The war's portrayal has
always been shaped by contemporary cultural mores, and commemorative
documentaries demonstrate just how much the relationship between the creators
and consumers of popular culture has changed over the last fifty years.
For the fiftieth anniversary of 1914, the BBC
commissioned the twenty-six part series The
Great War, based around archive footage and featuring interviews with
veterans. There was an authoritative narrative voice, but no presenters. For the eightieth
anniversary, it collaborated with an American television company on a
six-part series littered with academic talking-heads. For the ninetieth anniversary,
it has had a range of TV presenter-celebrities - among them Michael Palin,
Dan Snow, Natalie Cassidy and Eamonn Holmes - on a journey of discovery of
their families' military connections. These invariably culminate next to graves and memorials in a display of the right
kind of televisual emotion at the moment the formula
demands and the audience has come to expect.
The focus of these programmes - family history
as a means of understanding the past - is worthy of note in itself. It is
indicative of the dramatic growth of family history as a leisure interest,
perhaps in response to the sense of dislocation inherent in modernity
HistoryGrl14 . on 20 Oct 13"The New Laws of the Indies, 1542 The Laws and ordinances newly made by His Majesty for the government of the Indies and good treatment and preservation of the Indians created a set of pro-Indian laws - so pro-Indian that they some had to be revoked in Mexico and in Peru due to settler opposition. where the viceroy was killed when he attempted to enforce them. The conflict was between "feudalists" who favored the encomienda system because it maintained society as in the Old World, and the more centralizing "regalists" who wanted to preserve royal power in Spain;s new Empire. Eventually the encomienda was allowed to continue. Charles by the divine clemency Emperor ever august, King of Germany. . . . To the Most Illustrious Prince Don Philip our very dear and very beloved grandson and son, and to the Infantes our grandsons and sons, and to the President, and those of our Council of the Indies, and to our Viceroys, Presidents and Auditors of our Audiencias and royal Chanceries of our said Indies, Islands and Continent of the Ocean Sea; to our Governors, Alcaldes mayores and our other Authorities thereof, and to all the Councils, magistrates, regidores, knights, esquires, officers, and commoners of all the cities, towns, and villages of our said Indies, Islands, and Tierra-firme of the Ocean Sea, discovered and to be discovered; and to any other persons, captains, discoverers, settlers, and inhabitants dwelling in and being natives thereof, of whatever state, quality, condition and pre-eminence they may be. . . . Know ye, That having for many years had will and intention as leisure to occupy ourselves with the affairs of the Indies, on account of their great importance, as well in that touching the service of God our Lord and increase of his holy Catholic faith, as in the preservation of the natives of those parts, and the good government and preservation of their persons; and although we have endeavoured
