Dive into the fascinating tale of the Doomsday Book, a remarkable record of 11th-century England, and its modern counterpart, the BBC's 1980s Doomsday Project. Explore the precarious challenges faced by individuals proving their residency rights today amid evolving immigration policies. Hear gripping personal stories that highlight the fragility of identity in the face of bureaucracy and the critical need for preserving our digital archives for future generations. History reveals its lessons on the importance of safeguarding our collective memory.
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question_answer ANECDOTE
Doomsday Book
William the Conqueror, facing legitimacy struggles, conducted a detailed survey of his realm in 1086.
This survey resulted in the Doomsday Book, a record of land, mills, and people.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Michael Braithwaite's Story
Michael Braithwaite arrived in Britain from Barbados in 1961 with indefinite leave to remain.
Despite living and working in the UK for decades, he lacked a UK passport, facing no issues until much later.
question_answer ANECDOTE
BBC's Doomsday Project
In 1983, the BBC launched the Doomsday Project, a crowdsourced survey of Britain involving school children.
Stored on laserdiscs, this interactive digital database became unreadable just years later.
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The Doomsday Book, commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086, was a comprehensive survey of England's landholdings and population. It provided valuable data for taxation and governance, offering a detailed snapshot of medieval English society. The survey's meticulous record-keeping established a baseline for understanding land ownership, demographics, and economic resources. Its impact extended far beyond its immediate purpose, shaping future administrative practices and providing historians with an invaluable source of information. The Doomsday Book remains a significant historical artifact, illustrating the importance of accurate data collection for effective governance.
1984
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George Orwell
Published in 1949, '1984' is a cautionary tale by George Orwell that explores the dangers of totalitarianism. The novel is set in a dystopian future where the world is divided into three super-states, with the protagonist Winston Smith living in Oceania, ruled by the mysterious and omnipotent leader Big Brother. Winston works at the Ministry of Truth, where he rewrites historical records to conform to the Party's ever-changing narrative. He begins an illicit love affair with Julia and starts to rebel against the Party, but they are eventually caught and subjected to brutal torture and indoctrination. The novel highlights themes of government surveillance, manipulation of language and history, and the suppression of individual freedom and independent thought.
William the Conqueror undertook a remarkably modern project. In 1086, he began compiling and storing a detailed record of his realm: of where everyone lived, what they did and where they came from.
900 years later, the BBC began its own Domesday project, sending school children out to conduct a community survey and collect facts about Britain. This was a people’s database, two decades before Wikipedia. But just a few years later, that interactive digital database was totally unreadable, the information lost.
We tend to take archives for granted — but preservation doesn't happen by accident; digitisation doesn’t mean that something will last forever. And the erasure of the historical record can have disastrous consequences for humanity...
For a full list of sources, please see the show notes at timharford.com.
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford 
