The Origins of History

by Herbert Butterfield, Adam Watson

A distillation of the thought and research to which Herbert Butterfield devoted the last twenty years of his life to, this book, originally published in 1981, traces how differently people understood the relevance of their past and its connection with their religion. It examines ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia; the political perceptiveness of the Hittites; the Jewish sense of God in history, of promise and fulfilment; the classical achievement of scientific history; and the unique Chinese tradition of historical writing. The author explains the problems of the early Christians in relating their traditions of Jesus to their life and faith and the emergence, when Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire, of a new historical understanding. The book then charts the gradual growth of a sceptical approach to recorded authority in Islam and Western Europe, the reconstruction of the past by deductive analysis of the surviving evidence and the secularisation of the eighteenth century.

Genres: History

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Sir Herbert Butterfield was a British historian and philosopher of history who is remembered chiefly for two books—a short volume early in his career entitled The Whig Interpretation of History (1931) and his Origins of Modern Science (1949). Over the course of his career, 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 individual personalities more important than great systems of government or economics in historical study. His Christian beliefs in personal sin, salvation, and providence heavily influenced his writings, a fact he freely admitted. At the same time, Butterfield's early works emphasized 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."

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A POSTHUMOUS PUBLICATION OF THE FAMED HISTORIAN'S FINAL THOUGHTS ON HISTORY

Herbert Butterfield (1900-1979) was a British historian and philosopher of history, who also wrote 'The Whig Interpretation of History' and 'Christianity and History.'

He explained, "The Introduction and the seven chapters of this book are an amplified version of the six broadcast lectures delivered ... [in] 1949... These were based in turn upon a series of seven lectures originally delivered at the... University of Cambridge in ... 1948." (Pg. vii) Editor Adam Watson explains in the Introduction to this 1981 book, "More than once [Butterfield] said that the book which he was developing on this theme was the most important task remaining to him... After his death, Pamela, his widow and literary executrix, turned over to me his manuscripts and notes on the history of historiography... to edit and publish as best I could." (Pg. 10-11)

He notes, "At an early stage in the history of Mesopotamia there emerged an outlook on life which was to be of some significance for the development of historiography... It led to the appearance of the first hitherto known example of what might be called an interpretation of human history. And this interpretation itself was to be of such long-standing importance in the history of civilization ... that its origin is bound to be a matter of some interest to us." (Pg. 35)

Of the Hebrews, he observes, "It was something of a novelty to have anybody writing history at all, instead of merely recording his own deeds of prowess. It was novel for a man to be writing the history of a nation... But the 'Yahwist,' starting from the Creation, adumbrates also the history of mankind itself. He puts the story of his own country into this context, so that the 'universal history' merges into something more local..." (Pg. 97)

He cautions, "It is hazardous to speak of the emergence of anything that is absolutely new in history. We ought on occasion to remind ourselves of the fact that there never was a time when man might not know how to put two and two together." (Pg. 135)

He asserts, "Our whole enquiry is therefore bound to come to a new climax when the religious outlook and the awareness of history come together in a new way with the emergence of Christianity. For Christianity was the religion which from a period of fairly primitive conditions presided for more than a thousand years over the development of the exceptionally history-conscious society and culture in Europe when these were in their formative stages." (Pg. 158) He adds, "Augustine was not primarily concerned, therefore, with what we today would call straight history. He is forever turning aside to discuss the fundamental questions of human destiny." (Pg. 181)

This publication is a fitting conclusion to Butterfield's other history books.

[Ryan Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

i didn’t know this was a compilation of early lectures, which came long before nutterfield got his head on straight.

interesting thesis, ideologically tainted conclusions.