Letters On the Study and Use of History

by Henry Saint John

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322 pages, Hardcover

Published August 8, 2015

About the author

Henry Saint John, first viscount Bolingbroke, English statesman, orator, and a Jacobite, spent much life in exile and wrote influential political treatises, notably The Idea of a Patriot King in 1749.

This Tory philosopher flourished.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_S...

Reviews

[Andie]

What I like most about reading this book was the experience: this was the first manuscript (an eighteenth-century copy) I read in one of Trinity College Dublin's reading rooms for early modern books.

I read it for my dissertation.

It was most interesting in regard to how people thought history should be written and what was expected of those who dare write it. It was evidently a profession only for men. Those that study it, however, could be all kinds --albeit, of men. They saw history as a practical guide to cultivate virtue and wisdom to live a happy life, and a guide especially dedicated to men that serve the country. But in his view, in a democratic government as Britain was supposed to be in the eighteenth-century, you didn't need to born for a post or have a special rank, or men should study the history of their country.