British Historians and National Identity: From Hume to Churchill

Can historians shape national identity and how does this change over time? Two eminent scholars of historiography examine the concept of national identity through the medium of the key multi-volume histories of the last two hundred years. Starting with Hume's History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688 (1754-62), Brundage and Cosgrove devote separate chapters to the work of Catharine Macaulay, John Lingard, Henry Hallam, Thomas Babington Macaulay, James Anthony Froude, Edward Freeman, William Stubbs, John Richard Green, Samuel Rawson Gardiner, George Macaulay Trevelyan and Winston Churchill. The work of these writers had a wide readership and an even greater influence by becoming the authorities on which other authors based the textbooks used by succeeding generations of British children. By contemporary standards many of these historians' conclusions have not endured but their impact on how the British view themselves still remains.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1 Demythologizing the Nation's Past: David Hume's History of England 2 Catharine Macaulay's Vindication of Radicalism and the Republican Tradition 3 Reassessing Religion and the National Narrative: John Lingard and the English Reformation 4 Placing the Constitution at the Heart of National Identity: Henry Hallam and Constitutional History 5 Thomas Babington Macaulay: Writing the History of a Progressive People 6 The Glories of the Reformation and the Origins of Empire: J A Froude's Celebration of the Tudor Era 7 Edward Augustus Freeman: Liberal Democracy and National Identity 8 William Stubbs: The Continuity of English History as National Identity 9 Celebrating the People: J R Green's Short History 10 Samuel Rawson Gardiner: Incorporating Dissent into the National Story 11 In Thrall to English Tradition and Character: G M Trevelyan's Panoramic Histories of the Island Race 12 The Anglosphere as Global Model: Winston Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples Conclusion

About the Author :
Anthony Brundage is Emeritus Professor of British History at the California State Polytechnic University at Pomona. In 1996 he was named a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, London. He has published many book reviews, journal and encyclopaedia articles and essays throughout his career, as well as a number of books, including The Great Tradition: Constitutional History and National Identity in Britain and the United States 1870-1960 (co-authored with Richard Cosgrove) (2007) Richard Cosgrove is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Arizona. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and has published widely on various areas of British, Irish and American history, especially the legal history of Britain.