a permanent collection of art from the period within the Victoria and Albert Museum. Far from encouraging a sentimental vision of the past, it was envisaged within the newspaper coverage that this display would encourage a critical engagement with the period: A Victorian domestic interior … would remind us and our descendants of many past mistakes – but the right attitude for visitors to the museum would certainly not be one of complacent patronage. The Victorians put into our hands the keys of a scientifically controlled prosperity, and if in the effort their daily lives often became misshapen and ugly it is singularly undiscerning, as well as ungrateful, of us to belittle their achievement. (Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, Anon 1931)

A similar ‘recreation’ of the ‘Victorian’ age was completed in the Castle Museum in York, which opened ‘Kirkgate’ in 1938, a street-scene replete with a nineteenthcentury shopfronts, lighting, fixtures and fittings. As well as these exhibitions and displays, films set during the era, such as Victoria the Great (1937) and its sequel Sixty Glorious Years (1938), as well as the stage-play Victoria Regina (Housman 1934), also emphasized the pride and power of the age. However, these representations are not simple evocations of the past, but demonstrations of stability and order in a time of increasing economic and political uncertainty. Rather than attempt to return society to the nineteenth century, visions of the Victorian era provided a means of improving the present. As such, the references to the habits, values and ideals of the ‘Victorians’ demonstrate how the modern era can be re-directed towards progress and advancement. The use of the ‘Victorian’ era as a reference point within British society became especially significant after the end of the Second World War. The drive to modernize and reform was phrased in association with a movement away from the failures of the past. The acceleration of the present could be noted in the formation of the welfare state within the political sphere as a means of rectifying the ‘Victorian’ conditions of society (Beveridge 1942). Debates within Parliament regarding issues of insurance schemes for workers, health care, education and housing used the period of the nineteenth century as a means

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of demonstrating the need and the success of programmes of social reform. For example, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Leeds North, Osbert Peake (1897–1966), extolled the virtues of the National Insurance Bill during debates on the legislation in 1945 through an assessment of historic practices: In those days the relation of the employer to his workmen was based on the relation of a father to his children. The spirit of paternalism, which was the Victorian conception of this relationship, has now given way to a new atmosphere of free and equal partnership. It is in this new spirit that this scheme has been born. (HC Deb 10 October 1945 vol. 414 c.292)

On the issue of industrial insurance, Herbert Morrison (1888–1965), Labour Member of Parliament for Lewisham East, also used the associations of the nineteenth century to critique existing forms of welfare provisions for industrial injuries: I do not deny that the old system served the country well in its time, but its reform, nevertheless, is overdue. Fundamentally, it is Victorian in its conception; it is out of keeping with modern ideas. (HC Deb 08 November 1944 vol. 404 c.1391)

In this post-war Britain, Victorian relics, attitudes, ideas and values were regarded as the obstacles for forming a new, modern society. The past era was brought to the present to demonstrate the incongruity and the outrage of the existence of such historical conditions in the contemporary era. Such perceptions were increasingly noticeable within the public spheres as popular accounts of the period were provided, which focused upon the very different habits and ideals of society during the nineteenth century (see Annan 1949). The film productions of Great Expectations (1946), Nicholas Nickleby (1947), Oliver Twist (1948), The Mudlark (1950) and Scrooge (1951) also provided a visual basis for this perception as cinematic portrayals focused upon the inequality and unfairness of the period. The separation from this past is further demonstrated in the formation of the ‘Victorian era’ as a ‘museum object’ within the Festival of Britain during 1951 (Conekin 2004). The seven days preceding the opening of the event in April were organized by the British Broadcasting Corporation as ‘1851 Week’. Radio programmes mimicking the events of a hundred years previously were provided for listeners. This included Queen Victoria’s address at the opening of Parliament, Prince Albert’s speech to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and Prime Minister Gladstone’s report on the ‘Repression in Naples’ (after Conekin 2004).

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As an object of curiosity, the past could be looked upon as a measure of progress. Indeed, held a century after the Great Exhibition, the 1951 event was promoted as a means of realizing Britain’s advancement and its potential for the future (Conekin 2003). As a physical demonstration of such notions, the central site of the Festival of Britain on London’s South Bank by the River Thames, which hosted the exhibitions and displays outlining the grand visions of the future for Britain, was built atop of a disused Victorian industrial site. Within the complex, an 1851 Centenary Pavilion was built to house the relics of the previous age; the only remaining nineteenth-century structure on the site, the Shot Tower, which was originally used to forge lead shot, was refitted with a steel superstructure, which supported a radio telescope from which signals from across the universe could be detected and observed. Therefore, the past is regarded as having failed and demonstrates that current society can improve upon it, offering a vision of development by emphasizing the advances of the contemporary era. This was also reflected in the development of Lark Hill Place, a recreated Victorian street in Salford Museum and Art Gallery in 1957. The display was formed from the nineteenth-century houses and shops that were demolished in Salford during the early 1950s as post-war Greater Manchester was rebuilt for the modern era. Indeed, it is during the 1950s and 1960s that the concept of the ‘Victorian slum’ and ‘Victorian squalor’ is formed (see Briggs 1963). To demonstrate the progression of late twentieth-century Britain, references and allusions to the nineteenth century were evoked as a means of emphasizing the division between past and present. Within the political sphere, the notion of ‘Victorian’ conditions served as an impetus for reform and development. What is evident in this usage is the array of different context and political perspectives such references and allusions are employed for. Historical accuracy in this employment is not significant; stressing the irrationalism of opponents and the necessity for development is the function of this discourse. For instance, the Labour Party politician Douglas Jay (1907–1996) stated during a debate on local employment rights in Parliament during 1963 that Britain was still haunted by outdated modes of thought on jobs: We know that office employment is becoming an ever more important part of total employment, and confining the provisions of this legislation to industry alone is to have an outdated and almost Victorian idea of our economy. (HC Deb 1 May 1963 vol. 676 c.1206)

The notable historian and Labour peer Godfrey Elton (1892–1973) also referenced this perception in his assessment of the housing conditions faced by

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inhabitants of South London not far from the site of the Festival of Britain. In his speech to the House of Lords in 1967, Elton stated: in Lambeth but in other towns, in which tens of thousands of immigrants and of our own native citizens are forced to live in early Victorian slum conditions. (HL Deb 4 July 1967 vol. 284 c.491)

Therefore, the use of the term ‘Victorian’ as an allusion or reference point fulfils an important function in maintaining the present and shaping the future. To be modern in this sense is to frame your advances in the context of the past. As such, periods of history are used to delineate the contemporary era, to ensure that progress is maintained and protected. Using the ‘Victorian’ era as a reference or allusion to highlight values also achieves this same process. During the 1970s and 1980s, as Britain experienced industrial decline and high unemployment, the Victorian era was evoked repeatedly within the political sphere as a means to affirm a sense of progress (see Samuel 1992). Indeed, Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made a virtue of ‘Victorian values’ during a series of media interviews and speeches in 1983 (Thatcher 1983). This was immediately seized upon by political opponents as an indication of how the government were detached from the modern era as the Thatcher government presided over industrial unrest, unemployment and social disintegration. Therefore, critics highlighted how such an anachronistic position risked ruining the nation. In debates within Parliament, the Labour Member of Parliament Frank Dobson used the association of cruelty with the Victorian era as a means of highlighting the failings in current government policies towards the unemployed, the welfare state and international affairs: In view of the Prime Minister’s announcement that she subscribes to many of the Victorian values, will she tell the House which she most fancies reintroducing – the absence of a National Health Service, the absence of old-age pensions, the workhouse, or a long series of colonial wars? (HC Deb 17 February 1983 vol. 37 cc. 463–464)

However, rather than being solely based upon some nostalgic yearning, the allusion to the ‘Victorian’ ideals reflects the significance of the language of the past in its shaping of the present (Joyce 2007). It is not a wholesale return to the past that is advocated, but a use of this historical period to direct and shape the future (see Krueger 2002). The distinction is significant as it removes the assumption of a romanticized view being forwarded that a retrograde step is beneficial for society. On the contrary, in this usage, the past can be cultivated and developed as a means to ensure progress in the present. Previous eras are

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thereby evoked, not because of any innate value or idealism that they represent beyond that which is imagined by contemporary society, but because they represent a contemporary sense of progress. The development of Victorian heritage sites in the 1970s and 1980s in Britain at Wigan Pier in Lancashire, Bygones Museum in Devon and Beamish Open Air Museum in County Durham reflects this process. These museums provided visitors with ‘realistic’ experiences of nineteenth-century middle- and working-class life, with recreated scenes of domestic interiors, schools, workplaces and streets (see Walsh 1992). The same process could also be witnessed with the BBC television programme The Victorian Kitchen Garden (Sheather 1987) and accompanying books that provided a vivid recreation of the laborious practices of the period (Davis 1989). The emergence of the ‘Victorian’ era at these sites and within these programmes emphasized the progress of contemporary society rather than a desire to return to the perceived ‘traditional’ values of this era. The incongruity of the materials and spaces of the past within the modern age revealed the present to be in an advanced state. It is this usage of the term ‘Victorian’ as a means of classifying ideals, habits and practices that remains a central part of defining the contemporary era. Indeed, just as much as the Victorian civic architecture across the towns and cities in Britain has provided a material legacy of the age for the present, so too has the persistence of the ‘Victorians’ in our wider lexicon ensured an intangible heritage of the era. Whether used to criticize or to direct, this mode of referencing the past always serves to sustain an idea of progress. However, the character of the ‘Victorian values’ espoused by Margaret Thatcher did not succeed in ensuring that era possesses positive connotations in Britain. When the Victorian period is referred to within contemporary society, it is as a means of highlighting the failures of the current age to adapt or to ensure progression. As such, ‘Victorian slums’, ‘Victorian conditions’ and ‘Victorian ideas’ still exist within twenty-first-century Britain as the reference maintains a presence and a utility for these ‘relics’. For example, during the early 1990s the Labour opposition frequently cited the Conservative government policies as heralding a return to the ‘Victorian’ period as it sought to undermine the credibility of ministers and their ability to lead Britain into the new millennium. Whether applied to hospitals, education or industry, this emphasized the failure to live in the modern age. This can be observed in a variety of Parliamentary debates during the last decade of the twentieth century. In a debate on mining in Britain, the Labour Member of Parliament for Neath (Wales) Peter Hain criticized the government for their dereliction of care for the nation’s industrial workers:

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Coal privatisation clearly does not mean new opportunities, new hope and new prosperity, as Government rhetoric would have it. It means old misery, old tragedy, old bitterness returning to our mining communities: Victorian conditions with a vengeance. (HC Deb 16 December 1994a vol. 251 c.1373)

A similar use of the historical reference is deployed in the same year during a response by the Labour politician Tony Benn in his dismissal of the government’s economic policies: Although we tend to speak in the House in economic debates in the jargon of economics, most people know what it is all about. It is about the return to Victorian conditions when the country was run by a handful of wealthy and powerful people and the rest of the people were on the floor. (HC Deb 18 July 1994b vol. 247 c.67)

Such references served to direct the present and the future as the danger of ‘returning to the Victorian era’ was made apparent within the political and media sphere. These allusions have been made with an increasing number of Victorian period dramas on television within Britain (after Kleinecke-Bates 2014), including adaptations such as Sherlock Holmes (Cox 1984–1994), Great Expectations (Jarrold 1999), David Copperfield (Curtis 1999) and North & South (Percival 2004), original dramas set in the era such as Bramwell (1995–1998) and The Hanging Gale (1995) and recent reality television programmes developed from The 1900 House (1999), including The Victorian Farm (2009) and 24 Hours in the Past (2015), that have used the period as their basis of engagement. These programmes offer contemporary viewers further evidence of society’s progression through a stark depiction of Victorian life that emphasizes class, gender and economic division and inequality. This is the case particularly for the spate of Victorian-based reality television programming, all of which base their conceit on the ‘disturbing’ differences between experience of life in the past and the present. In this historical reference, previous eras are seemingly broken and perverse, which ensures modern-day encounters are observed to reveal the progressive spirit of the contemporary age. In effect, this presentation of the past as an object which is flawed and in need of reform is also the key feature of the development of ‘Neo-Victorian’ literature in Britain and the United States over the past three decades (Hadley 2010; Heilmann and Llewellyn 2010; Kaplan 2007). Victorian historical fiction has utilized the notion of social, cultural or political deficiency within nineteenth-century culture as a plot device that either constrains the characters of novels or provides a platform for protagonists to ‘modernize’ their own era (see Mitchell 2010). Examples such as The Quincunx

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(Palliser 1989), Mary Reilly (Martin 1990), Fingersmith (Waters 2002) or The Observations (Harris 2006) all provide an impetus in their narrative scheme for a modern audience through the evocation of a historical age beset by problems. Through these wider references, the Victorian era maintains an existence within contemporary society and it brought to bear on ideas of progress and power. By using the period as a metaphor, allusion or simile a critical perspective on the nature and direction of our own time is raised. This perspective is also enabled by bringing to mind the material environment of the age; ‘Victorian factories’, ‘Victorian workhouses’ or ‘Victorian schools’ are envisaged as existing within the modern as a detriment to our current era. When confronted with challenges to the perceived necessity of advancement or the failure to maintain a sense of progress, the Victorians can be observed to be still present and the cause of this stagnation or decline within the media sector: The leader of the junior doctors actually broke down and cried this week as he spoke of working for long hours for low pay in Victorian conditions. (The People, Donaghey 1999) Health watchdogs have criticised managers of a mental health unit for treating patients in Victorian conditions with no privacy. (Liverpool Echo, Anon 2003) Elderly patients are being treated in Victorian conditions without heating at one of Scotland’s most dilapidated hospitals. (Daily Mail, Roden 2009)

Therefore, the reference to the nineteenth century controls and directs the present and orientates society towards the future. This can be observed in response to the policy of economic austerity, which was enacted in Britain after the banking crisis which enveloped the global financial markets after 2008. The reduction in state services introduced by successive governments was regarded by opponents as a regressive step, halting economic and social advancement to ensure political credibility. In this manner, the nineteenth century was returned to the fore as a means of illustrating the anachronistic and dangerous agenda which was pursued. Within the public and media sphere, the Victorian age was brought into the present as the analogy was used to frame the social and political effects that such economic policies had within the wider public: Unemployed people will be forced to work for the dole under the most draconian welfare regime seen in Britain since the Victorian poorhouse. (Daily Record, Crichton 2013) It’s a return to Victorian times George Osborne is preparing to drastically speed up the pace of £12billion in brutal spending cuts. (Sunday Mirror, Moss 2015)

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The ‘return to the Victorian era’ became a regular refrain in the critical coverage of government policies to reduce the nation’s budget deficit. Rather than representing a left-wing programme to disrupt the fiscal programmes of a conservative agenda, this reflects the way in which the references to the past are employed to protect the idea of progress. The separation from a past that appears to have failed provides a means by which the contemporary era can reorganize itself. The objective of this mode of speaking about the past is to preserve the present and shape the future and the same effect can be regarded in the referencing of the past to maintain the economic policies of austerity. From 2008 onwards, supportive newspapers and politicians regarded the importance of reawakening the spirit of ‘Victorian philanthropy’ and ‘Victorian ambition’ to progress the nation’s economy and society. Such assertions do not entail a desire to return to the nineteenth century, but highlight another use of the historical discourse to shape the current era. The past is evoked here to redirect contemporary society; if we want to state how the future should be formed then the past serves as a guiding reference point. The ‘Victorian era’ clearly demonstrates how the past is deployed through comparison and analogy to maintain the perception of progress in the present.

Lawlessness and order: The Wild West This Victorian period is certainly not unique in its allusive function as a reference point for the modern era. Indeed, the usage of the ‘Wild West’, ‘Reconstruction Era’, ‘the Gilded Age’, ‘the Great Depression’, ‘the 1950s’ or even general terms such as ‘wartime’ denotes particular ideas and values for current society in Britain and the United States. These categories characterize a historical era but they also function to shape the present and the future. It is through these references that we create and preserve progress in the modern world. The case of the ‘Wild West’ is a clear indication of this process as the era has been employed within the political, media and public spheres as a means of demonstrating advancement and warning of a lapse or a regression to an inferior, dangerous age. The term itself was a product of the colonization of the interior of the continental United States from the early nineteenth century (Turner 1894). The ‘manifest destiny’ of the nation to possess the land beyond its frontier which was defined in the 1840s was derived in part from the perception that the ‘barbarous’, ‘savage’ land should be righteously civilized (Anon 1845). This romanticized vision of appearing to settle ‘virgin’ lands can be observed within the popular literature of

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the period (Smith 1950). This delineation of the space as unchartered territory for audiences across the United States can be observed in this anonymous poem published in the New York magazine The Knickerbocker: Would that my home were in the far wild West! There, what God fashioned, man hath never marred, And earth seems young, as when, by foot unpressed. (Anon 1839: 224)

It was this vision of the west which was also responsible for the vicious repression of Native Americans and other ethnic groups during this period by European Americans (Horsman 1986). From this expansion of the frontier, the notion of the ‘Wild West’ became prominent amongst authors, religious commentators and journalists to characterize the process of land acquisition and settlement seemingly beyond the purview of the state (see Eliot 1837; Robb 1847). However, despite numerous historical studies that have highlighted the opportunity and development which was also present within the westward expansion it is this perception of an almost anarchic-type existence that is drawn upon in contemporary references to the period (Anderson and Hill 2004; Aquila 1996; McGrath 1984). This has been formed in part by the myth of the west that emerged as the processes of establishing farmsteads and towns were taking place. The ‘taming’ of the ‘Wild West’, both the land and its people, formed a central part of mid-nineteenth-century fiction, as authors created a sentimental vision of national identity within the United States based upon the exceptional conquest by the individual of the environment (Slotkin 1973; Wrobel 1996). The creation of the ‘dime novel’ as a cheap form of entertainment used the setting of the west as a plot device to advance a narrative of heroism and endeavour of settlers against nature and the ‘savages’ who they encountered (see Stephens 1860). Serials provided by such titles as Wild West Weekly, published from 1902, also provided a means of witnessing the conquest of the frontier (Anon 1902). The landscape of the west, of the prairies, deserts and plains, was also a feature of the adventure novels from writers such as the Irish American author, Thomas Mayne Reid (1818–1883), whose novel, The Scalp Hunters (1851), detailed the transformation of the ‘wild’ terrain as it was traversed by pioneers: The Wild West: Unrol [sic] the world’s map, and look upon the great northern continent of America. Away to the wild west, away toward the setting sun … Rest them, where golden rivers rise among peaks that carry the eternal snow … You are looking upon a land whose features are unfurrowed [sic] by human hands. (Reid 1851: 1)

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Such perceptions of rugged settlers and farmhands taking possession of an untamed territory and encountering the dangers of outlaws and thieves alongside the perilous condition of the land ensured that a fictional ‘Wild West’ had emerged with the actual process of expansion in the United States (see Cooke 1857; Webb 1872). This notion of an untamed spectacle of the west was central in the Buffalo Hunt public exhibition in Hoboken, New Jersey, held by the showman and entrepreneur P.T. Barnum (1810–1891) in 1843 (Barnum 1855: 352). It is also a part of the growing public interest for rodeos across the United States, where the skills of survival and settlement in the ‘Wild West’ were displayed to audiences (Hall 2001). Whereas once these events had been organized to corral a herd of cattle for organizing and branding, rodeos were now a means to witness the practices of an increasingly outdated lifestyle (Reddin 1999). With the settling of the region, the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876 and the end of the Great Sioux War in 1877, which saw the formation of Native American reservations, the ‘Wild West’ had seemingly been tamed (see Frost 1873). Whilst the frontier was officially declared closed by 1890, the perception that the traditions of the west were losing their place with the public consciousness led William ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody (1846–1917) to develop the Wild West exhibitions during the early 1880s (see Cody 1887). These shows would delight audiences with displays of horsemanship, marksmanship and recreated skirmishes between the Native American ‘Braves’ and the soldiers of the US army (Cody 1893) (Figure 5.2). The British and European tours of ‘Buffalo Bill’s Wild West’ ensured that the frontier became a global culture, with authors and artists from across the world depicting the people and landscapes of the territory (Buel 1882). Overwhelmingly, these depictions focused on the mastery of nature and the assertion of control in the absence of authority. Such associations ensured that the ‘Wild West’ appeared to be emblematic of the modern age as it reflected the notion of advancement and progress (Etulain 1996). Therefore, whilst by the late nineteenth century the actual west had been settled, the ‘Wild West’ has become a reference point for expressing ideas about social, cultural and political development. References to the ‘Wild West’ within the United States and Britain which were used to assess issues beyond the American frontier served to highlight the absence of progress and the need for reform. In essence, the direction and shape of society in the present and its direction for the future were made through discussing the past. An early example of this use of the frontier as an allusion or metaphor can be located in debates in Britain regarding the outbreaks of civil disorder in Belfast during the 1890s. The parades and sectarian provocation was

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Figure 5.2 Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World, 1899. Courier Litho. Co., Buffalo, NY.

reported by John Dillon (1851–1927), Member of Parliament for County Mayo, through this historical association: Later in the journey, five revolver shots were heard, but these appear to have been discharged, as in the Wild West, with the object of expressing exuberance of spirits. (HC Deb 09 June 1898 vol. 58 cc.1195)

The connotation between the ‘Wild West’ with an absence of authority and institutions was used in both the United States and Britain to demonstrate aspects of the contemporary era that had not sufficiently advanced. The ‘west’ becomes an allusion on which to identify the problems faced by society. For example, a robbery in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1890s could be described as a return of the ‘Wild West’ into contemporary life: Wild West on East Side … A raid as daring as was ever made in the far West was successfully and safely executed last evening in the heart of the most crowded part of New York. (New York Times, Anon 1898c)

As such, the ‘Wild West’ was brought back into contemporary society just as it was being cast into history; it is through this past reference that a modern era can be formed. As the use of the historical allusion was developed, the era was also becoming part of wider popular culture with the development of the

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western within early cinema (Verhoeff 2006). Within the first two decades of the twentieth century, a range of films set in the ‘Wild West’ had been produced and released in both the United States and in Europe. Examples such as The Pioneers (1903), Kit Carson (1903), The Great Train Robbery (1903), Across the Plains (1911), The Invaders (1912) and The Night on the Range (1916) all placed individuals within an unruly physical and social environment from which order was formed (Tomkins 1992). Whilst these early western films took upon the tragic, comic, dramatic and melodramatic plotlines, what formed a persistent thread was that the excitement and the allure of the setting were tempered by the need for control and authority. Whilst not constituting straightforward allegorical morality tales of heroism and endeavour, these early westerns emphasized the disorder of the past as present-day viewers could be reassured of the stability of their own age. Such perceptions were also reinforced by the burgeoning western genre in popular fiction from American authors such as Zane Grey (1872–1939), in the classic Riders of the Purple Sage (Grey 1912), and Clarence E. Mulford (1883–1956) who created the hero Hopalong Cassidy that was popularized through the novel Bar-20 Days (Mulford 1907). These provided accounts of fortitude and endurance whilst the protagonists brought justice to the lives of those encumbered by the brutal forces of the region. Whilst these accounts created the ‘Wild West’ as a place of adventure, it was the resolution of disorder and the modernization of the frontier that triumphed. Therefore, the framing of modern concerns with reference to the ‘Wild West’ provided evidence of a lapse in progress and a need for advancement. Whilst the frontier provided a romantic vision of the wilderness it also formed a symbol of regression into a savage and brutal era and as such a vivid evocation of a failure to progress. As such, reports of crimes or social conditions in Britain and the United States during the 1910s and 1920s could be framed as evident of the ‘Wild West’ or using the methods of the ‘Wild West’. Such allusions were not jovial associations with the performances of Buffalo Bill, but indictments of the conditions of society that such attitudes were still present: ‘Wild West’ methods needed in Sheffield … it was stated in a licensing case at Sheffield on Tuesday that a publican had found it necessary to keep a loaded revolver for protection. (Derby Daily Telegraph, Anon 1914b) A scene reminiscent of the Wild West was described at the Old Bailey when … a boilerscaler, was indicted for feloniously demanding with menaces … a brass check … with intent to steal. (Dundee Courier, Anon 1912b)

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Similarly, the election of Winfield A. Huppuch (1861–1940) as the Chairman of the New York Democratic State Committee was heralded as a means to end the anachronistic politicking that was regarded as damaging the reputation of representatives in the region: The first and foremost duty of every Democrat in the State during this campaign is to restore confidence in business. It is time to do away with this Wild West method of campaigning that is being made. (New York Times, Anon 1910)

The reference demonstrates the incongruity of the past within contemporary society how such actions and events are inapt and irrelevant for the modern age. Marking episodes of failure with the social values of the state as indicative of an earlier period ensures that the sense of progress in the present is maintained. In effect, the manner in which the past is discussed operates as a check upon the direction and acceleration of modernity. The employment of this reference can both affirm existing structures but also challenge alterations and serve as a means of forwarding a dissonant agenda. This can be observed with the statement with the House of Commons by the Labour Member of Parliament, George Hardie (1873–1937), who opposed the full introduction of the Emergency Powers Act during 1926, which would provide the government with the ability to overrule the democratic process: We read of the ancient wild west days, and of the broncho punchers and the cow punchers, and of a man getting a rifle barrel into his back. We smile at that and say that it belongs to a past age. In this Regulation we have the cowboy men on the other side. (HC Deb 28 September 1926 vol. 199 c.482)

The direct analogy made between past and present indicates the role of the historical comparison, to ensure that an ideal of progress and modernity is maintained. The shape and form of this advancement are, of course, debatable but what is constant is the mode by which it is achieved, through the use of metaphor, allusion and simile to make the past present. The continuing array of representations of the Wild West through film and literature during the 1920s and 1930s ensured that the reference remained current for an international audience (see Stanfield 2001). Popular novels, such as The Saga of Billy the Kid (Burns 1926), and the silent and speaking films of the pioneering western cinematographer John Ford (1894–1973), including The Iron Horse (1924), 3 Bad Men (1926) and Stagecoach (1939), all drew upon the moral or physical desolation of the environment and the assertion of order (see Wright 1975: 33). Through these depictions, the ‘Wild West’ served as a means to highlight the dangerous and uncivilized aspects of the modern world. During the 1940s,

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domestic incidences of street gangs, violence and blue-collar crime were cast as evidence of conditions akin to the ‘Wild West’. However, where the term has garnered most significance is in the description of the post-1945 development of Britain and the United States. During this period of economic and social expansion, the historical association formed through referencing the ‘Wild West’ highlighted areas where this development had stalled or failed. For example, in the debates in Westminster during the late 1940s, regarding issues of urban development, nuclear power or international political reform, the historical allusion emphasized the absence of progression and the potential for disorder: Who are the corporation? They are an oligarchy of nine men who are going to rule the roost at Stevenage and in other towns. They are the creatures of the Minister … It scarcely needs the acquisition of pistols to turn these gentlemen into the bosses of Wild West towns of gold rush times. (HC Deb 8 May 1946 vol. 422 c.1155) The present condition of the nations, in my view, may be likened to that of the Wild West mining camp in the middle of the last century. If someone infringed the accepted code, the only remedy was for the victim to collect a gang of friends and lynch the criminal. (HL Deb 30 April 1947 vol. 147 c.255)

Indeed, the prevalence of this point of comparison between past and present and its usage as a means to street advancement can be witnessed across all political interests. The significance of its deployment is in its demonstration of how the actions of others could lead society away from its ordained progression to betterment. With the pressures of the new, post-1945 world, it was through a historical point of comparison that advancement could be formed, defined and controlled. This ‘marshalling’ took place within Parliament but also in the media as well: It was ‘Wild West Justice’, declared Brendan Bracken, Conservative M.P. for Bournemouth, when he addressed the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Gas Bill. (Nottingham Evening Post, Anon 1948b)

As Britain’s post-war economic and social development was defined in contrast to a ‘Wild West’ to emphasize the advances of the modern age, the same processes were being used within the United States as the notion of bringing order to a tumultuous and precarious frontier served as an important reference for late twentieth-century political culture. The defining of acts or areas as akin to the ‘Wild West’ legitimated political decisions as a process of bringing order and stability to a backward and regressive state. For example, scholars have assessed the content and form of the representations of the frontier and the ‘Wild West’

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in post-1945 American culture as an allegorical tale of the Cold War (see Corkin 2004). However, what is not regarded is that this mode of referencing, forming allusions between the past and the present has a far longer precedent and reflects the processes of modernity, the separation between a historical era and the emphasis on the progression of contemporary society. Certainly, from the early 1950s, the ‘golden era’ of westerns was witnessed across international cinema as a range of films that tracked the troubles and triumphs of the frontier were released to an international audience (see Cameron and Pye 1996; Pye 2003). From Red River (1948), Broken Arrow (1950), High Noon (1952), Lone Star (1952), Shane (1953), River of No Return (1954) to The Magnificent Seven (1960), these films provided an assertion that a violent, turbulent past can be modernized and improved upon. This perception was also confirmed in the 1951 opening of Hoppyland, an amusement park dedicated to the character of Hopalong Cassidy, in Venice, California (Rugh 2008: 102). With a themed rollercoaster, pony trails and the ‘frontier’ experience, the short-lived park did not provide a facsimile of an invented history. Rather, it provided a vision of the era’s improvement, a site where the past brought into the contemporary era, a process that had been highlighted in the era’s development of the specific movie genre of the western. The depiction of the ‘Wild West’ provided viewers with an assessment of morality and heroism in an era of adventure but it also assured audiences of the progress of 1950s and 1960s American society. Popular television shows such as The Lone Ranger (1949–1957), Wagon Train (1952–1957), Gunsmoke (1955– 1975), Maverick (1957–1962), Rawhide (1959–1965), Bonanza (1959–1973) and The Wild Wild West (1965–1969) also demonstrated the need for placing order on a lawless land. This can be regarded as demonstrative of the acceleration away from the past just as much as it might be read as a parable between the forces of capitalism and communism (Wright 2001). Indeed, this can be illustrated in the acceptance speech for the Democratic Party presidential nomination of John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) in July 1960 in the Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles. In this statement, Kennedy reiterated the significance of the conquest of the ‘Wild West’ in advancing society: But I tell you the New Frontier is here, whether we seek it or not. Beyond that frontier are the uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered pockets of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus. It would be easier to shrink back from that frontier, to look to the safe mediocrity of the past, to be lulled by good intentions and high rhetoric – and those who prefer that course should not cast their votes for me, regardless of party. (Kennedy 1960)

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With the advent of a new age, the past has to be dismissed or departed from to highlight the progress of the modern era. In post-war American culture, the ‘Wild West’ provided images of masculinity and morality, but it also enshrined an image of development. The figure of the ‘cowboy’ as a historical character serves as in important part of this reference as the process of establishing order upon a turbulent, chaotic scene evidences a movement away from the past and into the present (see Oglesby 1976). Both President Richard Nixon (1913–1994) and his National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Dr Henry Kissinger both employed the terms and associations of the ‘Wild West’ in their assessment of the Vietnam War. Cowboys, saloons and six-shooters could be referenced not just as an assertion of American values but as a means of emphasizing progress through the employment of associations that stress reform, order and advancement. Whilst such terms had been employed by critics of President Theodore Roosevelt’s policies in Central America, this self-conscious espousal of the historical analogy in the 1970s was not a nostalgic vision of a heroic age, rather it casts opponents on the global stage as backward and in need of order. For a domestic audience, this historical allusion formed a ‘Wild West’ of international politics that could only be settled and pacified by the processes of modernization led by the United States. Indeed, Kissinger coined the term ‘Cowboy Diplomacy’ to describe the extension of American power and influence across the globe and the engagement with communist states (see Litwak 1984: 66). In a 1972 interview with an Italian news magazine, which was widely covered in the United States, Kissinger would describe his own role as that of a cowboy, pacifying territories and modernizing the world through his political arts: ‘The main point stems from the fact that I’ve always acted alone.’ He continues: ‘Americans admire that enormously. Americans admire the cowboy leading the caravan along astride his horse, the cowboy entering a village or a city alone on his horse. Without even a pistol … ’ ‘Not necessarily brave,’ says Kissinger, swallowing the bait. ‘This cowboy doesn’t need courage’. (Daily Independent Journal, Anon 1973)

Intriguingly, such policies were criticized by the Democratic presidential nominee, Jimmy Carter, during his successful run to the White House in the 1977 elections as ‘Lone Ranger foreign policy’ (Anon 1976). As such, the language of the past is used to state the inappropriate and anachronistic practices formed under both President Nixon and his successor, President Gerald Ford (1913–2006). Whether evoking the past in the present as a means of rebuke or a point of inspiration, the effect is to emphasize progress and advancement.

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In fact, the ‘Wild West’ and the associated cowboys, saloons and gunfights have become references through which domestic and foreign policy have been defined within the United States. These allusions to the past are not just points of national identity but clear assessments of the past as a means to shape current political agendas (after Allmendinger 1992). During his term in office from 1981 to 1989, President Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) drew upon the references to the ‘Wild West’ as a means of establishing policies within the United States and towards the Soviet Union. These allusions were employed to provide an image of a modernizing leader, reforming union and labour laws at home and ensuring stability on the international stage (Jones and Wills 2009: 106). Indeed, President Reagan’s election inauguration in January 1981 was reported within the supportive national and local media within the United States as a process of establishing order on the ‘Wild West’ of the nation’s political arena: The metaphor seems inevitable: a cowboy in full regalia moves on Washington from out of the West, looking grim and ready for battle with the gang of looters that has taken over the town. (New York Times, Lindsey 1981)

Speaking at a launch of The American Cowboy exhibition held in the Library of Congress during the spring and summer of 1983, which displayed both the artefacts of the period and also the cinematic and literary representations, President Reagan stated his desire not to return to the past, but to orientate the present and shape the future through the ‘Wild West’: Tales of Wild West men and women … are woven into the dreams of our youths and the standards we aim to live by in our adult lives. Ideals of courageous and self-reliant heroes, both men and women, are the stuff of Western lore … I hope all of Washington takes time to get to know the American cowboy again. (Reagan 1983)

As the figure of order upon an untamed wilderness, President Reagan’s use of the historical analogy ensured that his tenure was framed as a means of advancement for the United States and for the rest of the world. In the lavish 1984 re-election campaign commercial, A New Beginning, President Reagan’s vision of a better America was supported by visual references to the cowboys of the Wild West (Morreale 1991). This was not a sentimental reminder of the nation’s past, but a clear point around which its future could be organized. This was also mirrored in the long-running television series Little House on the Prairie (Hanalis 1974–1982) as well as the novel Lonesome Dove (McMurty 1986) and its highly successful television adaptation (1989). Beyond simple nostalgia, these accounts provide a means of reflection about the present and the future.

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The significance of this allusion can also be observed with the increasing use of the historical analogy of the ‘Wild West’ to frame the state of the country’s inner city areas that had suffered from post-industrial decline and an increasing problem with drugs and crime. By the 1980s, the scale of the crack cocaine epidemic had formed slums within cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, DC, that presented problems for policing, welfare programmes and politicians. Within the media sector, urban areas were associated with a dangerous and volatile era as a means of highlighting the incongruity of their presence within modern-day American society: Gangs selling crack give rise to new wild west. (New York Times, Reinhold 1988) District of Columbia officials, faced with ‘wild West shoot-outs’ … are arming police with semi-automatic weapons to combat the drug trade they blame for the carnage. (The Lewiston Journal, Anon 1988) Gunmen in speeding cars and on foot shattered the night Sunday at two drug sites in Queens, killing two people and injuring eight others in what is believed to be a battle for control of the drug trade … transforming steaming city street corners into scenes from the Wild West. (The Washington Post, Anon 1987)

The reference to the ‘Wild West’ ensures that the inner-city areas blighted by the drugs trade are placed further on the periphery. In this manner, the wider structural problems of inequality and the absence of investment that fostered these problems are removed so that the direction of society can be maintained and ‘failed’ areas disregarded as backward and regressive. Indeed, this has been the prominent usage of the historical discourse with regard to the ‘Wild West’ as subjects cast in this manner are formed as the objects of concern and reform. This usage is also present within political and media representation in Britain, where despite how the ‘frontier’, ‘cowboys’ and the ‘Wild West’ could be regarded as beyond the national historical narrative, it still forms a central part in asserting relevancy and modernity. During the 1980s and 1990s, British politicians regularly invoke the age to characterize attitudes or areas of lawlessness, ill behaviour and potential dissonance. Frequently, the employment of this historical analogy has been used to characterize and critique civil society for excessive levels of alcohol, crime, violence or antisocial behaviour. For example, during a Parliamentary debate regarding illicit drug use in July 1996, Michael Connarty, Labour MP for Linlithgow and East Falkirk, used the historical era of the frontier to describe public disorder: When will the Minister make a proposal to ban drinking in the street before the summer turns once again into a wild west show as people wander around

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Scotland’s communities and high streets, drinking spirits and causing mayhem among the general public? (HC Deb 3 July 1996 vol. 280 cc.963)

Similarly, in the House of Lords debate of June 1992 over travelling communities moving across the county and illegally occupying vacant land, Robert Shirley, Earl Ferrers (1929–2012), placed these groups into a historical analogy to emphasize the dangerous effect they posed to society at large. There is something bizarre and in some ways intimidating in seeing in this country an almost Wild West-like wagon train of often decrepit vehicles, progressing with inflexible determination through the countryside, intent on invading some peaceable country town which has done nothing to invite such a visitation. (HL Deb 14 May 1992 vol. 537 c.534)

In this manner, aspects of the present which are regarded as transgressive can be framed within this analogy as unconnected to the progress of contemporary society. Reduced to the appearance of anachronism, the objects of these references are subjected to alienation or intervention as a means to bringing order to a chaotic, regressive and disruptive element in the modern era. This can be seen in the recent television dramas based in the ‘Wild West’. From Father Murphy (1981–1983) to Paradise (1988–1991), Dr Quinn Medicine Woman (1993–1998) and Deadwood (2004–2006), the driving theme within each of these programmes is the establishment of order and the need for progress. This is the role of references to the ‘Wild West’ within the current era, along with the wider allusions to the ‘frontier’, ‘cowboys’ and associated cultural artefacts of the era. When an element within current society appears to be beyond the control of the established structures of power, it is termed as belonging to the ‘Wild West’. As such, in recent years during economic crises in the 1980s and the 2000s, the banking sector has been associated with the frontier; Wall Street and the London Stock Exchange have been castigated for appearing to be the ‘Wild West’. The information age, which developed from the 1990s as the internet and new media began to reshape social lives, commerce and politics, is also frequently criticized as operating like the ‘Wild West’ as the absence of regulation is regarded as threatening existing social mores and values. Indeed, the title can be applied to any place, person or era as its function is to reflect contemporary progress and advancement not to draw specific parallels because of the particular character of the past. This can be observed with the reporting of events in Iraq after the invasion of coalition forces in 2003. Supportive and critical media used the ‘Wild West’ to assuage any doubts of the legitimacy of military intervention but also to provide

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an assessment of the absence of progress brought to Iraq as a consequence of invasion, regime change and the introduction of democracy. Across the regional and national media in the United States, the historical references ensured that the American frontier was transported to the Middle East: A U.S. Army engineer unit took its first steps Monday to restore order to a ‘wild west’ region of northern Baghdad, seizing weapons, cash and unexploded munitions. (St. Louis Post-Despatch, Ganey 2003) After 2 1/2 years of fighting, US troops are struggling to tame the vast desert border region they call Iraq’s Wild West. (The Boston Globe, Barnard 2003) Iraq Authority Made Millions in Cash Payments: Former Official Says Chaos Created ‘Wild West’ Scene. (The Washington Post, Margasak 2005)

The use of this allusion to frame current issues demonstrates the value of the historical discourse as a tool in shaping contemporary society. In these deployments, references to the past serve to direct notions of progress and advancement. Certainly, what constitutes that development is dependent upon the context; however, speaking about the past is a means by which that improvement is defined. The ‘Wild West’, despite being assessed for its idealized place within the political, cultural and social landscape of the United States, also plays a very important role in defining the modern world. Scholars have long assessed how settling of the frontier forged an ‘imagined community’ within the United States that characterized the national character (Slotkin 1973; Turner 1894). However, it is the way in which the ‘Wild West’ has maintained a presence within the current age through references, allusions and metaphor that has defined modernity. It is through this form of representation that the current state and direction of society is debated. This is not the result of some unique character or universal message of the history of the frontier. Rather it is the product of our own age that distinguishes itself from earlier periods as a means by which it justifies a sense of progression. Therefore, the separation of past and present, the improvement from an earlier age and the utilization of history as a point of orientation have ensured that the ‘Wild West’ continues to be part of contemporary society.

Advancement and atrophy: Waging war in the modern era The traumatic history of the last 200 years, scarred by warfare, genocide, imperialism and repression, has shaped the character and form of the Western nation state. This period has witnessed the violent deaths of millions of people as

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a result of the political and ethnic conflicts that ravaged Europe, Africa and North America. From the ending of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the outbreak of the US Civil War in 1861 to the eruption of the First World War nearly a hundred years later in 1914, and from the concentration camps created by the British during the Boer War to the Holocaust undertaken by Nazi Germany during the Second World War and the ethnic cleansing seen in the Yugoslav Wars of 1991–2001, the legacy of this brutal era is still apparent in both domestic and international political spheres. Indeed, it would be accurate to state that current politicians and wider societies live within the shadow of these events as we still address their aftermath (see Judt 2005). As such, the manner in which these events have shaped global diplomacy has attracted a great deal of scholarly analysis within the past two decades, which has revealed how policy and planning have been guided by the analogies between past wars and present concerns (Neustadt and May 1986). Studies have demonstrated that such historical comparisons have guided politicians and military strategists when confronted with threats to security or the need to respond to aggressive states (Khong 1992). However, metaphors, allusions and similes that reference war and specific conflicts have a far broader usage within the current era. Indeed, what is noticeable is how pervasive the lexicon derived from modern conflicts is within contemporary society. Terms, phrases and references have served to shape social and political movements in Britain and the United States by orientating societies towards progress and reform. In this manner, whilst the fighting may have ceased in these allusions, the battles continue as a means to alter the present and direct the future. The advent of the use of conflict as a metaphor to refer to wider processes within society is the product of the modern age. With the advent of detailed media coverage of the Crimean War (1854–1856) and the US Civil War (1861–1865), the reference to violent confrontation as a means of expressing ideas beyond the field of battle had gained greater usage. Essentially, industrial conflict had been brought into people’s lives in a manner that had not previously existed. Conflict on such a scale could be referenced by a wider section of society. As such, by the mid-nineteenth century the waging of ‘war’ on issues beyond the battlefield had become an established metaphor for political and religious institutions. Whilst drawing on the Old Testament associations of wars waged by God, these references to conflict were coloured by current events rather than purely by religious conviction. The opponents of the nation state on the actual battlefield were presented as barriers to progress and advancement so too were the conceptual enemies of government, institutions and the wider body politic. For example, a contributor to the Church of England Magazine in

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1861 could state unequivocally the significance of conflict for wholesale moral improvement: Once more, let me call on you in every family to wage war on dirt, since dirt destroys the happiness of many a home; for dirt is one chief cause of drunkenness. (Tupper 1861: 94)

Contemporaneous accounts in British newspapers also highlighted how municipal authorities were engaged in a conflict with adversaries of development within society: As one of the great enemies of comfort, civilisation and happiness among men, let us therefore war upon dirt. Down with dirt! (Galway Vindicator and Connaught Advertiser, Anon 1854d) The Sanitary Committee were determined to make the town healthy, and the inspectors must wage continual war against dirt. (Sheffield Independent, Anon 1875)

Rather than an abstract idea, warfare against ‘vice’, ‘dirt’, ‘alcohol’, ‘profligacy’ and ‘poverty’ was defined by contemporary and historical analogies of conflicts. The encompassing effect of modern wars is key in this process as a broader social base is mobilized with conflict in the current era through the institutions of the nation state; therefore, conflict ensures the involvement of the majority of society. Evidence of this can be witnessed in the programme of action initiated by the American politician Anthony Comstock (1844–1915), a veteran of the Civil War, who launched a ‘war on vice’ after founding the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice in 1873. The operation of the organization was frequently phrased as a conflict against that which would disrupt the peaceful progress of society: Waging War on Vice. (New York Times, Anon 1886)

Similar wars on ‘vice’ were declared by members of the City Vigilance League organized by the Reverend Charles Parkhurst (1842–1933). This group documented the corruption of municipal and police officials within the city and the levels of crime experienced by citizens in such a rigorous manner that it was reported in the popular presses as a conflict (see Parkhurst 1895). During the latter nineteenth century, further ‘wars’ on corruption or inequality were also launched in the city as a response to the corruption of Tammany Hall. The election of William Strong (1827–1900) on an anti-Tammany ticket as New York’s mayor in 1895 was a result of the conflicts fought in the city. Strong continued these ‘offensives’ with his appointment of Theodore Roosevelt

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as Police Commissioner who also described his reforming work within metropolitan society as a conflict: We believe in waging relentless war on rank-growing evils of all kinds, and it makes no difference to us if they happen to be of purely native growth. (Roosevelt 1897: 57)

As such, uses of the analogy of a war waged upon an intangible concept gained greater meaning as a collective endeavour. This can be observed with the reform campaigns launched in New York after the victory of the United States in the Spanish-American War of 1898. With the city’s presses responsible for the charge for war with Spain resulting from their colonial mismanagement in the Pacific and the Caribbean as well as the rights for Cuban independence, the same righteous zeal was employed for the work of Bishop Henry C. Potter (1835– 1908) of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. In the wake of further charges of corruption and embezzlement levied at Tammany Hall, Bishop Potter launched another ‘war on vice’ in 1900 to root out the regressive and ‘old-fashioned’ politics of the nineteenth century (see Bourgeois 2004: 17). Targeting the operations of the Democratic Party’s political machine across the metropolis, this ‘war on vice’ was a means to create a modern city politics from the failures of the past: Bishop’s war on vice: Dr. Potter will soon make his protest to the Mayor – to arouse the whole city. (New York Times, Anon 1900b)

The use of ‘war’ as a point of association in a process by which society is transformed evidences the uses of the historical discourse as a means by which the present and future are directed. In Britain, at the outset of the twentieth century, the legacy of the colonial wars of the nineteenth century which were fought to secure political influence and economic advantage formed the point of comparison for the conflicts that were waged to modernize the nation. Indeed, just as the Second Boer War (1899–1902) was being fought by the British army, the Liberal Party politician Lord Rosebery (1847–1929) spoke of the conflict to be fought in Britain whilst campaigning for the 1900 General Election: You may put an end to your South African war, you may make peace with your enemy, but in London you have a war which you will not end in your lives. (Northants Evening Telegraph, Anon 1900c)

The Liberal Party, who were elected to office in a landslide victory in 1906 on a campaign to reform the institutions of the state, declared ‘war against poverty’ with their ‘People’s Budget’ of 1909. This conflict was announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George (1863–1945), who argued that

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such a war was necessary to ensure the development of British society beyond some primitive state: It is for raising money to wage implacable warfare against poverty and squalidness. I cannot help hoping and believing that before this generation has passed away we shall have advanced a great step towards that good time when poverty and wretchedness and human degradation which always follow in its camp will be as remote to the people of this country as the wolves which once infested its forests. (HC Deb 29 April 1909 vol. 4 c.548)

With the ending of the Second Boer War in 1902, the campaign to rid society of the ills that hampered its development just as the imperial wars had improved the health of the empire proved to be a powerful analogy. A ‘war against poverty’ was launched by labour groups and suffragists before the outbreak of the First World War. For example, in 1912, the Independent Labour Party launched its ‘War against Poverty’ campaign across Britain, which attempted to mobilize support from voters in their efforts to secure a minimum of ‘civilized life’. These references to conflict were framed by the historical wars fought by the nation state and as such provided a past reference for addressing current problems. As such, a ‘war on poverty’ in the United States in the late nineteenth century was framed with reference to the fight to abolish slavery during the Civil War or against iniquity and inequality as in the Spanish American War. In Britain, a ‘war against poverty’ in the early twentieth century was framed in relation to the Boer Wars as a war fought for the interests of the wider populace. Whether drawn upon for positive or negative connotations, this allusion constitutes a form of improvement for the present. Speaking about the past forms a means of shaping the future. With the armed struggles and hostilities of the twentieth century, the use of this analogy to war and conflict has remained prominent. Indeed, with the advent of the First World War (1914–1918), the Second World War (1939–1945) and the Vietnam War (1955–1975), a host of military terms alongside the names of battles and operations have been used as a part of the historical discourse. Within Britain and the United States, phrases and monikers that reference these events from the past have been used as metaphors, allusions and analogies to reorientate or to reassess the present. Whilst the usage of these associations are certainly the product of a mass-media age, the employment of historic wars or conflicts to emphasize the direction and progression of society indicates a particular relationship with the past that stresses advancement over anachronism. For example, in Britain, to address current issues through allusions to ‘the Somme’, ‘the trenches’, ‘Dunkirk’ or ‘the Blitz’ is more than the persistence of

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cultural memory regarding the global conflicts of the twentieth century (see Wilson 2014). Indeed, these references are deployed as a means to criticize and to reform, to ensure the sense of progression for society by opposing what could be regarded as regressive influences. As such, the war landscape of the twentieth century, from the battlefields of the Western Front to the bombing campaign conducted by the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain, appears within contemporary political, media and public discourse to protect the advancement of the modern era. This can be observed with the use of references to the Battle of the Somme, fought from 1 July to 18 November 1916 in northern France. This offensive during the First World War witnessed the most catastrophic day for the British army with nearly 60,000 fatalities and injuries on the first day (Figure 5.3). Whilst the battle was initially fought in the summer sun and commenced after a sustained artillery barrage, the prolonged action into the autumn ensured that the soldiers faced treacherous muddy conditions alongside the enemy’s shells and machine gun fire. By its conclusion, the British army lines had been extended by up to five miles in places with over 90,000 killed or ‘missing’. However, the operation also provided scope for the development of tactics and technologies, which would ensure eventual victory as well as significantly weakening the German army

Figure 5.3 Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France. Listing the names of over 70,000 ‘missing’ from the Battle of the Somme (1916).

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(see Prior and Wilson 2005). The scale of loss, the conditions experienced by soldiers and the gains made were used within Britain after the war as a point of comparison within civilian life. For example, during debates regarding the extensive unemployment in Britain during the 1930s, the battlefields of wars fought decades earlier were evoked by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Bernays (1902–1945): We begin to look back to the time when we had 1,000,000 unemployed as a sort of golden age. We look back to 1929 and call it a boom year. We look back upon 1,000,000 unemployed almost as incredulously as, during the carnage of the Somme battles, we looked upon the losses in the South African War. (HC Deb 17 February 1932 vol. 261 c.1738)

The battlefields of the Somme are thereby evoked to evidence the failing of modern society to deal with present circumstances. The war landscape is more than an illustrative device; it provides a point of reference that emphasizes the need for progress in the present. The historical veracity of the allusion is not significant, what is required is the use of the past as a comparative that affirms or guides notions of advancement. As such, to refer to the Somme in the interwar period began to connote waste, danger, futility and brutality beyond the events of 1916. Whilst battles and operations during the Second World War could be unfavourably regarded within the national and local newspapers as ‘like the Somme’ in terms of their conditions and success, the reference to the historic engagements was also used to stress the advances in technology and tactics that the British army now possessed. In a speech to Parliament on the pursuit of the war delivered in August 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874–1965) used the events of over two decades previously to demonstrate the new way of waging war for British society: There seems to be every reason to believe that this new kind of war is well suited to the genius and the resources of the British nation and the British Empire and that, once we get properly equipped and properly started, a war of this kind will be more favourable to us than the sombre mass slaughters of the Somme and Passchendaele. (HC Deb 20 August 1940 vol. 364 cc.1160)

The notion of the events of the Battle of the Somme representing an earlier and misguided era is used here to stress the advance of present. As such, the past is framed as an inferior example, cast in comparison to the current era as both regrettable and essentially improvable. Whilst possessing an obvious relevance for military action, after 1945 the references to the Somme began to abound within a wider social and political sphere (see Bond 2002). What marked this

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usage of the military campaign of the First World War as a reference point was its emphasis on advancement. To be regarded as generating a state of conditions comparable to ‘the Somme’ highlighted regressive influences within society and the need to reform and to develop. For example, the Labour politician Jeremy Bray (1930–2002), speaking in response to the details of the Conservative government’s budget announcement of 1981, evoked the battle as a means of decrying the perceived regressive nature of the financial measures: As to the practical effect of yesterday’s Budget, we have not seen its like since the battle of the Somme when the cream of the nation poured over the trenches to be mown down by the machine guns of the opposite side. (HC Deb 11 March 1981 vol. 1000 c.941)

This usage of the language of the past is not dependent on one particular political perspective. Rather it forms a means of stressing a wider modern objective of progress and development within contemporary society. Indeed, the Conservative politician Antony Speller (1929–2013) used the same historical reference in 1981 to critique the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which attempted to unify farming policies across what was then the European Economic Community: if we continue fighting our way trench by trench – the battle of the Somme … our CAP will get nowhere and sooner or later the EEC, which in principle is perfect, will fall to pieces. (HC Deb 26 March 1981 vol. 1 c.1142)

This is the mode of employment of allusions to the Battle of the Somme within current British society; across the political, media and public spheres, such references enable concepts of advancement to be defined, debated and protected. As such, the battlefields of the first industrialized global war can be rendered present as a means of stressing the need for improvement and growth. Those campaigning for reform within health services, legal provision, educational facilities or economic structures can allude to the Somme to establish the regressive forces that they work against. For example, in 2011, the economic policies of the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne were placed into the war landscape by opponents of the financial policies employed by the Coalition government: Giving money to banks is like giving armies to General Haig in the first world war [sic]. They are hurled across the Somme in a show of furious firepower, but afterwards you are lucky to have gained a few yards, and at horrendous cost. (Jenkins 2011)

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The analogy demonstrates the failure to progress and advance, as the suggestion drawn by the reference to the Somme is one which highlights an absence of development. As such, the battlefields of the Western Front have been frequently evoked with 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 military offensive in Iraq. Critics of these actions in Britain used allusions to the Somme and other First World War battlefields as a means of establishing the interventions as dangerously anachronistic (see Wilson 2014). Placing the actions of British soldiers within the referential landscape of the Western Front whilst they fought in Helmand Province during the Afghan War or in Basra Province during the Iraq War emphasized the absence of progress for Britain’s political leaders. The same issue regarding progress and advancement can be observed in the use of allusions to the Vietnam War in the United States. The conflict, which bitterly divided American society and politics during the 1960s through to its eventual denouement with the fall of Saigon in 1975, is still seemingly being fought within the political, media and public sphere. From issues of political corruption, inner-city violence to policing policies, the Vietnam War is evoked as a means by which the development of contemporary society can be assessed. Whilst military support for government forces in El Salvador during the Civil War (1979–1992) and the Nicaraguan Contra War (1981–1990) brought direct comparisons with the war in Vietnam, the reference was also applied within a broader social context. As such, the conflict could be used to highlight perceived regressive practices and policies during the 1980s and 1990s. For example, the scale of drug-related crime in New York within these decades could be reported by commentators in the city’s mainstream press as equivalent to the war in Southeast Asia in the same way that the ‘Wild West’ had been evoked in similar circumstances: This used to be one pleasant neighbourhood … Now, it’s like Vietnam. If it would be a confrontation with the 34th Precinct against the dealers, they’d need an army. (New York Times, Gross 1986) When the cops went home at 2 in the morning, from 2 A.M. to 8 A.M. it was like Vietnam out there. You wouldn’t set foot outside that door. (New York Times, Erlanger 1988) The police, residents and social service officials told yesterday of a drug war that has plagued the Red Hook Houses recently. ‘Every night you hear shooting,’ said Hassan Alaur. ‘It’s like Vietnam here’. (New York Times, McFadden 1992)

As such, references to the Vietnam War could be used to define elements within the United States which appeared to detract or denigrate the status of

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progression in society. Whilst debates regarding the pursuit of the war are relayed within the United States within the political arena but also through the array of novels and film which depicted the conflict, ‘Vietnam’ became a term through which advancement could be defined (see Beattie 1998). Though representing different political opinions regarding the conflict, films such as The Green Berets (1968), The Visitors (1972), The Deer Hunter (1978), Uncommon Valor (1983), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Casualties of War (1989), Born on the Fourth of July (1989) and Forrest Gump (1994) all highlight the brutal nature of the fighting. In essence, the filmic representation of the war provides a means for audiences to witness the violence of the conflict and its effect upon individuals (Anderegg 1991; Dittmar and Michaud 1990). As such, regardless of the questions of morality or legitimacy, the conflict in Vietnam is presented as an aspect of the past that requires improvement, reform or ‘healing’ (Sturken 1997). Therefore, whilst the nature of this advancement may be highly contested, references to ‘Vietnam’ within wider society were consistent in that it framed the past as insufficient to enable the present and the future to be corrected or to appear as a development. Whilst direct references to the Vietnam War may still prove divisive in contemporary society within the United States, allusions to the conflict frame discussions on issues of progress and advancement. For example, in the debates regarding the introduction of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 by President Barack Obama, the Vietnam War was used by protest groups to make an analogy to the presence and appropriateness of authority: While the military has draft cards, the Affordable Care Act does not. Instead, FreedomWorks took an image of the Vietnam draft cards and grafted the word ‘Obamacare’ to the top. (The Washington Post, Kliff 2013)

In this manner, the war still continues but as a means of defining the future rather than establishing a historical account. Whilst directly stating the names of modern wars and battles can be evoked as a point of pride within Britain and the United States, allusions, metaphors and similes that evoke historical comparison identify the relationship the present holds towards the past. These references establish the primacy of the contemporary era by casting history as inferior and as point from which to progress and develop. Therefore, ‘waging war’ in the modern era represents an exercise in advancement and a warning against atrophy. To declare war against an abstract foe or to invite comparisons with past conflicts ensures that the progress of the present and the direction of the future are maintained.

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Conclusions The way in which recent events are subsumed within the historical discourse reveals how the past forms a means by which the modern era is shaped and directed towards a sense of progress. Whether it is drawn from ‘the Victorians’, the ‘Wild West’ or the recent conflicts fought during the twentieth century, how this history is referenced in the present evidences a desire to move away from historical precedents and imagined pasts. The speed at which recent history in Britain or the United States is subsumed by this mode of discourse highlights the desire for acceleration towards a future. The character of this future may well be open to contestation, defined by individuals and groups in various ways depending upon their political, social or cultural predilections. However, it is the way in which the past is referenced which brings these seemingly disparate groups together as advancement over anachronism characterizes the modern era. This mode of engaging with recent history has been critical in shaping identities and ideals as well as orientating society forwards. This process can be observed with the manner in which the past is evoked by contemporary politicians as a point of guidance or a means of rebuke. During the electioneering before the General Election of 2015 in Britain, the Labour Party leader Ed  Miliband attempted to curry favour with the electorate by warning that a vote for the Conservative Party would be a return to the austere conditions of a previous age: Their unbalanced approach of 1930s public spending and unfunded tax cuts will put at risk our National Health Service, undermine our economic future and threaten working families. (Milliband 2014)

Such warnings of the return of the past were a response to the comments made by the Conservative Party leader David Cameron who suggested in a speech that Labour would instil ‘1970s-style socialism’ in Britain (Cameron 2013). Beyond sheer political rhetoric, this generalization of an entire era as a point of reference or as an adjective to characterize an opponent indicates an attitude towards the past that is present within the modern era. This is an outlook that denigrates historical periods by allusion to ensure the present and the future is regarded as a development from the past. In the modern period, we ensure a sense of progress by reference to the past; indeed, our own age has been shaped by how we regard the past through reference and allusion. We speak so much about history, not because of some reverence for a bygone age, but because we seek to escape it, to move beyond its confines and to emphasize our development.

Conclusions: Speaking about the Past

The language of the past Within this study, the language of the past has been detailed as an array of metaphors, allusions and references through which historical eras, characters and terms are regarded within modern society. Rather than just constituting a means of merely adding illustration and colour to expressions and ideas, this means of talking about the past is indicative of the modern era. Indeed, the language of the past has shaped the modern world as the way in which history is evoked within political, media and public discourse over the last few centuries has orientated, formed and reformed society in Britain and the United States. As the processes of industrialization, urbanization and democratization transformed these nation states, the manner in which the past was referred to, alluded to or cast as a reference point for current concerns has defined issues of class, race, sexuality, gender and power. The language of history is a process by which modern society has formed itself as truly modern, escaping and accelerating away from the traditions of the past to improve upon the present and serve as a guide for the future. Indeed, it is within this discourse on the past that we can observe the particular relationship we hold towards history in Britain and the United States. Whilst we may be familiar in praising historical eras for their achievements or extolling the virtues of bygone ages for their artistic, architectural or literary achievements, the allusions, metaphors and references we draw upon from the past reveal a far more complex association. This is a relationship that emphasizes the shortcomings of history in order to demonstrate the advances of the present. The language of the past casts historical eras as insufficient to assert the notion of progress and development in the modern age. We speak so much about the past in contemporary discourse, because it affirms our place, our values and our future. This use of language to frame history in such a manner should not be regarded as the inevitable product of development. That society will always look upon aspects of the past with disdain as we make advances in science, arts and

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industry. Such perceptions affirm the ‘Whig history’ characterized by Butterfield (1931). This use of reference, allusion and metaphor to frame the present in the context of the past is the product of a particular set of conditions which have emerged from the eighteenth century onwards. The language of the past is the consequence of the forces of modernity which can be characterized as a perception of advancement and acceleration. Whilst aspects of this cultural attitude can be located beyond this period, modernity as a phenomenon can also be regarded as an ongoing event as we constantly assert progress as a defining quality (Bauman 2000). As a means by which this perception can be realized, a mode of referring to historical periods, characters and events as insufficient or inadequate versions of the current era has emerged and is maintained within contemporary society. Therefore, to allude to the dinosaurs, Neanderthals, the Stone Age or cavemen as a means of critique for assessing present-day concerns is indicative of this mode of communication. To regard current issues through reference to Babylon, Egyptian pharaohs, Classical Greece or Ancient Rome is evidence of this modern separation of the past and the present. To speak of anxieties in the twenty-first century as though they were medieval or from the ‘middle age’ emphasizes this attitude and orientation towards historical eras. To state that our own time has descended to the era of the Victorians bears resemblance to the Wild West or appears to have brought back to the present the conditions of some former battlefield and reveals the presence of this language of the past. The modern world has been formed through the manner in which we speak about history. These references, allusions and metaphors cannot be regarded beyond and without a wider cultural context. The prehistoric, ancient and medieval worlds required both discovery and recovery to be part of a political, media and public discourse during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, their employment as part of a mode of discourse upon the past is also constituted by their representation through a variety of media. From the poems, dramas and novels that popularized Ancient Egypt, the films that relayed images of dinosaurs and ancient hominids to audiences and the television programmes that brought attention to the habits and values of the Victorian era, this popular culture has provided further sources of reference for the language of the past. Indeed, popular depictions of historical eras can be regarded as forming with this particular discourse on history as they reflect the same points of advancement and progress. Whilst the profusion of cultural representations of the past within the modern era from the emergence of print culture to the popularization of the cinema may appear to evidence an obsession or even a fetishistic attitude for

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history, the form and emplotment of these novels, film and television affirms the reflected sense of progress for contemporary society. These representations portray the inadequacy, inefficiency and illogicality of historical eras for modern audiences. Therefore, what emerges in this study is how the textual, verbal and visual references and allusions to the past provide a demonstration of progress in the present. This is not to suggest that the past is always regarded in such disparaging terms; there are certainly representations, allusions and references that laud former eras and utilize these historical eras as a point of reflection for modern society. However, it is not a quality or character of the past that is drawn upon in such circumstances but a means of reorientating the present and improving upon this historical period. As the modern age is directed towards advancement, affirming its progress and assuring itself of the future, the past is referenced as a means of continuation not as a retreat and reliance upon nostalgia. Through representation and reference, the language of the past is mobilized to assert a sense of development.

Speaking historically: Old allusions, new references Examining the way in which speaking about the past has shaped the modern world demonstrates how allusions and references to history have been at the forefront of reform movements. To argue for change and alteration within the modern era is to use the language of the past to secure progress. From civil rights, gender equality and environmentalism, the reshaping of modern society has been conducted through forming allusions or references regarding a flawed and irrelevant past. Conversely, this mode of discourse has also shown how metaphors can constrain society within a rigid framework formed by a narrow definition of what constitutes development (after Derrida 1982). Whilst the use of allusions and references to the past has ensured representation, rights and recourse to the abuse of authority, this also ensures that with a constant perception of development an alternative means of engagement with historical eras is confined. In this sense, we are compelled to conceptualize a constant progression from the past without acknowledging or reflecting upon its effect; in the acceleration of modernity, we lose perspective (after Žižek 2009). This raises the issue of what and how allusions, references and metaphors to the past can be employed to avoid such distortions but maintain a sense of reform. Such an alteration presents difficulties as references to the past operate to preserve the values of modernity by using historical allusions

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to ‘improve’ upon the present. Therefore, whilst seemingly altering current concepts this serves to merely reassert the notion of progression by ‘correcting’ contemporary failures and ensuring advancement into the future. For example, the recent trends towards a return to ‘Stone Age’ diets, referring to the period of humanity as ‘hunter-gatherers’, constituting high-protein and high-fat foods and an avoidance of processed consumables, do not necessitate a means to address current social or cultural factors; it merely ensures the continuation of modern, Western lifestyles. As such, the language of the past can be further defined through two broad categories: references that reform and references that preserve. It is the former that provides a means of engaging with historical eras as an act of assuring access, representation and equality; it is the latter that insists upon a sense of progress and advancement without reflection. Whilst both forms may rely upon the ‘condescension of posterity’, it is in the mode of critique within the use of these references to reform society which defines it as progressive. Therefore, it is not the characterization of the past as ineffective that should be dismissed in an attempt to properly utilize the language of the past. To attempt to revise the uses of references, similes and metaphors towards historical periods within contemporary society as a means of ensuring the emergence of a discourse on the past that draws upon history as a site of inspiration, rather than cultivation, would necessitate a wholesale repudiation of the processes of modernity. In the absence of a political, social and cultural revolution which could realign society towards an alternative agenda beyond a sense of ‘progress’, a recognition of how the language of the past separates the present from history can strengthen its role as a tool for reform. Using the past as a reference to stress the need for current reorganization and transformation, whether social, political or economic, may well be historically inaccurate but it serves an important role within society. It is an advocate of reason and representation in an era when modernity is characterized by the interests of capital; whilst contemporary society is organized to ensure economic sustainability, the language of the past is used to frame current practices as redolent of historical failure. As such, to speak of dinosaurs, Neanderthals, feudalism, medieval barons and the ‘Wild West’ forms a means of dissidence. To reference the past in the present in this manner constitutes a dialogue on the character, form and purpose of the modern world. If, as Thomas Paine (1776: 3) wrote, as he defined the failing of society to meet the needs of the people through references to historical eras, ‘time makes more converts than reason’, then it is the language of the past that acts as a corrective.

Conclusions

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To reference the past ensures that we can speak of revising the present, not for an undefined sense of ‘advancement’ but towards addressing the anxieties and concerns of our own age.

Conclusions To assess the way in which the past is brought to bear on current contexts through metaphor, simile and allusion provides a means of understanding how the past is conceptualized and used within contemporary society. The focus in this study on the references to the prehistoric, ancient, medieval and modern eras and their mobilization within Britain and the United States are certainly not exhaustive. References and allusions to the past within contemporary discourse can be as specific and local as much as they are national and cultural. Studies of the use and engagement with this intangible heritage can reveal other processes that are enabled by speaking about the past. Therefore, the use of language, references and allusions to historical eras, characters and issues, by individuals, groups and communities, represents another means of assessment for the public historian which can enrich our understanding of how history is considered and used within contemporary society. Within the language of the past, we can observe the attitudes and ideals of the present. This can act to reorientate society, to address inequality and an imbalance of power as historical eras are evoked in the present to demonstrate how the current era has failed. These references and allusions also characterize the period in which we live as they inculcate a desire for ‘progress’ and ‘advancement’ and direct us towards the future. Such values of modernity are evidenced in the way in which we talk about previous eras. However, it is within this language of the past that society has defined and redefined itself, addressed issues of exclusion and ensured reform. We speak so much about the past, not because of the reverence and respect we may hold for it, nor because of some innate or universal ‘truth’ of history; rather, because it is within our references and allusions to history that we can establish ourselves.

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Index Afghanistan Taliban 134 Aldiss, Brian Neanderthal Planet 51 ancient world scholarship 65–6 Annales School 13 antiquarians development 7, 23 John Leland 7 John Stow 7 Society of Antiquaries of London 8 William Camden 7 Auel, Jean Clan of the Cave Bear 51 The Mammoth Hunters 51 The Valley of the Horses 51 Australia Australia Day 4 colonization 7 public history 4 Black Panthers reference to Babylon 76 Britain Ancient Britain 7–8 British Museum 105–6 Chartism 89 Corn Laws 107, 145 Festival of Britain 163 General Election (2015) 190 Glorious Revolution (1688) 101 Great Exhibition (1851) 11, 26 Crystal Palace 163 Medieval Court 126 Nineveh Court 68 imperialism 147–8 King Charles I 82, 103 King George I 154 King George III 83, 103 King George IV 154 legislation on homosexuality 111–12

Palace of Westminster 124 Queen Victoria 155–7 Reform Act (1832) 145 Roman Catholic Relief Act 119 Tithe War (1830–1836) 106 travelling community 179 urban conditions 127, 178 Victoria and Albert Museum 126 welfare state 111, 161 Whig history 9, 192 British government Labour government (1940s) 31, 130–2 Labour government (1970s) 141 Labour government (1990s) 35 Liberal government (1900–1910s) 92–3, 183 Conservative government (1950s) 31 Conservative government (1970s) 132 Conservative government (1990s) 35 British prime ministers Blair, Tony 35, 96, 142 Cameron, David 135, 190 Churchill, Winston 186 Disraeli, Benjamin 137 Macmillan, Harold 95 Thatcher, Margaret 95, 164 Bradbury, Ray A Sound of Thunder 31 Burroughs, Edgar Rice The Land That Time Forgot 28 Byron, Lord (George Gordon) Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage 100 Sardanapalus 67 Carson, Rachel Silent Spring 49 caveman modern reference 19, 28, 38, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 56, 63, 192 Chaplin, Charlie His Prehistoric Past 44

Index Chicago 1893 Exposition 92 School of Sociology 129 urban violence 178 China communism 149 feudalism 147 medieval peasants 149 Conan Doyle, Arthur The Lost World 26 Crabb, George Universal Historical Dictionary 9 Dark Ages anti-slavery reference 120 critical reference 117–18, 119–20, 124, 130, 132, 136 definition 116–17 Darwin, Charles evolutionary theory 38, 39, 40 On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection 11 DeMille, Cecil B. Adam’s Rib 45 Dickens, Charles Bleak House 26 Hard Times 157 Oliver Twist 157 dinosaur atomic weapons 33–4 Bone Wars 26 Cretaceous 25, 32, 33, 36 critical reference 30, 31, 37, 192 environmental movement 34 extinction 33–4 First World War battlefields 29–30 First World War tanks 28–9 fossils 25 Jurassic 25, 36, 63 origin of term 25 Second World War technology 30 sexism 35, 37 Triassic 25, 36 Dunton, John Athenian Society 101 Egypt African identity 84–5 Biblical reference 80 critical reference 82, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95

245

films 94, 96 Pharaoh reference 82, 83, 84, 92–3 pyramids 87–9, 96 slavery 82, 83, 84, 85, 86 study of Ancient Egypt 65–6, 80–1, 88 Suez 31 tourism 81 Tutankhamen 90 Western fascination 80–1, 87, 90 Engels, Friedrich evolution 40, 55–6 medievalism 123, 145 working-class England 123 Freud, Sigmund psychoanalysis 45–6 Fuller, Henry Blake The Cliff Dwellers 56 With the Procession 56 Garvey, Marcus Universal Negro Improvement Association 75 geology Adam Sedgwick 11 Charles Lyell 11, 12, 53 origins and study 11, 24 Gibbons, Edward The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 8, 104 Glasgow social conditions 42 urban life 127 Golding, William The Inheritors 51 Grand Tour modernity 100–1 origins 99 Pompeii 99 ruins 99–100 Greece Athens 66, 97, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 107, 113 Hellenism 108 modern allusion 101–2, 103, 111–12 modern literature and film 108–9 study of Ancient Greece 65–6 Western heritage 97 Griffith, D.W. Brute Force 28

246 The Fall of Babylon 72 Intolerance 72 Habermas, Jurgen public sphere 103–4 Hardy, Thomas Jude the Obscure 127 Hawkins, Benjamin Waterhouse Crystal Palace dinosaurs 26, 27 Heidegger, Martin conceptual language 16 heritage heritage studies 3–4, 153 history discourse 6–14 linguistic turn 14 public history 3–4 social history 13 Hobbes, Thomas Leviathan 7 Hogarth, William The Four Stages of Cruelty 104 The Rake’s Progress 104 hominids Australopithecus africanus 40 evolution 38 Homo Erectus 40, 43 Homo Sapiens 23, 38 Neanderthal (see Neanderthals) Hume, David The History of England 8 Iran Revolution (1979) 134 Ireland British rule 106–7, 157 famine 124 independence 86–7 Islamic State media representation 135 Jamaica Morant Bay Rebellion (1865) 138 Johnson, Samuel English dictionary 9 Keaton, Buster Three Ages 44 King, Clive Stig of the Dump 51

Index Kingsley, Charles Hereward the Wake 126 Hypatia 82 language anthropology 5–6 discourse analysis 15–17 metaphor 16 sociology 5–6 Layard, Austen Henry study of Mesopotamia 67 Nineveh Court (Crystal Palace) 68 Le Corbusier Babylon 74 Linnaeus, Karl classification 38 London architecture 101 Great Fire (1666) 101 modern Babylon 69 new Athens 101 new Rome 101, 102 Macaulay, Thomas Babington The History of England from the Accession of James II 9 Magna Carta 10 Marx, Karl classification of history 12, 55 communism 12, 123, 145, 149 French coup d’état of 1851 12 medievalism 123 memory study of 4–5, 20, 153, 185 Mesopotamia Biblical reference 67 Babylon in civil rights movement 74–6 Babylon as reference 67, 69–70, 71, 74, 75, 76, 77–8 modernity 68–9, 77 Nineveh 67–8, 70 study of 65–6, 67, 72 medieval Middle Ages definition 2, 120–1 medieval barons 138, 143 medieval feudalism 143–4, 145, 146, 147 medieval ghetto 129 medievalism 115–16, 122–3 medieval peasant 145–6

Index medieval plague 151 medieval serf 145–6 medieval slum 128–9 modern reference 121–2, 127, 128, 133, 135, 149–50 modernity definition 17–18, 24–5 progress 37, 51, 52–3, 62, 79–80, 90, 96, 113–14, 116, 121, 127, 128, 130, 133, 136, 139, 142, 149, 153, 154, 155, 164, 170, 174, 176, 179, 180, 184, 186, 188, 191, 194 Morris, William News from Nowhere 71 Nast, Thomas anti-Tammany Hall 108 Harpers Weekly 41 illustration of President Andrew Johnson 108 Nazi Germany ancient world reference 93–4 Holocaust 181 prehistoric reference 47–8 medieval reference 139–40 Neanderthals classification 40 critical reference 43, 44, 46, 49, 50, 51–2, 63, 192 discovery 38–9 New York architecture 73, 91 Brooklyn 129 Brooklyn Bridge 70 Cloisters Museum and Gardens 130 Green-Wood Cemetery 90 Harlem 74–5 Lower East Side 42, 171 modern Babylon 69–70, 72–3, 74 Statue of Liberty 70 Tammany Hall 108, 182, 183 urban violence 178 William Strong (mayor) 182 William H. Tweed 108 O’Neill, Eugene The Hairy Ape 45 Opper, Frederick Burr Chicago Examiner 57

247

Owen, Richard dinosaur classification 25 Payne, Thomas Common Sense 83, 194 Pugin, Augustus medievalism 122–3 Palace of Westminster 124 Poe, Edgar Allen Some Words with a Mummy 85 Reade, Charles The Cloister and the Hearth 121 Reed, Edward Tennyson Punch 58 Riis, Jacob How the Other Half Lives 42 Robertson, William History of Scotland 9 Rome Biblical representation 97 critical reference (Emperor) 20, 103–4, 105, 107, 108, 113 critical reference (Rome) 101–2, 103, 104, 107, 108, 111 modern literature and film 108–9, 111 ruins 100 study of Ancient Rome 65–6 Western heritage 97 Ruskin, John medievalism 122–3 Russell, Bertrand campaign for nuclear disarmament 33 Rowlands, Helen ‘Love and the Caveman’ 45 Salvation Army General William Booth 42 Scott, Sir Walter The Betrothed 121 Ivanhoe 121 Kenilworth 121 The Monastery 121 Shakespeare, William classical plays 98 medieval plays 137 Shelley, Percy Bysshe Ozymandias 80–1 Sprague de Camp, L. A Gun for Dinosaur 33

248 Stone Age critical reference 2, 19, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59–60, 61, 62, 63, 192 origin 2, 53–5 Stonehenge 53–4 Swift, Jonathan ‘Battle of the Books’ 98 Toynbee, Arnold A Study of History 12 UNESCO policies 5 United States bicentennial (1976) 4 colonization 7 Depression 129 historical study 13 nineteenth-century immigration 42 public history 4 Wall Street Crash 129 United States Presidents Bush, George W. 112, 135 Carter, Jimmy 176 Eisenhower, Dwight D. 48–9 Ford, Gerald 176 Garfield, James 146–7 Jefferson, Thomas 102 Johnson, Andrew 108 Kennedy, John F. 33, 175 Nixon, Richard 141, 176 Obama, Barack 112–13, 189 Reagan, Ronald 94, 177 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano 129 Roosevelt, Theodore 20, 58, 182–3 Truman, Harry 30 Van Buren, Martin 83–4 Victorian Britain 9 critical reference 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 167–8, 192 era 2, 155–6, 157, 158 filmic depiction 159, 162 Gothic revival 122 museums of Victorian Britain 161, 163, 165 Neo-Victorian literature 166 social novels 157 television depiction 165–6

Index Victorian Exhibition (1931) 161 Victorian slum 163 war Afghanistan War 62, 134, 188 Anglo-Sikh War (1846) 106 Civil War (El Salvador) 188 Cold War 34, 50, 174 Crimean War 125, 181 critical reference 181–2, 183, 184, 186, 187, 188 First World War 28–30, 93, 147, 159, 184 Battle of the Somme (1916) 159, 185, 186, 187 Great Sioux War 170 Gulf War 62, 79 Napoleonic Wars 99, 105 Battle of Waterloo 181 Nicaraguan Contra War 186 Iraq War 62, 79, 179–80, 188 Second Boer War 43–4, 181, 183, 184 Second World War 30, 61, 161, 181, 184 Soviet-Afghan War 134 Spanish American War 183, 184 United States Civil War 41, 86, 138, 181, 182, 184 Vietnam War 61, 184, 188, 189 filmic depiction 189 War of Independence 83, 102, 118 War of the Three Kingdoms 81, 86 Washington DC Pierre L’Enfant 102 urban violence 178 Wells, H.G. The Island of Dr Moreau 55 A Story of the Stone Age 55 A Vision of the Past 26 Wild West critical reference 171, 172, 173, 192 definition 20, 168–9 filmic depiction 172, 173, 175 literature 172, 173 modernism 170, 171, 174, 175, 177–8 television 175 William ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody 170–1, 172 White, John 7 York Castle Museum 161