Hooked on History
How Did I Get Here?
Most people can testify to at least one teacher who made an otherwise dreaded subject come alive. I had several excellent English teachers but already enjoyed literature and drama. History required a master storyteller. I’ve forgotten his name, but my eighth-grade American History teacher made it sound like the events had happened to him. Like, last week. He knew all these tidbits and side stories that were not in the textbook. He transformed a dull, irrelevant topic into entertainment for junior high students. This miracle might qualify him for sainthood.
But my true love of history occurred much later. Why are so many of us hooked on history only after we reach adulthood? I think it is then that we ask new life questions. It’s no longer, “Why can’t I borrow the car?” but rather, “Why do people behave this way?” Or, for me, “What happened here?”
I became interested in Christian history around 1987. I was back to church after several years of distraction (college) and wanted to understand the development of my own traditions and theology. I’d been taught the Bible since I was a child but wondered how we got from those stories to the present. At the time, I was a temp word processor for a major corporation. Work was slow, so I brought in reading material. On my desk sat, Here I Stand (a bio of Martin Luther by Roland Bainton), and a stack of Puritan history books. People kept asking me if I was taking a course. They were mystified when I confessed I was reading for pleasure.
My next phase came when I moved to London. Try to walk around London for a day and not long to spend the rest of your life exploring every layer of the past hidden in each cubic inch of that soil. So, for the next few years, I devoured British history. I lived in the East End surrounded by Bengali, Pakistani and Somali immigrants and I built deep friendships with many of the women. Over time, I became fascinated with early Islamic history. I asked the same questions of Islam that I’d asked of my own faith—where did this come from? How did what I saw in 1990s London come from what happened in the seventh century Near and Middle East?
Meanwhile, I had been a painter, a theatre designer, and an inner-city community worker. The accessibility of London gave me opportunities to travel to Africa, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and the newly dismantled USSR—every location steeped in stories. Can you stand in the open-air markets of Fez, Morocco, or Osh, Kyrgyzstan without feeling you’ve just experienced time travel? Without imagining the sights and sounds of a thousand years? I found a new love for old travel books—stories of The Great Game and intrepid Victorian women—but writing, of any sort, was not on my radar.
Not yet.
Do you have the history bug? If so, when were you bit?
I've had the historic bug for as long as I can remember. As a little kid, it was natural history (like dinosaurs). As I grew up, it moved on to Roman history, and then I got obsessed with the Byzantine Empire. And it went on. Looking back, I think it was because of all the time I was reading the Bible together with my parents and brothers. I'm pretty sure the Old Testament is my first exposure to history as an actually interesting subject rather than this boring thing that every kid seems to dread.
Thanks for the nudge to contemplate this. Coincidentally, I was thinking just the other day about Mr. Herbert, my ninth-grade history teacher. He wasn't nearly so interesting as yours! But even in his gruffness and bland delivery, it was in his class that I became fascinated with Pompeii, the Incan Empire, and more. I believe too, that I was influenced by my father's interest in history. Even though my curiosity hadn't peeked yet, at the age of eight, I saw his fascination with Russian history, watched him take several trips there and across Europe, and heard the stories when he retuned. Come to think of it, that was probably the spark for two things: interests in history AND travel.