I am starting to suspect that Simon Schama and Niall Ferguson don't really like each other very much. The meeting of the two at the Hay Festival, along with historian David Reynolds and Guardian journalist Gary Younge caused no small amount of friction as they discussed 'Where next for Obama.'

It is no secret that Simon Schama is a great enthusiast for Barack Obama, ever since his 2009 show The American Future: A History, he has been supportive of the new president , equally he was not short on scathing criticism for the previous incumbent of the Oval Office of whom he said: "knows how to chuckle and bow the head in the midst of disaster but not, when it counts, how to govern or to command."

It was little surprise then that at the event Obama’s America, late on a Sunday night, that he shared the stage with conservative historian and writer Niall Ferguson who has previously made no secret of his pro Bush sympathies, writing in 2008 he made it clear that he felt Bush blundered only in the manner in which controversial policies were carried out, not the policies themselves.

With the impending release this month of the latest Hollywood apocalyptic blockbuster 2012 which the pre release hype seeming to have sent many Americans into a bit of a tizz, I thought we could perhaps head off mass hysteria and end is nigh doom Sayers and take a look at what has fuelled the myth behind 2012 that the world is about to end.

The 2012 myth stems from the notion that the world will struck by either a series of cataclysmic events or the apocalypse will occur in the year 2012. These doom-laden prophecies are based on what many believe is the end-date of the Mayan Long Count calendar, which is purported to last 5,125 years and ends on either December 21st or 23rd, 2012. Both these ideas have been the subject of many books and documentaries, and now Hollywood has turned its attention to it in this big money film release

The Royal Historical Society. A name that doesn’t really roll off the tongue in these days of digital democracy. It sounds like a creation of extravagantly whiskered Victorian gentlemen; somewhere Finneas Fogg might have been a member of before he set off around the world at breakneck speed. And it did indeed originate in just such a fashion. Queen Victoria granted the Society’s Charter in 1868. For a long period of its existence it was the almost exclusive preserve of historians who were wealthy and male. Books were expensive, access to records and manuscripts (mostly in private collections) severely restricted, time to study, write and publish a fortunate circumstance available to only very few.

History by apprising them of the past, will enable them to judge of the future - Thomas Jefferson, 1787.

Simon Schama, probably most famous for his television series A History of Britain, gave an excellent talk in Dublin recently. Discussing his latest book, The American Future: A History, where he uses the quote above, he said that he regards President Barack Obama as a historian in power. Should we see this as a good thing? Is history any use to people who run the world? Are sharp narrative and insightful analysis weapons the Taliban should fear, when so far they’ve resisted A10 ground attack aircraft and Abrams tanks?