Volume 3, Number 8 · December 3, 1964
Sir Lewis Namier
By J.H. Plumb
Sir Lewis Namier and John Brooke
by Charles Townshend
St. Martin's Press, 224 pp., $7.00
The creative activity of the twentieth century has witnessed a retreat from grandeur, a flight from the conflicts of men in society and a growing obsession with narrow themes and private experience. In literature, the great tradition of Balzac, Dickens, George Eliot, Tolstoy, and the rest petered out in Wells, Bennett, Du Gard, and Mann. And what is true of literature is true of history, at least in Britain. There are no Leckys, no Froudes, no Freemans, no Humes in the twentieth century; only G. M. Trevelyan tried to keep the old tradition alive. The rest retreated, some slowly, some fast. A general book on a short period was about as much as any professional historian dare risk without incurring the opprobrious epithet of journalist or being accused of prostituting his scholarship. And it is not surprising that the British historian whose reputation has been the highest and most universally accepted this last twenty years never wrote a book at all. The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III, England in the Age of the American Revolution, and the rest of Sir Lewis Namier's contributions to eighteenth century history are essentially collections of essays on highly specialized themes. All his titles are misleading. The Structure of Politics is a complete misnomer; it is concerned solely with the House of Commons, and, indeed, only some aspects of the Commons at that, such as elections, patronage, secret service money, division lists, and the like. But to understand Namier's work and his reputation something must be said of the man himself as well as the state of historical studies in which his reputation flourished.
Review, 2363 words
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