On The English Whig Historiography In The Nineteenth Century

As the leading history school of the English historical field in the nineteenth century, the Whig historiography, with its unique political ideas in history, has been attracting the attention of the world from the first day. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, some historians of the Whig Party demonstrated their political views from the interests the Whig party, using history as a tool, produced the unique constitutionalism, broke the ice in the English historical field since Gibbon, has improved the development of English historiography and has left its own profound effect on the English historiography and society. For a long time, the western historical area adopted the opinions of the Whig historians in the nineteenth century .Based on a close study of the works of the main historians of Whig school, this dissertation traces its characters, follows the pulse of their historical thoughts, and based on the tries to make a reasonably comprehensive reappraisal of this school's historical critiques and realistic appeals, and social ideals.The dissertation consists of three parts, which are Foreword, Text and Epilogue. And the Text has four chapters.Chapter One explores the social backgrounds of the rise of the Whig historiography respectively through the establishment of political advantages of Whig Party during the political struggle between the Whig Party and Tory Party. I argue that as the Whig historiography is closely related to the Whig Party, the guiding theory of the later may be regarded as the important theoretical sources of the former.Chapter Two mainly explores the academic achievement and historical thoughts of Hallam, Lingard and Macaulay, the main three representatives of the Whig Historiography, and the basic ideas of the Whig historiography through the critical analysis of several domestic important problems of English by the Whig historians.Chapter Three mainly analyzes its obvious historical features of the Whig historiography. On the whole, the Whig historiography had some basic features of liberalism historiography, which emphasized experiences, utility, reform, literary and the beautiful style and form of historical writing, advocated that history should serve for the reality, glorified historical progress and political and economic system of capitalism, opposed theory and denied the scientific nature and historical rules. Specifically, as a party historiography, it had the following five theoretical characteristics: constitutionalism, progressive ideas, analogy historiography, improvement and concessions and utilitarianism.Chapter Four discusses the decline of the Whig historiography and its invaluable legacies. I argue that though it had some limitations and began to disappear from the historical stage since the 1950s, as a historical school, we can't neglect its historiography value and social meanings.With the decline of positivism, especially, the criticism on the study method of the Whig historiography from Battlefield, the extreme Whig tendency began to disappear in the history study. But with a deep study in historiography, it is absolutely impossible to avoid the Whig history in historical research.