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Some Trends in Scholarship 1868–1968, in the field of Modern History
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
Extract
Because of paradoxes which lie in the very nature of historical knowledge, our branch of scholarship was two centuries late in accomplishing the equivalent of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. Only in the nineteenth century was it possible to establish, and to put into general practice, those techniques of discovery and verification which enable the student really to feel his feet. And only after this could the subject itself take the leap into that course of ever-accelerating development which the scientist had achieved at an earlier date. In the 1850's the young Acton was entranced by the tremendous awakening of the historical consciousness that had occurred in Germany. He was exultant because history had come to preside over so many branches of thought and activity. But the experience that really changed his outlook, and was to hold the prior place in his memory, was a later one—the result of that wider opening of the archives which took place in the region of the year 1860. This was the key that seemed to unlock the last drawer, making men feel that, now at last, they could really get down to the study of history. We may wonder whether anybody will ever again have quite the exhilaration of those who had the run of the newlyopened archives. A quick hunt through the papers would at least give them a story to tell, and they might hope soon to expose the things which governments or churches had managed to hide in days when significant secrets could be kept.
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References
page 159 note 1 Cambridge University Library, Add. 4908: ‘This has been really the beginning of history’. Add. 5011: ‘That H[istory] is only now begun.’ Add. 4931: ‘You had the secrets of archives without the regulations, the difficulty in admission etc. History till then not scientific.’
page 160 note 1 Sybel, H. von, ‘Pariser Studien’, Vorträge und Abhandlungen (Munich and Leipzig, 1897), p. 365. Cf. Acton, C.U.L. Add. 4929, 33: ‘Sybel says that he was the first to consult the papers of the C[ommittee] of P[ublic] Safety. Faris had used them before him for his MS. de l'an III'.Google Scholar
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page 167 note 1 Romier, Lucien, Le Royaume de Catherine de Médicis, i (Paris, 1922). The ‘Preface’ to this book carrying the title ‘Les Témoinages’, is an interesting essay on what is required if the historian is to escape from an inherited framework of narrative and seeks to construct something more authentic. See, especially, p. ix: ‘L'histoire des guerres de religion … n’a pas été renouvelée dans son ensemble depuis Jacques-August de Thou. La raison principale en est que les auteurs…ne surent se degager de la methode…qui consistait a interpréter les documents à la lumière des textes narratifs…“relations” ou “memoires”’. Romier goes on to say that‘“l'insatiable desir de tout publier”, que l’on vit se manifester vers 1830, nous a légueé de vastes recueils’ but that these, and, still more, any publication of selected documents, might leave the historian still the prisoner of routine, unless care was taken to use them to break the older narrative tradition.Google Scholar
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page 171 note 1 Ashley, W. J., ‘Economic History in University Studies’, Econ. Hist. Rev., i (1927–1928), p. 3, ‘Google ScholarThe study of economic history arose first of all in Germany among those economists who revolted against what they called the “old” Economics [The] “new” Economics…was to be “a doctrine of the economic development of nations”—that is to say, it was to consist of the largest generalizations to which Economic History should itself arrive. I believe I used language not unlike that myself long years ago.’ In an Inaugural Lecture entitled, ‘What is Political Science?’, delivered in Toronto 9 Nov. 1888 and quoted in Ashley, Anne, William James Ashley, a Life (London, 1932), p. 50,Google Scholar Ashley spoke of ‘the great achievement of German thought in the last fifty years—the discovery and application of the Historical Method’. He continued: ‘The Historical Method had already transformed the study of law when it passed to Political Economy. It began to be seen that economic principles could not claim to be true at all times and places.…It will have been seen that I regard these recent tendencies with sympathy. The method I mean is the method of direct observation and generalisation from facts, whether past or present.’ Ashley's Inaugural Lecture at Harvard, 1893, Surveys, pp. 2–3, clearly announces a change of view. ‘It would be idle to deny that the hopes which were entertained by the younger men of the “historical” or “inductive” school in Germany some 20 years ago, and by…English writers, have not hitherto been realized. They looked for a complete and rapid transformation of economic science…aiming…at the construction of a body of general propositions…[but] during this period the historical movement has been slowly pushing its way into its own true field of work…’; p. 6. ‘…the leaders of the school are throwing themselves into detailed research and feeling their way toward independent historical construction…[e.g.] Schmoller…’. For similar transitions in the ideas of Cunningham and Alfred Marshall see p. 172, n.4. In his Introduction (1888), p. 15, Ashley says: ‘It was owing to the work that Thorold Rogers did at Oxford…that the study of Economic History came to be regarded as a department of Economics.’ Thompson, J. W., A History of Historical Writing, ii (New York, 1942), p. 430, calls attention to Rogers's statement: ‘the laws which govern prices will, I think, be seen more clearly in these medieval records than they could be in a modern Price Current’.Google Scholar
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page 172 note 2 ‘German Schools of History’, Historical Essays and Studies, p. 388. Cf. ibid., p. 391: ‘The service done by his enormous influence to political economy…is far less than his services to the cause of intelligible history. A large number of the most valuable works on England proceed from the movement he has promoted.’
page 172 note 3 Cunningham, Audrey, William Cunningham, Teacher and Priest (London, 1950), pp. 63–66. Marshall had apparently made matters worse by cutting down Cunningham's lectures on economic history and making him devote one term a year to political economy. In a revision of the Cambridge Tripos in 1889 Cunningham felt called upon to make a public stand for economic history.Google Scholar
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page 176 note 2 H. Butterfield, Man on his Past, p. 66.
page 176 note 3 Ashley, ‘On the Study of Economic History’ (written in 1899), Surveys, p. 28.
page 177 note 1 Amongst the mass of controversial literature which appeared on this subject there is therefore a brief English outline of his ideas in his book, What is History? (New York and London, 1905).Google Scholar
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