Mind the gap of history and politics

The new interest for Margaret Thatcher and the British politics during the eighties is of course connected to 'The Iron Lady'. The movie raised a number of questions, which revealed a vast room for improvement in my general knowledge of history and politics.

This is one of my blind spots. History and politics just never really grasped my attention growing up and somehow I got used to get by with 'history and politics for dummies' (read: faking your way through social conversations). I never really read the newspaper when I grew up. I never discussed elections, G7 meetings or wars. I could blame boring teachers and competing subjects such as maths and languages. I could blame equally disinterested friends. Or I could hide behind my gender. Apparently a number of studies have found that males tend to have greater overall general knowledge than females.

Or may be it's all about how it's presented. Having lived in the UK during the post-Thatcher period, remembering the news reporting on the Falklands war (the headlines from the eighties probably got recorded by my subconscious mind even if I didn't read the newspaper), the movie awoke my interest for something I honestly think I should know more about.

So yesterday's lunch at our knowledgeable friend's house was spent going through the Thatcher era. We asked the questions and our knowledgeable friend gave us very comprehensive answers. Slowly I'm filling the gap and the newfound information is finding a place along references relevant to my life. That's how I work.