Angus Calder | |
|---|---|
 Angus Calder, picturedc. 2005 | |
| Born | Angus Lindsay Ritchie Calder (1942-02-05)5 February 1942 London, England |
| Died | 5 June 2008(2008-06-05) (aged 66) Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Nationality | Scottish |
| Alma mater | King's College, Cambridge University of Sussex |
| Occupation | Academic |
| Parent(s) | Peter Ritchie Calder Mabel Jane Forbes McKail |
| Relatives | Nigel Calder(brother) Simon Calder(nephew) |
Angus Lindsay Ritchie Calder (5 February 1942 – 5 June 2008) was a Scottish writer, historian, and poet. Initially studying English literature, he became interested inpolitical history and wrote a landmark study on Britain during theSecond World War in 1969 entitledThe People's War. He subsequently wrote several other historical works but turned to literature and poetry and worked primarily as a writer, though often holding a number of university teaching positions. Asocialist, he was a prominent Scottishpublic intellectual during the 1970s and 1980s.
Angus Calder was born inLondon on 5 February 1942 into a prominentleft-wing family fromScotland.[1] His father wasRitchie Calder (1906–1982), a notedsocialist andpacifist who became famous for his work as ajournalist andscience writer. His siblings areNigel Calder, mathematician Allan Calder, educationist Isla Calder (1946–2000) and teacher Fiona Rudd (née Calder). His nephew is travel writer and journalistSimon Calder.
Angus Calder read English literature atKing's College, Cambridge. He gained a doctorate from theUniversity of Sussex in 1968 onpolitics in the United Kingdom duringWorld War II, entitled "The Common Wealth Party, 1942–45" which studied thepolitical party of the same name. At the time, academic research into the conflict was rare as government papers were not available under thefifty-year rule. As a result, Calder worked closely withPaul Addison, another historian with similar research interests.[2] Together Addison and Calder made extensive use of the newly discovered archives ofMass-Observation to examine British public opinion. Calder was instrumental in creating the Mass-Observation Archive at Sussex in 1970, in collaboration withAsa Briggs.[3]
Calder had been commissioned to write a general history of theBritish Home Front by the publisherJonathan Cape while still working on his PhD thesis. This led toThe People's War, first published in 1969. The work was academic in tone and ranged widely across the political and social history of the period. It was critical of enduring propaganda myths without being polemic, and was extremely successful. It has subsequently been described as "groundbreaking".[4][5] As Addison summarised:
In order to wage the war, Angus argued, the prewar ruling class had been compelled to mobilize the people. During the first half of the war they had effectively displaced their former rulers and taken charge of the war themselves. It became the People's War, a 'ferment of participatory democracy', exemplified by the way in which Londoners, acting in defiance of the government, had turned underground tube stations into deep shelters. During the second half of the war, however, the 'forces of wealth, bureaucracy and privilege' began to regroup and recover the authority they had lost.[6]
The People's War was well received and won theJohn Llewellyn Rhys Prize, aliterary award.[1] Though its thesis was not widely adopted in academia, it proved extremely influential aspopular history.Richard Eyre said that he "could name about twenty works, films, television and theatre which have emerged essentially from Angus Calder's book".[7] Among those who were said to have been influenced by the work were the playwrightDavid Hare and future prime ministerGordon Brown.[5] It remains in print.
Calder increasingly began to doubt his own thesis over the following decades. Many of his original conclusions were revised in hisThe Myth of the Blitz (1991). According to Addison, this reassessment was encouraged by Calder's revulsion with thejingoistic nationalism which accompanied theFalklands War of 1982 andThatcherism. Both were partly inspired by thecollective memory of the "People's War" which Calder had himself popularised.[7]
Following his success withThe People's War, Calder increasingly returned to his interests inliterature and poetry. In 1971, he moved toEdinburgh where he publishedRussia Discovered, a survey of 19th-century Russian fiction in 1976, and, three years later, became staff tutor in arts with theOpen University. He subsequently taught all over the world, lecturing in literature at several African universities and serving from 1981 to 1987 as co-editor of theJournal of Commonwealth Literature.[8]
Calder became a ubiquitous figure on theScottish literary scene writing essays and articles, books onByron andT. S. Eliot, and working as editor of collections of poetry and prose. He also wrote introductions to new publications of such diverse works asGreat Expectations,Walter Scott'sOld Mortality,T. E. Lawrence'sSeven Pillars of Wisdom,Evelyn Waugh'sSword of Honour trilogy andJames Boswell'sThe Life of Samuel Johnson.In 1981 he publishedRevolutionary Empire (1981), a study of three centuries of imperial development by English speakers to the end of the 18th century.Revolving Culture: Notes from the Scottish Republic is a collection of essays onScottish topics which expressed itself through the writings of such figures asRobert Burns and Scott and in gestures ofrealpolitik such as the repression of "Jacobins" during theFrench Revolution. In 1984 Calder helped to set up theScottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh and served as its first convener. He also worked as an editor ofHugh MacDiarmid's prose.[9] Calder won theEric Gregory Award for his poetry.
A nationalist and socialist, he moved from theScottish National Party (SNP) to theScottish Socialist Party, and though he cherished theScottish republican spirit, he sought to challenge some of the popular myths surrounding the country's sense of national identity. InRevolving Culture: Notes from a Scottish republic (1992) he described the development, during the early stages of theUnion with England, of an "intellectual republic" forged by a combination of insularity and lack of English interest in Scottish affairs.[9] In 1997 he editedTime to Kill — the Soldier's Experience of War in the West 1939–1945 withPaul Addison;Scotlands of the Mind (2002);Disasters and Heroes: On War, Memory and Representation (2004); andGods, Mongrels and Demons: 101 Brief but Essential Lives (2004), a collection of potted biographies of "creatures who have extended my sense of the potentialities, both comic and tragic, of human nature". He had always published verse and won a Gregory Award for his poetry in 1967. Questions ofScottish national identity assumed growing importance in the 1980s, and Calder became active in the debate. A distinctive "Scottish social ethos" informed the activities of prominent Scots in the years of Empire, when they had invested heavily in the concept ofBritishness, although he reportedly felt that the Scots had meddled much more overweeningly with the English sense of identity than the English ever did with the Scots. He was delighted to discover that the game ofcricket hadbeen introduced to Sri Lanka by a Scot.[10]
His first wife wasJennifer Daiches, daughter of Scottish literary criticDavid Daiches, with whom Calder collaborated on a book about Sir Walter Scott in 1969.[11] The Calders had two daughters, Rachel and Gowan, and a son, Gideon. His first marriage ended in 1982; he married Kate Kyle in 1986, with whom he had a son, Douglas, born in 1989. He took early retirement from the Open University in 1995.
Calder died fromlung cancer on 5 June 2008, aged 66.[11] In the closing weeks of his life, the poetRichard Berengarten, together with his son Gideon Calder edited acollection of writing and sketches for and about him, which appeared just after his death.
