Once recalled only for The Whig Interpretation of History (1931) and Christianity and History (1949), Sir Herbert Butterfield's contribution to western culture has undergone an astonishing revaluation over the past twenty years. What has been left out of this reappraisal is the man himself. Yet the force of Butterfield's writings is weakened without some knowledge of the man behind them: his temperament, contexts and personal torments. Previous authors have been unable to supply a rounded portrait for lack of available material, particularly a dearth of sources for the crucial period before...

An introduction to the history of historical writing. The text explains the broad philosophical background to the different historians and historical schools of the modern era. In an overview of modern historiography, the book includes surveys on: the Enlightenment and counter Enlightenment; romanticism; the voice of science and the process of secularization within Western intellectual thought; the influence of, and broadening contact with, the New World; the Annales school in France; and the effects of the repression and exile of the inter-war years and the Post-War moods.

Once recalled only for The Whig Interpretation of History (1931) and Christianity and History (1949), Sir Herbert Butterfield's contribution to western culture has undergone an astonishing revaluation over the past twenty years. What has been left out of this reappraisal is the man himself. Yet the force of Butterfield's writings is weakened without some knowledge of the man behind them: his temperament, contexts and personal torments. Previous authors have been unable to supply a rounded portrait for lack of available material, particularly a dearth of sources for the crucial period before...