Political iconoclasm: the destruction of Eccleshall Castle during the English Civil Wars

SUMMARY: The mid 17th century in the British Isles was dominated by a period of political and religious turmoil known as the English Civil Wars. The two sides, Royalist and Parliamentarian, became associated with very different forms of Christianity, with the latter being identified with Puritanism, an extremely austere religion whose supporters became associated with iconoclasm. However, this paper explores the motivations for the damage caused at the Bishop of Lichfield’s palace at Eccleshall, Staffordshire, and suggests its destruction was caused by politics rather than religion, thus demonstrating the need for a more nuanced examination of slighting during this turbulent time.     

Defining Difference from China's Margins

Uniformities and discontinuities in Chinese culture have long animated anthropological debates. The books reviewed here reflect an emerging scholarly consensus about the diversity of China, expressed not only in religions and populations marginal to more mainstream Chinese culture, but among the Han Chinese themselves. Much of the discussion of China's diversity hinges on identity, a social phenomenon freighted with rhetoric and sentiment and inflected by the forces of local and national politics.     

Europe revisited: 1979

The article offers a study of the theological method of Henry Dodwell, the most distinguished British savant of the late Stuart period and a leading figure in the Non-Juring movement. The study takes the form of arguments for the extension of the contemporary dispute between the Ancients and Moderns, in its historiographical dimension, into the field of divinity; for substantial modification of the claims made in discussions of the dispute about the inherent conflict between the Renaissance's desire for revivification of the past and its historical scholarship; and for reconsideration of the relationship between 17th century critical scholarship and the Enlightenment.     

Continuity,chance, and change: The character of the industrial revolution in England

This article examines the life and works of Robert Blakey, author of the first English-language history of political thought. Studies of Blakey have typically concentrated on one aspect of his life, whether as an authority on field sports or as an historian of philosophy. However, some of Blakey’s lesser-known ventures, particularly his early Radical politics, his hagiographies, and his attempts to write a biography of Charlemagne, heavily influenced his more famous works. Similarly, Blakey’s upbringing in a Calvinist tradition, rooted in the Scottish School of Common Sense philosophy helps makes sense of his philosophical and theological commitments, yet has been largely ignored. This article provides a sketch of Blakey’s life, tying these disparate strands together, and explaining their influence upon, and relevance to, the first history of political philosophy.     

Prony et babbage: apercus sur l'histoire de la division du travail mental∗

Hobbes and Hume on the imagination can initiate a discussion of empiricism in the 17th and 18th centuries: here, however, it provides the opportunity to focus on Kant's attempt to overcome the limits of their sense originating, naturalist ethics. I argue the general point that Kant's response to his predecessors, both empiricist and non-empiricists, is to modify their focus on nature without falling into skepticism; indeed, his speculative metaphysics also is a response to classical ontological metaphysics. Kant by providing two realms or perspectives, a natural and a noumenal, avoids many difficulties resulting from Hobbes and Hume's starting point in sense leading to imagination and a non-normative reason. Yet, challenged by Herder and the romantics, he uses a sort of residual view of the imagination in relation to the freedom of the noumenal, which results in difficulties for his speculative, noumenal metaphysics.     

Ithaca transfer

Historiography has never been considered as a source of Veblen's thought. This essay draws on previously unknown archival evidence regarding Veblen's experience at Cornell, where he asked to be enrolled as a Ph.D. student in ‘History and Political Science’ in 1891, to shed light on his relationship with both British and American institutional historiography. It is argued that Veblen's studies at this university, under the influence of local historians, is crucial to understanding his later work, particularly his theory of the leisure class, for two fundamental reasons: (1) Cornell was unique for its tendency to combine the study of history with that of politics and society at a time when historiography tended to emancipate itself from the social sciences; (2) Cornell was one of the main epicentres for the diffusion of British historiography in America. Veblen's theory of the leisure class, to which he devoted his first article at Cornell, is thus presented as the fruit of his effort to reassess the historiographical idea of evolution, against its applications by philosophers, by insisting on the importance of path-dependent mentalities and by differentiating the evolutionary pattern followed by political and social institutions, on the one hand, from economic institutions on the other.     

‘How to do things with books’: Quentin Skinner and the dissemination of ideas

This is one of a number of talks given on 23 May 2008 in the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, on the occasion of Quentin Skinner's retirement from the Regius Professorship of Modern History. No attempt has been made to disguise the origins of this piece, or its festal tone, and any statistics quoted reflect the position as of 1 May 2008.     

Alexis de Tocqueville: Selected letters on politics and society

This article reflects on the relationship between historical writing and enquiry and philosophy, and more particularly the manner in which the pursuit of a particular natural philosophy can influence historical narratives. The article begins with a comparison of Roman and Greek approaches to history, employing a distinction between narrative and logic. It goes on to consider the impact of Christianity, the relationship between enlightenment narratives and philosophical developments regarding the nature of causation, and the Hegel/Marx critique of the kinds of empiricism associated with Hume. The article ends by considering the counterfactual historical analysis and the proper relationship between history and philosophy for modern historians.     

Karl Marx's theory of history: A defense

A wave of recent publication connected to Hugh Trevor-Roper offers cause to take stock of his life and legacy. He is an awkward subject because his output was so protean, but a compelling one because of his significance for the resurgence of the history of ideas in Britain after 1945. The article argues that the formative period in Trevor-Roper's life was 1945–57, a period curiously neglected hit her to. It was at this time that the pioneered a history of ideas conceived above all as the study of European liberal and humanist tradition. Analysis of the relative importance of contemporary and early modern history in his oeuvre finds that, while the experience of Hitler and the Cold War was formative, it was not decisive. Trevor-Roper was at heart an early modernist who did not abjure specialization. However, he insisted that specialized study must be accompanied by “philosophical” reflection on the working sofa constant human nature present throughout history, a type of reflection best pursued by reading classical historians such as Gibbon and Burckhardt. Yet this imperative in turn fostered purely historical research into the history of historical writing–another branch of the history of ideas.     

Die Entwürfe der Schlachtenkupfer der Kienlung- und Taokuang-Zeit

Henkama, ?Daddy Heng“ – A Mediator between the Kangxi Emperor and Jesuit Missionaries during Chinese Rites Controversy in the 18th Century

The author's main concern is to turn the somewhat enigmatic person of Henkama (1645/1646–1708), known under many (also false) names, into a more tangible historical figure. For this purpose, all the available sources in European languages, Manchu, and Chinese are taken into account. Beginning with investigating the very name of this Manchu official who was responsible for the administration of the affairs of the Europeans, the author tries to obtain available and solid knowledge of Henkama's life and work, possibly year by year, which goes far beyond what is normally known about him, i.e., his role as main intermediary during the papal legation in Beijing (December 1705 – August 1706). However, this mediatory role cost him the trust of all around him, including the Kangxi Emperor, who was convinced that Henkama had been paid off by the papal legate and cardinal Charles-Thomas Maillard de Tournon (1668–1710). At the end of his life, being in ill health, he became a Catholic. Henkama died in 1708 in disfavor due to slander. In the rest of his article, the author depicts another four important contact persons between the Kangxi Emperor (state administration) and Jesuit missionaries, all of whom are to be considered as Henkama's co-workers or his successors. Among these four, there are two Chinese – Zhao Chang (1654–1729) and Wang Daohua (fl. 1706–1720) and two persons of Manchu origin – Bursai (fl. 1705–1706) and Zhang Changzhu/Carki (fl. 1707–1722).