Quote:
Originally Posted by LadyBrooke
...which is why it is important to literary history but why is it important to history in general is a harder question to answer.
... but that is once again not so much history as culture.
So thoughts? Why do you all think it's important to history?
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I think the first thing to be considered here is your division between "history vs. culture" or "literary history vs. history." To make a very basic grammatical point, "literary history" is still history--albeit that noun is modified by a focus on literature. Similarly, what is about culture that strikes you as ahistorical? Personally, I don't think it is--on the contrary, what is history about if it can't include culture.
You say your course is a "European History" course. Well what does "European history" mean? Is it simply the history of Europe? Unlikely... if you consider that "Europe" properly means the landmass. More accurately, European history probably refers to the history of Europeans, since, by and large, we're generally more interested in people when we speak of history than landmasses. And you can scarcely speak of people without speaking of culture.
Basically, I'm just getting onto a bit of a soapbox here about the fact that "history" is more than just politics and wars--even when leavened by the all-powerful modern favourite, economics. History should not relegate art and philosophy and culture to some spin-off discipline like "Art History" or "History of Philosophy" (though such courses may be highly useful in the disciplines of Art or Philosophy), but needs to keep them at hand.
Anyway, soapbox aside, I have hardly answered the question of why
Tolkien may belong in a history class, but I hope it's no longer in question whether
culture should be considered in a history class.