History, Philosophy of, Historians - Biography, International Relations - General & Miscellaneous

Herbert Butterfield: Historian as Dissenter

Name: Herbert Butterfield: Historian as Dissenter
Author: C.T. McIntire
ISBN: 9780300098075

by C.T. McIntire

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Overview

Herbert Butterfield (1900-1979) was an important British historian and religious thinker whose ideas, in particular his concept of a "Whig interpretation of history," remain deeply influential. In this intellectual biography -- the first comprehensive study of Butterfield -- C. T. McIntire focuses on the creative processes that lay behind Butterfield's accomplishments. McIntire describes the career trajectory of a man whose intellectual achievements propelled him from a worker's cottage in an industrial village in West Yorkshire to the Regius Professorship of Modern History at Cambridge University and to a knighthood from the Queen. He discusses Butterfield's lifelong devotion to his Methodist faith and shows how his Christian spirituality animated his historical work. Drawing on his investigation into Butterfield's vast and diverse output of written work -- including his voluminous unpublished lectures, notes, letters, and diaries -- as well as on extensive interviews with him and those close to him, McIntire explores Butterfield's ideas and methods. He traces the theme of dissent that ran through Butterfield's life and work, presenting a man who found himself at odds with prevailing convictions about history, morality, politics, science, religion, and teaching. Butterfield's writing style was adversative, his thinking iconoclastic, and his teetotaler's option for ginger beer over fine wines countercultural. He elevated the notion of dissent into an ethic of living in tension with any established system. This thought-provoking book offers an unprecedented look at a man many regarded as the most original historian of his generation.

Synopsis

"This important and original work is an intellectual biography that focuses on the life and achievements of a major historian in mid-twentieth-century England."-Martin E. Marty, University of Chicago

Author Biography: C.T. McIntire is professor of religion and history at the University of Toronto and fellow of Victoria College, Toronto.