Jim Smith

Teaching history, religious studies and geography for thirteen years gets you thinking about how these things interact in the real world. That got me interested in how they've affected and continue to affect politics, culture, science and in fact most aspects of our lives. Which in turn led me to the concepts that drive political, cultural, social and scientific change. Freedom, democracy, fundamentalism, terrorism - all these things are far from static ideas and peoples' understanding of them has changed radically over time. Conceptual history appeals to me, since it argues that the concepts themselves are too often twisted to meet the needs of those using them. We're all guilty of this to a greater or lesser degree - because concepts are part of the world the world is therefore inevitably changed by their use. However, a bit more honesty and openess about why we do this might make life easier and some of the problems facing the world today more open to solution.

OK - that's the heavy 'What's your motivation for blogging?' stuff out of the way. Hobbies and interests-wise I love medieval history, decent science fiction and fantasy. Musings on these will probably crop up here and there in this blog so there's no point in waxing lyrical right now.