C.V. Wedgwood was one of the great English historians of the twentieth century. At a time when the study of history was becoming dominated by Marxists and social scientists, Miss Wedgwood saved us all from being bored to death. Her speciality was the early seventeenth century, particularly the English Civil War, a key event not only in the history of these islands but also in the history of the world.
Instead of using pseudo scientific jargon or fitting the events to suit the ideologies of the emerging bureaucratic classes, Miss Wedgwood got into the hearts and minds of historical personalities, both great and small, probing their personal as well as their ideological motives.
Here are some quotes from this great historian:
'Historians should always draw morals.'
'The whole value of the study of history is for me its delightful undermining of certainty, its cumulative insistence on the differences of points of view.............it is not lack of prejudice which makes for dull history but lack of passion.'
'The individual - stupendous and beautiful paradox - is at once infinitesimal dust and cause of all things. I prefer this overestimate to the opposite method which treats developments as though they were the massive anonymous waves of an inhuman sea, or pulverises the fallible surviving records into the grey dust of statistics.'
'The stuff of history is by no means coherent. No agreed consensus has yet emerged, nor ever will.'
'Discontent and disorder (are) signs of energy and hope, not of despair.'
No comments:
Post a Comment