Michael Bentley

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 2011 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.

When the earth started to shake and the rocks fell Billy Bray knew that his life was in danger. When you're down a mine shaft, digging for tin, in the dark, damp tunnels... a rock fall could kill you.

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 2011 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.

Lord Salisbury (1830–1903) is now a subject of intense historical attention. This important study moves away from conventional biography and presents an original portrait of the mental world inhabited by late Victorian Conservatives at the time when their world-view was coming under severe strain. At the centre of the picture is the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, but Lord Salisbury's World does not simply tell the story of his life and politics. Instead, it asks sensitive questions about how the political, intellectual and religious environments of the late Victorian period seemed to one of its sharpest intellects, and it situates Salisbury and his immediate entourage in a wide landscape of relationships, perceptions and problems. Professor Bentley takes the reader into Conservative assumptions about time and space, property and society, religion and the state, and the past and the future - the very language in which they expressed themselves.

This study is an exercise in the history of political perception and opinion. It broke new ground in considering the decline of Liberalism through the eyes of Liberals themselves. By concentrating on what Liberal politicians said to one another and to their audience (public and private) a picture is built up of the frame of mind in which those responsible for guiding Liberalism faced a worsening world after 1914. The coming of the First World War was a critical element in forming that frame of mind; and the frame of mind was itself critical in deciding the fate of Liberalism in the post-war years. What emerges from this study is the paradox that the Liberal mind was the greatest single obstacle in the way of a Liberal revival.

What came before 'postmodernism' in historical studies? By thinking through the assumptions, methods and cast of mind of English historians writing between about 1870 and 1970, this book reveals the intellectual world of the modernists and offers a full analysis of English historiography in this crucial period. Modernist historiography set itself the objective of going beyond the colourful narratives of 'whigs' and 'popularizers' in order to establish history as the queen of the humanities and as a rival to the sciences as a vehicle of knowledge. Professor Bentley does not follow those who deride modernism as 'positivist' or 'empiricist' but instead shows how it set in train brilliant new styles of investigation that transformed how historians understood the English past. But he shows how these strengths were eventually outweighed by inherent confusions and misapprehensions that threatened to kill the very subject that the modernists had intended to sustain.

What came before 'postmodernism' in historical studies? By thinking through the assumptions, methods and cast of mind of English historians writing between about 1870 and 1970, this book reveals the intellectual world of the modernists and offers a full analysis of English historiography in this crucial period. Modernist historiography set itself the objective of going beyond the colourful narratives of 'whigs' and 'popularizers' in order to establish history as the queen of the humanities and as a rival to the sciences as a vehicle of knowledge. Professor Bentley does not follow those who deride modernism as 'positivist' or 'empiricist' but instead shows how it set in train brilliant new styles of investigation that transformed how historians understood the English past. But he shows how these strengths were eventually outweighed by inherent confusions and misapprehensions that threatened to kill the very subject that the modernists had intended to sustain.

The Companion to Historiography is an original analysis of the moods and trends in historical writing throughout its phases of development and explores the assumptions and procedures that have formed

Maurice Cowling's first two books appeared in 1963, the year in which he also became a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. This volume brings together a group of pupils, admirers and critics who have contributed essays dealing with facets of what Cowling calls 'public doctrine' in modern British history, together with critical assessments of his writing and his role as a major Cambridge figure. This varied group of essays helps to situate Cowling's work in its wider environment which will aid those who are coming to it for the first time or who are trying to make sense of its complex filiations. Above all, it seeks to be as unsycophantic, rebarbative and diverting as its dedicatee, while offering something genuinely worthwhile to all readers interested in recent historical and current intellectual tendencies in England.

Lord Salisbury (1830–1903) is now a subject of intense historical attention. This important study moves away from conventional biography and presents an original portrait of the mental world inhabited by late Victorian Conservatives at the time when their world-view was coming under severe strain. At the centre of the picture is the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, but Lord Salisbury's World does not simply tell the story of his life and politics. Instead, it asks sensitive questions about how the political, intellectual and religious environments of the late Victorian period seemed to one of its sharpest intellects, and it situates Salisbury and his immediate entourage in a wide landscape of relationships, perceptions and problems. Professor Bentley takes the reader into Conservative assumptions about time and space, property and society, religion and the state, and the past and the future - the very language in which they expressed themselves.

Modern Historiography is the essential introduction to the history of historical writing. It explains the broad philosophical background to the different historians and historical schools of the moder

Maurice Cowling's first two books appeared in 1963, the year in which he also became a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. This volume brings together a group of pupils, admirers and critics who have contributed essays dealing with facets of what Cowling calls 'public doctrine' in modern British history, together with critical assessments of his writing and his role as a major Cambridge figure. This varied group of essays helps to situate Cowling's work in its wider environment which will aid those who are coming to it for the first time or who are trying to make sense of its complex filiations. Above all, it seeks to be as unsycophantic, rebarbative and diverting as its dedicatee, while offering something genuinely worthwhile to all readers interested in recent historical and current intellectual tendencies in England.