Herbert Butterfield | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Herbert Butterfield | |
| Born | 7 October 1900 Oxenhope, England |
| Died | 20 July 1979 (aged 78) Sawston, England |
| Title |
|
| Spouse |
Pamela Crawshaw (m. 1929) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Peterhouse, Cambridge |
| Influences | |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | |
| Sub-discipline | |
| School or tradition | |
| Institutions | Peterhouse, Cambridge |
| Doctoral students | |
| Notable works |
|
| Notable ideas | Whig history |
| Influenced | |
Sir Herbert Butterfield FBA (7 October 1900 – 20 July 1979) was an English historian and philosopher of history, who was Regius Professor of Modern History and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.[3] He is remembered chiefly for a short volume early in his career entitled The Whig Interpretation of History (1931) and for his Origins of Modern Science (1949). Butterfield turned increasingly to historiography and man's developing view of the past. Butterfield was a devout Christian and reflected at length on Christian influences in historical perspectives.
Butterfield thought that individual personalities were more important than great systems of government or economics in historical study. His Christian beliefs in personal sin, salvation and providence were a great influence in his writings, a fact he freely admitted. At the same time, Butterfield's early works emphasised the limits of a historian's moral conclusions, "If history can do anything it is to remind us that all our judgments are merely relative to time and circumstance".
- ^ John D. Fair, Harold Temperley: A Scholar and Romantic in the Public Realm, University of Delaware Press, 1992, p. 11.
- ^ Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1970 (2nd ed.), p. 85.
- ^ Haslam, Jonathan (15 July 2011). "The Life and Thought of Herbert Butterfield by Michael Bentley – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 July 2014.