The English Idea of History from Coleridge to Collingwood

2017 | Essays

This title was first published in 2000: Despite the widely remarked indifference to philosophy of history that has characterised most British historians, important things were said in Britain from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth about historical knowledge and the nature of human history. This is a study of that distinctively English, Idealist, tradition. It connects Coleridge and Carlyle, whose writings have been the focus predominantly of literary scholarship, to thinkers who have been the subjects of philosophers', rather than historians', interest - John Stuart Mill, F.H. Bradley and R.G. Collingwood. It also draws striking parallels between Idealist thinking about history and Postmodernism.

Christopher Parker (Author)