Modernizing England's Past
English Historiography in the Age of Modernism, 1870–1970

This book is a full analysis of English historiography in the century after 1870.

Michael Bentley (Author)

9780521602662, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 12 January 2006

254 pages
22.6 x 16.1 x 1.5 cm, 0.38 kg

'… energetic …' History Today

What came before 'postmodernism' in historical studies? By thinking through the assumptions, methods and cast of mind of English historians writing between about 1870 and 1970, this book reveals the intellectual world of the modernists and offers a full analysis of English historiography in this crucial period. Modernist historiography set itself the objective of going beyond the colourful narratives of 'whigs' and 'popularizers' in order to establish history as the queen of the humanities and as a rival to the sciences as a vehicle of knowledge. Professor Bentley does not follow those who deride modernism as 'positivist' or 'empiricist' but instead shows how it set in train brilliant new styles of investigation that transformed how historians understood the English past. But he shows how these strengths were eventually outweighed by inherent confusions and misapprehensions that threatened to kill the very subject that the modernists had intended to sustain.

Prelude: after the Whigs
Part I. The Whig Legacy: 1. Constitution and nation
2. Church and state
3. Empire and war
4. Ghosts and intimations
Part II. Modernist Investments: 5. New historians, new histories
6. The new eighteenth century
7. Ideological environments
8. Modernist method
Coda: after the modernists.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1], Historiography [HBAH]