The Life and Thought of Herbert Butterfield: History, Science and God

by Michael Bentley

Overview

Once recalled only for The Whig Interpretation of History (1931) and Christianity and History (1949), Sir Herbert Butterfield's contribution to western culture has undergone an astonishing revaluation over the past twenty years. What has been left out of this reappraisal is the man himself. Yet the force of Butterfield's writings is weakened without some knowledge of the man behind them: his temperament, contexts and personal torments. Previous authors have been unable to supply a rounded portrait for lack of available material, particularly a dearth of sources for the crucial period before the outbreak of war in 1939. Michael Bentley's original, startling biography draws on sources never seen before. They enable him to present a new Butterfield, one deeply troubled by self-doubt, driven by an urgent sexuality and plagued by an unending tension between history, science and God in a mind as hard and cynical as it was loving and charitable.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107003972
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/21/2011
Pages:	398
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.98(d)

About the Author

Michael Bentley is Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews and well-known internationally to scholars interested in the history of historical writing. His Companion to Historiography (1997) and popular short guide, Modern Historiography: An Introduction (1999) have become bench texts for courses in historiography. Recently awarded a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship, Professor Bentley is currently writing a comparative analysis of Western historiography since the Enlightenment.

Table of Contents

Part I. Private Intellectual, 1900–45: 1. Bronte country; 2. Peterhouse and Princeton; 3. Love, marriage and 'the sex question'; 4. Thinking man's historian; 5. European civilisation and the Third Reich; 6. Wartime ambiguities; Part II. Contours of an Original Mind: 7. Science; 8. God; 9. History; Part III. Public Intellectual, 1945–79: 10. Height of his powers; 11. From history to historiography; 12. From diplomatic history to international relations; 13. From autumn to winter.

Editorial Reviews

"exceptionally illuminating new biography." -James Lothian, Journal of British Studies

From the Publisher