What is History / by Edward Hallett Carr - Universal History Library

WHAT IS HISTORY
and mainly static society. Somebody has accused Namier of taking mind out of history." It
is not perhaps a very fortunate phrase, but one can see the point which the critic was trying
to make. Politics at the accession of George III were still immune from the fanaticism of
ideas, and of that passionate belief in progress, which was to break on the world with the
French revolution and usher in the century of triumphant liberalism. No ideas, no
revolution, no liberalism: Namier chose to give us a brilliant portrait of an age still safe -
though not to d remain safe for long - from all these dangers.
But Namier's choice of a second subject was equally significant. Namier by-passed the
great modern revolutions, English, French, and Russian - he wrote nothing of substance on
any of them - and elected to give us a penetrating study of the European revolution of
1848 - a revolution that failed, a set-back all over Europe for the rising hopes of
liberalism, a demonstration of the hollowness of ideas in face of armed force, of democrats
when confronted with soldiers. The intrusion of ideas into the serious business of politics
is futile and dangerous: Namier rubbed in the moral by calling this humiliating failure 'the
revolution of the intellectuals'. Nor is our conclusion a matter of inference alone; for,
though Namier wrote nothing systematic on the philosophy of history, he expressed
himself in an essay published a few years ago with his usual clarity and incisiveness. 'The
less, therefore,' he wrote, ‘man clogs the free play of his mind with political doctrine and
dogma, the better for his thinking.' And, after mentioning, and not rejecting, the charge
that he had taken the mind out of history, he went on:
Some political philosophers complain of a 'tired lull' and the absence at present of
argument on general politics in this country; practical solutions are sought for concrete
problems, while programmes and ideals are forgotten by both parties. But to me this
attitude seems to betoken a greater national maturity, and I can only wish that it may long
continue undisturbed by the workings of political philosophy.
I do not want at the moment to join issue with this view: I will reserve that for a later
lecture. My purpose here is merely to ; understand or appreciate the work of the historian
unless you have first grasped the standpoint from which he himself approached it;
secondly, that that standpoint is itself rooted in a social and historical background. Do not
forget that, as Marx once said, the educator himself has to be educated; in modern jargon,
the brain of the brain-washer has itself been washed. The historian, before he begins to
write history, is the product of history.
The historians of whom I have just spoken - Grote and Mommsen, Trevelyan and Namier
file:///C|/Documents and Settings/Vidula/Local Settings/Temp/Rar$EX00.750/carr.htm (22 of 97)7/20/2006 11:28:45 AM