Star Of Empire - A Study Of Britain As A World Power 1485-1945 - nuovo libro

Star of Empire A Study of BRITAIN AS A WORLD POWER 1485-1945 WILLIAM B. WILLCOX NEW YORK ALFRED A. KNOPF 1950 INTRODUCTION PAGES that follow are an attempt to interpret the story of - L modern Britain. They are not primarily an attempt to tell the story that has been done in a number of excellent textbooks. The salient facts must of course be given in order to be interpreted, but my interest is in the meaning behind them. They were produced by complex forces of ideas or personality, economics or geography and the significance of the story lies in die forces. These were seldom clear to any particular generation that had to deal with them they are not yet wholly clear, and the effort to read their meaning be comes progressively more difficult as the story advances toward the present. But meaning is there, and it is important Although I am not attempting to prove any thesis about British history, I am attempting to develop certain ideas that I believe are fundamental to it They explain the emphases throughout the book, and the reader ought in fairness to know of them in advance. One idea is that religion had a profound influence on British develop ment at least into the nineteenth century hence my stress in the first chapter on the nature of the Tudor church as the matrix of the future. A second is that until the Victorian era the English system of local government by amateurs conditioned the functioning of na tional government A third which should be a truism is that Brit ain has developed in response to outside stimuli, especially Euro pean, and that in consequence her history is inseparable from the history of Europe. A fourth, derivative from the third, is that her policy has in thelong run been governed by the strategic demands of her peculiar and highly specialized forms of power. A fifth is that since the time of the American Revolution which was a much more superficial schism than it seemed to be Britain and the United States have been drawing together again toward the entente of the present day. None of these ideas is original. But in sum they will explain, I hope, why the book seemed worth writing. I do not believe that all historical periods are of equal importance for the present, and I have made no attempt to treat them equally. The crucial nature of the Puritan Revolution explains why the vii Introduction who experienced them, he is beyond the range of documentation. His findings can be no more than provisional, and they are peculiarly open to his own subjective bias the bias that is the historians equivalent of original sin, something he deplores in himself but knows he will never be rid of. Bias expresses itself not only in the handling of topics but in the choice of them. Why do I discuss Burke and not Jeremy Bentham, or the Whiggism of 1688 without mentioning Locke My only answer is that I feel free from the text book-writers obligation to touch on virtually everything, and that free selection is necessarily arbitrary. Another and more serious danger of interpretative history is that the writer does not know enough. In order to interpret soundly he ought to be familiar with every aspect of an enormous subject. Ought he therefore to resemble that fabulous British scholar whose field was history and whose foible was omniscience If so, this book should never have been written, for it has led me into areas where I am all too conscious of my ignorance. Ihave done what I could to remedy it. For the rest I can only plead that the profes sional conscience, if given free rein, makes cowards of us all. I am indebted to the editors of the American Historical Review and the Yale Review for allowing me to incorporate material from articles of mine, and to Professor Edward Mead Earle for reading the last two chapters of my manuscript and making many valuable suggestions...