Whig Historiography

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.08: English Writing and Culture of the early Twentieth Century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Peter Childs (Birmingham Newman University), Nicole Kennedy (University of Newcastle), Louise McDonald (Birmingham Newman University), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow), Sean Seeger (University of Essex)

Domains

Politics

Dates

Date of occurrence 1820- c.1914

Places

United Kingdom (Location)

Genres and Modes

Historiography

Resources

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In 1931 Herbert Butterfield published a short essay under the title The Whig Interpretation of History. Although a recognition of the political uses to which history had been put by Whigs (in the political sense) was a commonplace in critical historiography, Butterfield attempted to delineate an approach to historical writing that was not, strictly speaking, a reference to a political ideology. There were a number of elements to Butterfield's critique of this style of history-writing, not least of which was an absolute rejection of the idea of seeing history in present terms and from present conceptual positions: the historian must understand a period or moment through the ideas and concepts of those who lived (in) it. This, however, was nothing new in much historical theory. Butterfield's principal concern was with those historians for whom Britain's...

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523 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Whig Historiography". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 March 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1205, accessed 05 December 2025.]