The Whig Interpretation of History

Good history book

At the time this book was originally published (1931) I suspect it had a lot of direct relevance for practicing historians. Today, it reads somewhat old fashioned. However, it's well written, if a bit formal, and certainly needs to be read by anyone who wants to keep his or her thinking about history on track. But see also the mention this book gets in Fischer's Historians' Fallacies. Even Sir Herbert doesn't escape that work unscathed.

Those who believe in an “arc of history “ must read this salutary corrective, directed toward a “progressivism “ of a different age.

Historian Herbert Butterfield wrote this wonderfully incisive essay in the 1930's. His thesis continues to be powerfully relevant today. He spoke for understanding the past on its own terms, and against selectively mining it to support the political arguments and moral judgements of the present. The past is always more complicated than it looks from here, and the author notes outcomes are often the unintended result of interactions between individuals, governments, and movements. Judging the past by the present may be misleading, and may be be unfair to both. Well recommended to the historian and the serious reader of history.

On reading histories of the nineteenth century, one cannot help but note that the historians believed that all the clashes of history inevitably led to the apotheosis of virtue in the person of the Whig gentleman. Sir Butterfield adeptly demolishes such a naive, though entrenched, approach to historical documentation, noting that the chaos of history, whether provoked by the Reformation or by English politics, in no way consciously intended many of its results. Religious liberty, for instance, was not a conscious aim of the Protestant Reformation, but a byproduct of the brutal wars over religion which scarred Europe for a century. It is only in the deforming glasses of Whig interpreters that the Protestant Reformers appear as advocating everything whiggish. Butterfield does have a few of his own biases, speaking in the magisterial "we" when declaring our age a secularized one, or speaking of alleged Catholic irrationality. But these are minor faults, and easily accounted for, hardly marring lthis excellent essay.

I had to purchase this book for a class. The writer didn’t offer much evidence to support his claims and it was a bit difficult to read. I had to read several sections multiple times to understand what his point was. At first I thought it was me but most of the other students in class had the same issue.

My review will be in french (my mother tongue) and english. The english parliamentary history in England was under two interpretations (Whig or Tory), but the Whig interpretation tooks the first rank in the interpretation of this event. Butterfield have a profound look about the historiography of the historian like an avenger. At the end, the question is not a problem for the philosophy of history but a problem « of the psychology of the historian ». In the same sense, E. H. Carr wrote also : « Before you study the history, study the historians." Mon compte rendu sera en francais (ma langue maternelle) et en anglais. L'histoire du parlementarisme britannique est liee aux interpretations Liberale ou Conservatrice, mais c'est l'interpretation liberale (Whig) qui a domine la scene de l'intrepretation de l'evenement. Butterfield nous offre un point de vue intelligent au sujet de l'historien comme "vengeur" du passe. A la fin, la question n'est pas un probleme de philosophie de l'histoire, mais une question de "psychologie de l'historien". Dans le meme sens, E. H. Carr a ecrit : "Avant d'etudier l'histoire, il est mieux d'etudier l'historien." (Texte en francais sans accent.)

I expected this book to be much longer than the large print and 132 page small size paperback I received. I bought this book in the hopes that it would be an in-depth chronological narrative of British history that analyzed the Whig point of view and then gave the author's own interpretation of that history. I realize that I should be reviewing the book the author actually wrote and not the one I wished he had wrote. With that in mind I would say this book is a philosophical view of historical interpretation. As a result this book is very short, but since it only a commentary on a particular historical viewpoint, it could have been even shorter. The author frequently repeats himself and could have made the same points in half the length. To sum up I was disappointed with this book and recommend you go to Wikipedia to get the gist of it - that would be good enough.

The English "Whig interpretation of history" inspired many political philosophers, such as Hayek, in the liberal tradition. It was mainly a political history which gave for generations a true sense of the value of the political liberty. Unfortunately the Whig interpretation has gone out of fashion with the decline of liberalism in economic history and the domination of the marxist ideology and the socialism. Those critics rest on the belief in the myth of the necessity to put an end to the capitalist system with its horrible conditions and contradictions. This system is an order merely a historical phase, predictable through the laws of historical development. The socialist power must preparea better system for the future (Cf. B. Russel...) Conversely for the liberals, a good economic and political history must not allow a distorsion of the facts and not forget the three questions: What are the facts? How the historians present them? and Why? and especially about capitalism. The matter is historical and political, it deals with knowledge and epistemology, culture and philosophy; on these bases the Whig interpretation of history is helpful. This book is a critical essay on the Whig interpretation of history according to the theory standing behind, i.e. the study of the past with reference to the present and built on political and moral whig principles. Their methodology consists in abstracting things from their context, overdramatisation of the story, over-simplification, abrigments and their implications, judments of value, research of a logic or an essence of history (progress and liberty). The result of this method and kind of reasoning is to impose a certain form of interpretation with an agenda resting on political and moral principles creating an optical illusion, introducing philosophy, politics, ideology and doctrine. That is the thesis of the book, for the author all that is a misuse of the art of the historian, facing complexity the historian must study the process of transition with all the mediations to analyse.

Having "studied" nineteenth century history for 4 years, this was the first time I have had any grasp of who these "anti-Tories" actually were. This is a witty and suitably sceptical view of a social force who might have invented "noblesse oblige". Apparently, Roy Jenkins thought of himself as a bit of a Whig, perhaps a better description than "champagne socialist".

Thank you for book exactly as described