Herbert Butterfield: Historian as Dissenter Book

Herbert Butterfield (1900-1979) was an important British historian and religious thinker whose ideas, in particular his concept of a â??Whig interpretation of history,â? remain deeply influential. In this intellectual biographyâ??the first comprehensive study of Butterfieldâ??C.T. McIntire focuses on the creative processes that lay behind Butterfieldâ??s intellectual accomplishments.Drawing on his investigations into Butterfieldâ??s vast and diverse output of published and unpublished work, McIntire explores Butterfieldâ??s ideas and methods. He describes Butterfieldâ??s lifelong devotion to his Methodist faith and shows how his Christian spirituality animated his historical work. He also traces the theme of dissent that ran through Butterfieldâ??s life and work, presenting a man who found himself at odds with prevailing convictions about history, morality, politics, religion, and teaching, a man who elevated the notion of dissent into an ethic of living in tension with any established system. â??This important and original work is an intellectual biography that focuses on the life and achievements of a major historian in mid-twentieth-century England.â?â??Martin E. Marty, University of ChicagoRead More