The Varieties Of History: From Voltaire To The Present

455 Pages·1970·40.825 MB·English

by  Fritz Stern

The Varieties of History
From Voltaire to the Present
THE
VARIETIES
OF
HISTORY
From Voltaire to the Present
Edited, Selected, and Introduced
by FR.ITZ STERN
Macmillan Education
ISBN 978-0-333-11610-4 ISBN 978-1-349-15406-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-15406-7
Copyright © The World Publishing Company 1956. 1970
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 2nd edition 1970 978-0-333-11609-8
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission.
First edition 1956
Second edition 1970
Published by
MACMILLAN AND CO LTD
London and Basingstoke
Associated companies in New York Toronto
Dublin Melbourne Johannesburg and Madras
SBN 333 11609 7 (hard cover)
333 11610 0 (paper cover)
The Papermac edition of this book is sold subject to the condition that
it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or
otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent, in any form
of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without
a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the sub
sequent purchaser.
Contents
Acknowledgments 9
Note to English Edition 10
Introduction 11
PART I
1. THE NEW PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY:
Voltaire 3S
On History: Advice to a Journalist
Letter to Abbe Dubos
Introduction: The Age of Louis XIV
On the Usefulness of History
2. THE CRITICAL METHOD: Barthold Niebuhr 46
Preface to the First Edition: History of Rome
Preface to the Second Edition: History of Rome
3. THE IDEAL OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY:
Leopold von Ranke 54
Preface: Histories of Romance and Germanic
Peoples
Fragment from the 1830's
Fragment from the 1860's
4. NATIONAL HISTORY AND LIBERALISM:
Augustin Thierry 63
Preface and Letter I: The History of France
S. HISTORY AND LITERATURE:
Thomas Babington Macaulay 71
History
5
6 Contents
6. HISTORY AS BIOGRAPHY: Thomas Carlyle 90
On History
From On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in
History
7. HISTORY AS A NATIONAL EPIC:
Jules Michelet 108
From the Introduction: The People
8. POSITIVISTIC HISTORY AND ITS CRITICS:
Henry Thomas Buckle and Johann Droysen 120
Buckle, From General Introduction: History of
Civilization in England
Droysen, Art and Method
9. HISTORICAL MATERIALISM: Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels; Jean laures 145
Marx and Engels, From The German Ideology
Jaures, Critical and General Introduction: Histoire
socialiste de la Revolution franraise
10. HISTORY AS AN ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE:
Prospectuses of Historische Zeitschrift, Revue His-
torique, English Historical Review 170
11. THE ETHOS OF A SCIENTIFIC HISTORIAN:
N. D. Fustel de Coulanges 178
An Inaugural Lecture
Introduction to The History of the Politicallnstitu
tions of Ancient France
12. ON THE TRAINING OF HISTORIANS:
Theodor Mommsen "191
Rectorial Address
13. AN AMERICAN DEFINITION OF HISTORY:
Frederick lackson Turner 197
The Significance of History
14. HISTORY AS A SCIENCE: J. B. Bury 209
Inaugural Address: The Science of History
Contents 7
PART II
1. CLIO REDISCOVERED: G. M. Trevelyan 227
From Clio, A Muse
2. SPECIALIZATION AND HISTORICAL SYN-
THESIS: Lord Acton and Henri Berr 246
Acton, Letter to the Contributors to the Cambridge
Modern History
Berr, About Our Program
3. A "NEW HISTORY" IN AMERICA:
lames Harvey Robinson and Charles A. Beard 256
Robinson and Beard, Preface: The Development of
Modern Europe
Robinson, From The New History
4. HISTORICISM AND ITS PROBLEMS: Friedrich
Meinecke 267
Values and Causalities in History
S. HISTORICAL CONCEPTUALIZATION:
I. Huizinga 289
The Idea of History
6. ECONOMIC HISTORY: George Unwin and I. H.
Clapham 304
Unwin, The Teaching of Economic History in Uni
versity Tutorial Classes
Clapham, Economic History As a Discipline
7. HISTORICAL RELATIVISM: Charles A. Beard 314
That Noble Dream
8. HISTORY UNDER MODERN DICfATOR
SHIPS: N. N. Pokrovsky, Walter Frank, and K. A.
von Milller 329
Pokrovsky, The Tasks of the Society of Marxist
Historians
8 Contents
The Tasks of Marxist Historical Science in the
Reconstruction Period
Frank, From Guild and Nation
von MUller, Editor's Note to the Historische Zeit·
schritt
9. HISTORY AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES:
Thomas Cochran and Richard Hotstadter 341
Cochran, The Social Sciences and the Problem of
Historical Synthesis
Hofstadter, History and the Social Sciences
10. HISTORY AND POLITICAL CULTURE: L. B.
Namier 371
History
Human Nature in Politics
11. CULTURAL HISTORY AS A SYNTHESIS:
Jacques Barzun 387
Cultural History: A Synthesis
12. THE CONTEMPORARY STUDY OF HISTORY:
R. W. Southern 403
The Shape and Substance of Academic History
13. SOCIAL HISTORY:
E. P. Thompson 423
Preface to The Making of the English Working Class
Class Consciousness
Notes 431
Sources and Permissions 447
Index 451
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank the many friends and colleagues without
whose help this volume would have been much more diffi
cult to prepare. First and foremost, I should like to record my
gratitude to Jacques Barzun, whose contribution, apparent in
the first and last section, extended in fact to the entire book;
his many suggestions, born of his superb familiarity with all
aspects of historiography, vastly improved the manuscript,
which, with characteristic generosity and precision, he read
and criticized as well. lowe much to Henry L. Roberts, to his
steady help and criticism, and to the inspiration I derived from
his profound historical sense. On countless occasions I dis
cussed this book with Richard Hofstadter, whose kind en
thusiasm for this enterprise surpassed and sustained my own.
I was also able to consult Hajo Holborn and Leonard Krieger;
their perspicacious counsel was of the greatest value. I am
grateful to Beatrice Hofstadter, David S. Landes, William E.
Leuchtenburg, and R. K. Webb for their criticism of my In
troduction.
I regret that it is not possible to list all those colleagues
with whom at one time or another I discussed some specific
aspect of this work, but I do wish to express my thanks to
those who helped in the selection of a -particular essay or
who went over some part of my translations: Lee Benson,
1. Bartlet arebner, Shepard B. Clough, Arthur C. Danto,
Moses Hadas, J. Christopher Herold, Emery Neff, and Martin
Ostwald. I also wish to thank Dwight W. Webb of the Noon
day Press, whose cordial interest in the book proved a great
help, and Arthur A. Cohen of Meridian Books, whose ready
collaboration facilitated the final stages of this work.
The generous counsel of these and other friends and col
leagues saved me from all manner of error and omission.
For all shortcomings I am, of course, solely responsible.
In preparing the new English edition, I turned for help and
advice to John Elliott, Felix Gilbert, John Hale, James JoIl,
Lawrence Stone, and Robert K. Webb. To all of them, my
thanks.
F.S.
Rochester, Vermont
1une 28, 1956
9
A NOTE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION (1970)
Times have changed since The Varieties oj History was first
published, and so has the place of history in our intellectual
world. Other disciplines have come to the fore and other in
terests prevail; the study of the past as a uniquely important
humanistic inquiry no longer commands the kind of automatic
acceptance it once did. This anthology, collected in more
tranquil times, was intended principally as an introduction to
the study of history. By illustrating the different visions -of
history that inspired its practitioners, by demonstrating that
history is an ever-changing, self-renewing discipline, this book
may today help to formulate new answers to the old question,
"What is History?" It also suggests the recurrent need to re
define history in a broader context, responsive to the intellectual
and political concerns of a particular age.
For this new edition I have added two recent pieces of Eng
lish historical writing-by R. W. Southern and E. P. Thompson
-in the hope that they will properly exemplify the extraordinary
vitality and range of present-day English historiography. For it
is paradoxical that the present discontent with history coincides
with a remarkable surge of historical work, measured both in
quantity and quality.
For the rest, I have left the text unchanged. If I were to
write the Introduction today, it would probably turn out
differently. But it would still affirm Maitland's contention that
"orthodox history seems to me a contradiction in terms," that
the study of the past needs to be free and objective, and that this
study is likely to prove instructive, pleasurable, sobering, and
liberating, and is more needed than ever in an age that takes
none of the virtues of historical study for granted.
May 16, 1970 F.S.
10