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Sir Geoffrey Elton and the Practice of History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Quentin Skinner
Quentin Skinner
Affiliation:
At the Institute of Historical Research London
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Extract

A REVEALING metaphor runs throughout The Practice of History, Sir Geoffrey Elton's first and fullest consideration of the methods and purposes of historical study. The aspiring historian is pictured as an apprentice—at one point specifically as an apprentice carpenter (p. 214)—who is aiming to produce a first piece of work to be inspected and judged by a master craftsman. Elton repeatedly speaks of the need for die young scholar to undergo ‘a proper apprenticeship’ (p. 103). He must acknowledge that ‘his life is that of an apprentice learning a craft’, and that he requires to be ‘instructed, guided, and trained’.

Type
The Eltonian Legacy
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 7 , December 1997 , pp. 301 - 316
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1997

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References

1 Elton, G. R., The Practice of History (Sydney, 1967)Google Scholar. My quotations are taken from the revísed edition published in the Fontana Library (1969). Page references are hereafter given so far as possible within the body of the text.

2 Ibid., 213, 221. Cf. 144, 159, 215.

3 Elton, G. R., Return to Essentials (Cambridge, 1991), 5 et passimCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Again, page references are hereafter given so far as possible within the body of the text.

4 Elton, ,Practice, 19. Cf. 34, 160, 187Google Scholar.

5 Ibid., 128. Cf. 37, 166.

6 Ibid. 23, 129.

7 Elton, G. R., Political History: Principles and Practice (1970)Google Scholar. Once again, page references are hereafter given so far as possible within the body of the text.

8 See ibid., esp. 135, and cf. Elton, Return, esp. 3, 34, 51, 54, 61Google Scholar.

9 Elton, , Political History, 125, 136, 145Google Scholar.

10 For Elton's attack on attempts to apply hypothetico-deductive models of explanation to history, see ibid., esp. 125–8.

11 Ibid., 132, 151–2. Cf. 127.

12 Elton, , Practice, 68, 86Google Scholar.

13 Elton, Return, 86n. and 91Google Scholar.

14 Ibid., 125.

15 The points are repeated in Elton, , Political History, 12–13Google Scholar.

16 Elton, , Practice, 190, 197, 199Google Scholar. On ‘real’ history see also Elton, , Political History, esp. 22, 32Google Scholar.

17 Elton, , Practice, 172, 199Google Scholar. The same point is even more emphatically made in Elton, , Political History, esp. 7, 65, 157, 177Google Scholar. He recurs to it yet again at the end of his second Inaugural lecture. See Elton, , Return, 123Google Scholar.

18 Elton, , Practice, 197. Cf.Google ScholarElton, , Political History, insisting (p. 73)Google Scholar on the ‘primacy’ of political history and singling it out (p. 68) as ‘the most important’ subject of historical research.

19 Elton, , Practice, 190Google Scholar. For a repetition and enlargement of this argument see Elton, , Political History, 43–53Google Scholar.

20 Elton, , Return, 27, 60Google Scholar.

21 Elton, , Practice, 101. Cf. 117Google Scholar.

22 Ibid., pp. 29—36.

23 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, Wahrheit und Methode (Tübingen, 1960)Google Scholar.

24 Elton, , Practice, 87Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., 96. Cf. 88, 92, 109.

26 Ibid., 74, 177. Cf. 207. But at some points Elton continues to insist that the aim must be to disover ‘the truth’ and not merely particular truths. See Ibid., 179, 205—6, 221, and cf. Elton, , Political History, 105Google Scholar.

27 Elton, , Practice, 80Google Scholar.

28 For the discussion of LaCapra's, views see Return, 58–61Google Scholar.

29 Elton, , Return, 23–4. Cf.Google ScholarElton, , Practice, 55, 103, 205Google Scholar.

30 Elton, , Practice, 81–2, 123Google Scholar.

31 Elton, , Return, 42Google Scholar.

32 Elton, , Practice, 18, 86. Cf. 65, 66Google Scholar.

33 Elton, , Return, 24. Cf. 9, 52Google Scholar.

34 See Dunn, John, ‘The Identity of the History of Ideas’, in Political Obligation in its Historical Context (Cambridge, 1980), 13–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Elton, , Practice, 199Google Scholar.

36 Ibid., 200.

37 One possible reconciliation might take the form of saying that the required technical skills can best be gained from studying certain types of document, and that the most suitable types on which to practise are those concerned with English central government. So far as I am aware Elton never explicitly suggested this reconciliation, although he arguably hints at it in Elton, G. R., England 1200–1640, Sources of History (Cambridge, 1969), 33Google Scholar. I owe this suggestion to Glenn Burgess.

38 See for example Elton, , Practice, 174–6Google Scholar.

39 Ibid., 112, 177. On the exceptional skills needed to write political history see also Elton, , Political History, esp. 108Google Scholar.

40 Elton, , Practice, 158–9. Cf. 124Google Scholar.

41 See Ibid., 17–18, 185.

42 For a discussion of these claims see Ibid., esp. 17–18, 185–6.

43 Elton, , Return, 93Google Scholar.

44 Ibid., 96.

45 The same anxiety afflicted J. H. Hexter at much the same time, but he responded by attempting to vindicate the historian's predictive powers. See The History Primer (1971) esp. 36–42.

46 Elton, , Return, 84Google Scholar.

47 Ibid., 114.

48 Ibid., 94.

49 Ibid., 85.

50 For commenting on earlier drafts I am deeply grateful to Susan James and John Thompson.