> This ties in to one of the worst tendencies I note in my own students – the tendency to unthinkingly identify with the elites of the past, to see themselves as the knight, the noble, the senator. But not the farmer, the artisan, the shepherd, the petty merchant. All too often, I see students read the class-contempt of Roman aristocrats or aristocratic medieval troubadours with horror – and then unthinkingly replicate those very patterns of thought when they themselves are thinking about the past (usually in the foolish assumption that nobles were smart and peasants were dumb). That attitude – adopted unintentionally and unconsciously, mind you – is poison not just to the study of history, but also to effective citizenship and leadership in the real world.

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