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Revaluations, II: H. A. L. Fisher, “Our New Religion”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 June 2012
Extract
That the author of an important Education Act and a best-selling History of Europe should have had the inclination and energy to write a spirited study of Christian Science comes as a surprise to many. In spite of the fact that H. A. L. Fisher's Our New Religion (first published, London, 1929) was circulated after 1933 in the cheap and widely-read series of rationalist works, “The Thinker's Library”, this lively little volume still remains relatively unknown on both sides of the Atlantic.
Yet Fisher's book has had its champions. His biographer, Mr. David Ogg, calls it “the best-written of all Fisher's books and one of the finest pieces of English which this century has yet produced.” And Professor Gilbert Murray declared of it that “Seldom can destructive criticism have been delivered with greater urbanity.” If there is an evident element of exaggeration in such statements, they do serve to draw attention to a book which ought not to be neglected by anyone who is interested in American studies.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © British Association for American Studies 1958
References
page 8 note 1 Fisher's contribution to American studies in Great Britain, although small by comparison with his European historical writing, should not be overlooked. According to Heindel, R., American Impact on Great Britain (Philadelphia, 1940), p. 293Google Scholar, “Apparently at the suggestion of H. A. L. Fisher in 1910, Oxford established lectures in the United States which were given by J. F. Rhodes in 1912, C. F. Adams in 1913, and A. T. Hadley in 1914.” “Among all his academic honours, of none was he prouder than of his admission into the very small band of British historians who were honorary members of the Massachusetts Historical Society” (D.N.B. 1931–1940, pp. 277–8). In the same year Fisher was elected an honorary corresponding member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His most notable writing on America is in Political Unions (Oxford, 1911); James Bryce (London, 1927); The Bay Colony. A Tercentenary Ode Delivered on Boston Common, July 1915, 1930 (Oxford, 1930.); “If Napoleon had escaped to America” in If It Had Happened Otherwise (London, 1931); edited by Squire, J. C.; “America after Fifteen Years”, Pages From The Past (Oxford, 1939).Google Scholar
page 10 note 1 American Horitage, VIII, 4, June, 1957, pp. 66–85.
page 10 note 2 Cf. Heindel, op. cit., p. 378; Viscount Elibank became a Christian Scientist ‘through Lady Astor”.
page 10 note 3 Balleine's, G. R. fascinating study of Southcott, Joanna, Past Finding Out (London, 1956)Google Scholar, shows that the Southcott movement in its later stages had some connections with America: pp. 117–9, 121–4, etc‥
page 10 note 4 Cf. pp. 15–17, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Boyd, Julian P. (Princeton, 1953), Volume 8.Google Scholar