Official history
Official histories are those commissioned by governments, with the trade-off for historians being between privileged access to official sources and the possibility of seeing their work vetted. They are both intended to serve as aids for policymakers and as the basis for future histories. Much official history has been military history (most notably of the First and Second World Wars), often written by ex-combatants, whilst 'civil' histories have tended to have been the work of those with experience of government. Thus, while bodies like History & Policy have sought to strengthen the relationship between historians and policymakers, the former have often been underrepresented in one of the main areas where history is meant to influence policy.
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- Historians:
- Postan, Michael Moissey
- Institutions:
- History & Policy
- Themes:
- Contemporary history
Business history
Military history
Related publications
- David Reynolds, 'Official history: how Churchill and the cabinet office wrote The Second World War', Historical Research, 78, 201 (2005), 400–22
P. Beck, Using History, Making British Policy: the Treasury and the Foreign Office 1950–1976 (Basingstoke, 2006).
