9780140215328 - The Whig Interpretation of History by Butterfield, Herbert (3 results)

Paperback. Condition: Good. The book has been read but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact and the cover is intact. Some minor wear to the spine.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good+. First Edition Thus; First Printing. First Edition Thus (1973) ; First Printing. Very Good+ to Near Fine in Wraps: shows very mild rubbing overall and the faintest crease near the outside edge of the front panel; a tick of wear to the extremities of the self-wrapper covers; the expected tanning to the text pages due to aging; the binding is square and secure; the text is clean. Free of creases to the backstrip. Free of any creased or dog-eared pages in the text. Free of any underlining, hi-lighting or marginalia or marks in the text. Free of any ownership names, dates, addresses, notations, inscriptions, stamps, plates, or labels. A handsome copy, structurally sound and tightly bound, showing the mildest wear and minor, unobtrusive imperfections. Close to "As New". NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 12mo. Language: English. Weight: 2.5 ounces. First published in 1931. Mass Market Paperback. Sir Herbert Butterfield FBA (1900 1979) was an English historian and philosopher of history, who was Regius Professor of Modern History and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. He is remembered chiefly for a short volume early in his career entitled 'The Whig Interpretation of History' and for his 'Origins of Modern Science' (1949). Butterfield turned increasingly to historiography and man's developing view of the past. Butterfield was a devout Christian and reflected at length on Christian influences in historical perspectives. A salient feature of Butterfield thought was his belief that individual personalities were more important than great systems of government or economics in historical study. His Christian beliefs in personal sin, salvation and providence were a great influence in his writings, a fact he freely admitted. At the same time, Butterfield's early works emphasised the limits of a historian's moral conclusions, "If history can do anything it is to remind us that all our judgments are merely relative to time and circumstance". The Whig Interpretation of History' became a classic for history students and is still widely read and admired. His anti-Hegelian criticism of the retrospective creation of a line of progress toward the glorious present can be and has subsequently been applied generally. The "Whig interpretation of history" is now a general label applied to various Hegelian and Post-Hegelian historical interpretations. Butterfield found the Whig interpretation of history objectionable because it warps the past to see it in terms of the issues of the present and attempts to squeeze the contending forces of the past into a form that reminds us of ourselves. Butterfield argued that the historian must seek the ability to see events as they were perceived by those who lived through them. Simple pick-and-choose history misses the point, he argued, "Very strange bridges are used to make the passage from one state of things to another; we may lose sight of them in our surveys of general history, but their discovery is the glory of historical research. History is not the study of origins; rather it is the analysis of all the mediations by which the past was turned into our present". A classic of historiographical understanding. ; 12mo 7" - 7½" tall; 95 pages.

Soft cover. Condition: Near Fine. 94pp. Pictorial light card covers. 12mo. Pages ageing otherwise internally, neat, clean and tight.