Historians and Historicism

1. Leopold von Ranke

19th Century. Leading figure in Historicism. The Atmosphere and mentality of past ages had to be reconstructed, too, if the formal record of events was to have any meaning. Associated with the Berlin School of Thought. The last historian to believe that the outcome of studies such as his own would be to reveal the hand of God in human history. Said other historians lacked empathy.

2. Thomas Carlyle

19th Century. A popular, though controversial, Victorian writer and historian. He was the author of a long, colorful account of the French Revolution. He believed in historical recreation more than any other nineteenth-century writer. The “first indispensable condition” was that “we see the things transacted, picture them wholly, as if they stand before our eyes.”

3. E. H. Carr

a. 20th Century. Held to the belief that history is a story of progress (Whig interpretation). The past was less admirable and more primitive, which led to an attitude of condescension. Historical precedent gives us some idea of what will happen in the future. But what will actually happen cannot be predicted. Living with uncertainty is part of the human condition. History is a social science, rather than a humanities, because it serves a practical function: it increases man’s understanding of, and mastery of, his environment. “The facts of history cannot be purely objective, since they become facts of history only in virtue of the significance attached to them by the historian.

4. Herbert Butterfield

20th Century. Cambridge historian specializing in the eighteenth century. His analysis of The Whig Interpretation of History attacked the tendency of “Whig” historians to see history in terms of progress, thereby unjustly (and anachronistically) criticizing earlier ages as ‘backward.”

5. E. J. Hobsbawm

a. Late 20th, Early 21st Century. Argued that the technical approach to social and political problems compartmentalizes human experience into boxes, each marked with its own technical lore, whereas what is really required is an openness to the way in which human experience constantly breaks out of these categories. The historian who takes time off from the records to survey an extended period is more likely to detect new patterns and new correlations, which can later be tested in detailed research (Age of Revolution covered the French Revolution and Industrial Revolution, allowing one historian to address the juxtaposition of the two). Reached the masses through newspaper articles.

6. G. R. Elton

20th Century. The usefulness of historical studies lies hardly at all in the knowledge they gain to solve present problems, but rather, it lies much more in the facts that they produce, which establish standards for judgment and powers of reasoning that they, along with others, develop, allowing them to be clear-headed and compassionate. History investigates things that happen, not things that are. History is a cumulative discipline and requires humility.

7. Thomas Babington Macaulay

19th Century. British historian, poet, and administrator. As well as writing a bestselling History of England, Macaulay served on the Council of the Governor-General of India, as MP for Edinburgh, and as Secretary at War in the government of Lord Melbourne. Thought history important because it would educate the citizenry and statesmen. His book, although at some points inaccurate, serves as a good primary source for those studying the early Victorian elite in England.

8. Richard Cobb

20th Century. His fascination with the past, as it was really lived and experienced, overrides all other considerations. The historian should cross the frontiers of class, nationality, generation, period, and sex. His principal aim is to make the dead live. His book, Death in Paris, used all primary sources. History is a cultural subject, enriching itself by giving us more empathy and self-awareness.

9. Voltaire

18th Century. Regarded history as an unfinished record of material and moral improvement, from primitive barbarism to refinement. Underpinnings for liberal democracy and Marxism. The past exists to validate the achievements of the present. Known for his witty satire on contemporary manners and ideas, spent much time studying Louis XIV. His historical works ranged over the whole field of culture and society.

10. G. M. Trevelyan

20th Century. His writings had a tone of regret for the passing of the pre-industrial order when everyday life was on a human scale and geared to natural rhythms, and a revulsion from the anomie and ugliness of modern urban living. Studied social history – the history of everyday life in the home, the workplace, and the community.

E.P. Thompson

a. 20th Century. British Marxist historian. He was also active in socialist politics. His Making of the English Working Class was the first attempt to tell the story of the development of a distinctive working-class culture and identity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Viewed the working class through the lens of religion, leisure, and popular culture, as well as the factory system and the origins of trade unions. Illuminated the “invisible” class by using police and legal records. Viewed all evidence with skepticism. His book was recording an active process, and Thompson agreed with Marx that “men make their own history”.

12. Bernard Bailyn

20th century. In The Intellectual Origins of the American Revolution, he constructed the political culture of ordinary Americans from 300 or so pamphlets bearing on the Anglo-American conflict, which were published in the thirteen colonies between 1750 and 1776. Emphasized that we should see the past as the whole of the event, seeing it from all sides, as someone not alive then could do.

13. Marc Bloch

20th Century. Founded a historical journal called Annales d’histoire social et économique. The journal’s goal was to convince its colleagues that historians could learn from other disciplines, especially economics, sociology, social psychology, and geography. Emphasized primary sources, not wanting the history to fall into the hands of the narrator or commentator. “Struggle with documents” distinguishes the historian from the amateur – documents are the source and problems when studying history.

14. Edward Gibbon

a. 18th Century. Wrote The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He contributed its fall to Christianity, which was typical of Enlightenment thought.

15. Lord Acton

Late 19th Century. British professor of Modern History at Cambridge. He edited the multivolume Cambridge Modern History, but never wrote any major historical works. This was a survey and collaborated upon. Full consistency is sustainable because of the different authors. “The dust of archives blots out ideas.” The historian who takes time off from the records to survey an extended period is much more likely to detect new patterns and new correlations that can later be tested in detailed research.

16. Fernand Braudel

20th Century. Not literarily sophisticated, but still produced evocative writings. He wanted to jettison unilinear time altogether and to introduce instead the “plurality of social time” – the notion that history moves on different planes, which can, for practical purposes, be reduced to three planes: long plane – states of mind, medium plane in which the forms of social, economic, and political organization have their life span, and short term, the time of the individual and of l’histoire evenementielle (event history). Mentality was the fundamental level of historical experience, and culture its principal expression. Annales historian.

17. Max Weber

Late 19th, early 20th Century. German sociologist known for asking preliminary questions like “What happened?” and “What were the conditions like at such-and-such a time?” before asking the “Why did it happen?” question. Sought to explain the origins of economic and political transformations of his own day. He stressed the importance of social status, which might not equate to strict class categories and can change over time.

18. C. V. Wedgwood

Early 20th Century. Less interested in the structural factors predisposing England or France to revolution, but placed emphasis on the role of human agency and the flux of events in the foreground. Done in reaction against the Marxist approach to revolution, and the traditional narrative suited a perspective that was fully formed before they embarked on their books. Wrote in the medium of a historical narrative.

19. Jakob Burckhardt

19th Century. Questions of historical explanation cannot be resolved solely by reference to the evidence. Historians are also guided by their intuitive sense of what was possible in a given historical context, by their reading of human nature, and by the claims of intellectual coherence. Coined the term Renaissance.

20. Peter Laslett

Late 20th Century. He pioneered the study of the history of the English family. His work of social history, The World We Have Lost, overturned many common assumptions about everyday life in early modern England. Tended to view social relations in pre-industrial England as reciprocal, while E.P. Thompson saw them as exploitative.

21. Michel Foucault

a. Mid 20th Century. French philosopher and social historian. Challenged the interpretation of modern European history as that of progress by showing how new, more restrictive discourses (forms of power/knowledge) of madness, punishment, and sexuality became established in Western Europe between 1750 and 1850. Founding Father of postmodernism. Critical of “grand narratives” such as the rise of capitalism or the growth of free thought and toleration. The most they will concede is that the past can be arranged into a multiplicity of stories, just as individual texts are open to a plurality of readings. According to Foucault, language is not just one variant of power. It is the most important kind of power. Because the users of language are not aware of being constrained, they mistakenly suppose that it expresses the world as it is.

22. Herodotus

485-425bc. Generally regarded as “the father of history.” He travelled widely throughout the Greek-speaking world and relied extensively on local informants

23. Thucydides

460-400bc. Athenian historian who wrote principally about the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. He, too, relied on informants. He is renowned for his dispassionate impartiality.