Sadly, the historian David Abulafia died a few days ago. He had been a Cambridge historian longer than I have been. I did not know him well. We were in different Faculties and different colleges, but we often crossed paths.
Over the last decade or so, Abulafia had taken a different route from me in the politics of history, and in politics more generally (he supported Brexit and was a leading light in History Reclaimed). I could never quite get this, but with Abulafia (at least for me) it was always comfortable to disagree – and we still agreed on more than we disagreed about.
If you don’t know his work, then The Boundless Sea (2019) is a good place to start. And he had reviewed for the TLS since the late 1970s. You can easily search, but recently I have enjoyed his combination of scholarly generosity and sharp criticisms of inaccuracy and low production values (if the TLS can’t say that the facts are wrong and that the publishers have done a shoddy job, who can?).
But my own memories of Abulafia are different. It’s easy to forget that Cambridge is not just a university, but also an urban community, where we live close, where we shop in the same stores and where our kids go to the same schools. Our own kids went to school with the young Abulafias for many years, and I hope they will all forgive me for telling this story, but it captures David Abulafia’s style.
It was at Milton Road Infants School sometime in the late 1980s (the school was then under the control of a wonderfully old-school, and totally admirable, head, Mrs Barratt – as a few Cambridge readers may recall). And it was the annual Christmas nativity play. I had begged off this occasion, while the husband (an atheist) sat down next to David (a practising Jew). After some historical pleasantries, David turned to the husband and said words to the effect of “how bizarre that two people who don’t believe any of this are sitting here watching it” – while they both had a good time (I think) admiring the performances of their six-year-olds.
That’s how I shall remember him.
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