John Lingard and the Pursuit of Historical Truth

by Edwin Jones

Overview

John Lingard (1771-1851) is too little known to English readers. This book describes how he postulated and applied for the first time in England, the main principles and methodology of modern source criticism in his History of England (1819-30). His work is compared and contrasted with other English historians - predecessors, contemporaries and successors. Edwin Jones reveals the extent to which he was the unacknowledged "father" of the modern revisionist movement in English historical writing. Lingard broke free from his contemporary culture and created a methodology of scientific source criticism which he applied to original materials covering all aspects of English history up to 1688. Thereby he created the conditions in which historical writing could become an independent discipline, concerning itself primarily with the pursuit and exposition of the truth about the past, in stark contrast with more celebrated English historians who saw history as a branch of philosophy or "fine literature". Based on an intensive study of Lingard's work, this book challenges the view that there was nothing in England during the nineteenth century to compare with the scientific advances in historiography on the Continent. At the 150th anniversary of Lingard's death, Edwin Jones's study is a long overdue tribute to the work of a truly great English historian.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781902210933
Publisher:	Sussex Academic Press
Publication date:	12/01/2001
Pages:	308
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.06(h) x (d)

Editorial Reviews

In this magisterial volume Dr. Jones has revealed the full extent of Lingard’s historiographical labours and achievements.’’  —Recusant History

“Edwin Jones has produced a very good book, and has re-introduced one of Catholicism’s greatest historians to the English-speaking world… all educated historians would do well to read this book.”  —Catholic Historical Review

 “John Lingard was a member of the English Catholic community who wrote his ten-volume History of England in the years immediately preceding emancipation. But for the best part of a century after that event it was held by historians in the Whig-Protestant mainstream that a good Catholic historian was almost an oxymoron. Edwin Jones’s definitive research into Lingard is a major event in English historiography.”  —Patrick Collinson, University of Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity College

From the Publisher

Serving as a kind of apology for Lingard, this volume follows the 19th-century English historian's career, with many quotes from his work, and frequent rejoinders on his astute perception of history, uncolored by nationalism, religious belief, or political inclination. Jones champions Lingard as a cool-headed revisionist when other historians were ardent nationalists. Jones wrote his dissertation on Lingard in the 1950s and returned to the practice of history (and historiography) following his retirement from a "30-year headship of a Comprehensive school in South Wales (UK)." Distributed by ISBS. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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