Volume 9, Number 5 · September 28, 1967
After the Revolution
By Lawrence Stone
The Origins of Political Stability: England, 1675-1725
by J.H. Plumb
Houghton Mifflin, 206 pp., $6.00
Historical research, like research in any other field, whether scientific or humanistic, moves in jerks. A man of unusual imagination and talent produces a model, a working hypothesis of how and why things happened the way they did. This model then serves for a generation or so as a focus for plodding historical inquiry. Its foundations are examined, and ultimately undermined; its structure is pulled about, and eventually found unsafe; its roof is inspected, and at last found leaky. Finally the building is condemned, and the profession then moves out and occupies a new model, erected by another talented architect of another generation, using such parts of the old structure as are still serviceable and have been proved and tested by time. This book by Dr. Plumb provides just such a model, around which historical research will be constructed for a long time to come.
Review, 2092 words
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