Whig history
Herbert Butterfield, in his 1931 book The Whig Interpretation of History criticised certain English historians for using the past to justify the present, and for judging the characters of that past according to whether they were seen to have contributed to or impeded Britain's progress towards its current civil, religious and political freedoms. An influential book, its ideas chimed with the trend toward in-depth archivally-based professional research championed by Namier and the IHR in place of histories that provided grand narratives or sought to serve nation-building purposes, though the continued popularity of Marxist approaches suggested that the Whig meta-narrative might have been unfairly singled out.
- Historians:
- Butterfield, Herbert
Trevelyan, George Macaulay - Themes:
- Political history
Revisionist history
