Annals Of A Pilgrim

About the Annals

The Annales school of history is a French derived school that emphasises a greater awareness of the contributions towards history from other social sciences. As such, the Annales school has had a profound impact in the past 60 years on the methodological conduct of history (although some will inevitably disagree with that statement).¹ Annals are books which chronologically record the happenings in a certain location – in some ways, like a country year book.

I've named this the Annals Of A Pilgrim partly based on the above reasons. The idea is that this provides an avenue where I can talk about current events without cluttering up my articles page. Things like book and CD reviews are far better suited to such a medium than any other. While I display the propensity to wax lyrical regarding some obscure theological point, I also find myself drawn to the keyboard having read some piece of scripture to pen down some “devotion” before I forget it. From time to time, these will appear in the mix.

The use of “Annals” is a nod to my historical interests, while subtly hinting in an obscure way that I am just as likely to talk about something from other fields, such as politics and commerce, as I am about history. Hopefully there is something of interest for you here.

Of course this leaves one question unanswered – is this a blog? That depends how you define a blog. Some have defined it as such only when people are able to post comments in response. I don't hold to that restrictive view myself – as I see it, a blog is a form of online journal that is available for others to read (irrespective of whether they can comment directly). Furthermore, I offer the ability to express comments to me through my contact form (if you feel so inclined), and I do not hide my identity in any way. I wrote the code for this section of the website (rather than using blogging software such as wordpress or movable type), but I'm sure there are many similarities in function between my own code and such software. So yes, this is a blog. Certainly for the purposes of the Electoral Finance Act 2007 I consider this a blog, and reserve the right to make blatant political comments on it as afforded the right to!

1. For more information see J. Tosh, The Pursuit of History Revised 3rd Ed., Edinburgh Gate, 2002, p.121.