Alternative ideas about the Anglo-Saxons are not an attempt to cancel history - Yorkshire Post Letters

GP Taylor tries to fan the flames of the culture war by using the same tactics that he accuses others of, by denying their right to express an opinion (Academics cannot cancel our Anglo-Saxon history, June 14).

The culture war over 'rewriting history' and denying facts is based on the idea that there can only be one history.

However, written history is always a selective analysis of what has happened in the past. If I wanted to write a history about yesterday I would have to select some facts about what happened and leave out others, depending on what viewpoint I wanted to express.

Another person would probably select different facts, but that does not cancel my version of the history — it merely provides a more rounded, complete explanation.

When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s the history books that I read were almost all written by white males, and these history books reflected their viewpoints or experience. These people selected or omitted facts in order to construct an argument, but that does not mean that this is the only history that is possible.

Nowadays we can thankfully read alternative accounts of what happened in the past written by women or by people from different races or religions, and then make our own choices about what happened.

Unfortunately people like GP Taylor seem to feel threatened by ideas which challenge their own particular viewpoints, and which they then decide to try and ridicule by describing them as "woke".

Please do not be afraid, Mr Taylor. Alternative ideas about the Anglo-Saxons are not an attempt to cancel history and to replace them with woke conspiracy theories: they are simply a way to try and make narrow-minded people think more widely.