Subjects
The Science of History in Victorian Britain:
Making the Past Speak
Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century
978 1 84893 126 8: 234x156mm: £60.00/$99.00
978 1 84893 127 5
New attitudes towards history in nineteenth-century Britain saw a rejection of romantic, literary techniques in favour of a professionalized, scientific methodology. The development of history as a scientific discipline was undertaken by several key historians of the Victorian period, influenced by German scientific history and British natural philosophy. This study examines parallels between the professionalization of both history and science at the time, which have previously been overlooked.
Hesketh challenges accepted notions of a single scientific approach to history. Instead, he draws on a variety of sources – monographs, lectures, correspondence – from eminent Victorian historians to uncover numerous competing discourses.
Sample pages
Readership
History of Science, Intellectual History, Historiography, the Philosophy of History and Nineteenth-Century Studies
Contents
Introduction: That Never-Ending Battle
1 The Enlarging Horizon: Henry Thomas Buckle's Science of History
2 The Sciences of History
3 Controversial Boys
4 Discipline and Disease; or, the Boundary Work of Scientific History
5 History from Nowhere
6 Broad Shadows and Little Histories
7 The Death of the Historian
Epilogue: Froude's Revenge
Reviews
'It is certainly useful to have a study of an important conceptual debate that goes into the political wings so thoroughly'
– Richard Somerset, British Society for Literature and Science (read the full review here)
'an excellent, careful account of the antiliterary, anti-Romantic perspectives of those well-known founders of academic history'
– Michael Carignan, Journal of British Studies
'this colorful and conflicted history of the battle between the art of history and the science of history is a welcome addition to the growing literature on nineteenth-century science and culture.'
– Alison Butler, Left History
Related titles
