The Amateur and the Professional
Antiquarians, Historians and Archaeologists in Victorian England 1838–1886

This book highlights the growing divide in nineteenth-century intellectual circles between amateur and professional interest.

P. J. A. Levine (Author)

9780521530507, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 February 2003

224 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.338 kg

This book highlights the growing divide in nineteenth-century intellectual circles between amateur and professional interest, and explores the institutional means whereby professional ascendancy was achieved in the broad field of studies of the past. It is concerned with how antiquarian 'gentlemen of leisure', pursuing their interests through local archaeological societies, were, by the end of the century, relegated to the sidelines of the now university-based discipline of history. At the same time it explores the theological as well as technical barriers which arrested the development of archaeology in this period. This is a notable contribution to the intellectual history of Victorian England, attending not simply to the ideas perpetrated by these communities of scholarship but to their social status, relating such social consideration to a more traditional intellectual history to create a new social history of ideas.

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
1. Introduction
2. Community and consensus
3. Individuals in concert
4. Past history and present politics
5. The rôle of government
6. The contribution of the universities
7. Consolidation and division
Appendices
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: 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]