Mark Taylor is a history teacher at a South London state school. He is an Institute of Ideas Education Forum committee member, and regularly contributes to the forum’s Opinion section. He writes and researches on the politics and history of education, and is currently researching educational reforms under Labour since 1997.

History wars

Popular and academic histories frequently capture similar views of the past, even if expressed in different terminologies. Setting them up as ‘enemies’ can caricature or erase the shared social roots and causations that genuinely split communities.