A History of London, through the teachings of Stephen Inwood

Fortnum & MasonHe sits at the front of the room, perched on a table. He always wears a sweater over a button down shirt. He stares at us and smiles. “Hello everyone,” he says in his British accent. This is my history professor, Stephen Inwood, here in London. He is a stately sort of guy, unassuming yet somehow authoritative. In a way, he embodies the paradox that is a British person.
He is a very polite person, often asking us, his students if we mind if he shows us a video or pictures. Whenever he does this, the thought I always have is “why are you asking us? You're the teacher.”But he does it. I don't know if he does it out of actual caring or just to be courteous but either way, it throws me off. He also has a good sense of humor. He'll make jokes or funny references to various things in class that causes us all to chuckle. They are things you don't necessarily expect to hear from your professor but work somehow. I suppose many of the things he says are funny because he says them in a British accent.
As a professor of history, he has a certain “obsession” with the past; he must in order to teach this subject. He has written countless books on London's history and is full to the brim with knowledge. Whenever he talks us on our walking tours, he has tons of things to say about each place. Yet, he also is willing to bypass certain things. He'll often say “oh, you don't really need to know about that.” In this way, my class has glossed over the countless wars that mark England's history. From my class though, you wouldn't really guess that. That is not to say that he is giving us the wrong information. He simply focuses on London's history which doesn't necessarily involve the larger wars of England. My professor is more focused on the social and economic changes of London through the years. He does mention the wars, like the Civil War, that directly affected London but doesn't really say much about the ones that happened outside the country or didn't directly affect London. He'll often mention it briefly, but then say “it's not really that important.” For someone from a country thought to be stuck in the past, this is a strange statement.
Professor Inwood is quintessentially British which to me means he manages to be a lot of seemingly disparate traits rolled into one person. I have my last walking tour next week and I'm going to be sad to see those end. Not only has it been a great way to see London, but it gave us an insight into our professor. The last walk we went on brought us to the Queen's Store, Fortnum and Mason. Our professor let us spend 10 minutes running wild in this store. I don't know if any other professor would have let us do that or even taken us to that store. But to him, it was an important piece of history and we needed to see it. Yet we didn't go see some of the more major tourist sights. Not that I minded...Fortnum and Mason may be one of my favorite stores anywhere in world, all thanks to my professor.