Description
Book SynopsisHistory, Historians, and Conservatism in Britain and America examines the subjects, motives, and personal and intellectual origins of conservative historians who were also successful public intellectuals. In their search for a persuasive and wide appeal, conservatives depended until at least the 1960s upon history and historians to provide conservative concepts with authority and authenticity. Beginning with the Great War in Britain and the Second World War in America, conservative historians participated actively and influentially in debates about the heart, soul, and especially the mind of conservatism. Particular emphasis is placed on four historians in Britain-F. J. C. Hearnshaw, Keith Feiling, Arthur Bryant, and Herbert Butterfield-and three in America-Daniel Boorstin, Peter Viereck, and Russell Kirk-who developed conservative responses to unprecedented and threatening events both at home and abroad. These historians shared basic assumptions about human nature and society, but the
Trade ReviewA compelling examination of the work and influence of several British and American historians on convervatism during the twentieth century. * British Scholar *
A dense, complex and penetrating book that explores a neglected area of 20th century history * A.W. Purdue, Times Higher Education Supplement *
...a welcome contribution to the existing literature on intellectual history in Anglo-American in the twentieth century * Rachel S. Turner, Contemporary British History *
Table of ContentsIntroduction ; PART I: INTELLECTUAL HISTORY, POLITICAL THOUGHT, AND CONSERVATISM ; PART II: THE INTER-WAR DECADES IN BRITAIN ; 1. Conservatism as a Crusade: F.J.C. Hearnshaw ; 2. The Attraction of Tory Democracy: Keith Feiling ; 3. The Phenomenon of Arthur Bryant: Patriotism, Conservatism, and the Greater Public ; 4. Arthur Bryant, Appeasement and Anti-Semitism ; PART III: POST-WAR BRITAIN ; 5. Christianity and Conservative Historiography : Hebert Butterfield, Cambridge, and the Greater World ; PART IV: POST-WAR AMERICA ; 6. Conservative History and Social Criticism, 1941 through the 1960s ; 7. The Americanization of the British Conservative Mind ; 8. Conservatism and Exceptionalism ; Epilogue: The Future of the Conservative Past ; Bibliography
