‘What is History? series John H, Arnold, What is Medieval History? Peter Burke, What is Cultteral History? 2nd edition, John C, Burnham, What is Medical History? Pamela Kyle Crossley, What is Global History? Pero Gaglo Dagbovie, What i African Ameriaan History? Christine Hasaig and Dirk Hoerder, with Donna Gabactia, What ts Migration History? J Donald Hughes, What is Environmental History Ind editiéa Andrew Leach, What is Architectural History? Stephen Morillo with Michael E Pavkovic, What is Military History? 2nd edition Sonya O. Rose, What is Gender History? Brenda E, Stevenson, What is Slavery? Richard Whatinore, What is Intellectual History? What i is Intellectual Richard Whatmore. polityTo my mother, Brenda Whatmore Preface ‘The aim of this short book is to give general-readers a sense of what intellectual history is atid what intellectual historians do, Intellectual history is currently’ a highly active. research field. Intellectwal historians are at the forefront of the tncrent global, transhational, comparative, spatial, visual and. intes- national turns in the histarical profession, ‘There. are intel- lectual histories of Seientilic doctrines, passions and senses, of urbaa planning and nation-states, of cannibalism and (more natural forms.of) consumption, of the working classes, of biography and of hymns. Any attempt at a definition is oing, to be seen to he partial. Equally, it has to be ackaowl- edged to he personal; hopefully this is forgivable in an into- ductory text such as this ane. A book defining, intellectual history could deal more directly with the intellectual history of science or of art or music or anthropology, where cemark- able work has been'done since the: 1950s. Equally, the rela- tionship between. intelléctuel history and the history of philosophy, or intellectual history and the history of litera- tute, bave proved fertile ground i ecent times, la the text L sty to push the reader towards what think ace nseful guides wo these azeas.. This book's; contents, inevitably, has been shaped by my: own interests, These developed through what might now be zecmed the-traditional route," was'forrunace te have been educated at the University of Cambridge, where Iwas introduced, co intellectual-history in thé 1980s throughvill Preface ‘vo undergraduate courses with the inspirational titles of ‘Political Thought before 1750” and ‘Political Thought after 1750, John Dunn, Mark Goldie, Duncan Forbes, Quentin Skianes, Gareth Stedman Joves, Richard Tuck and other luminaries were the lecturers and tutors. It was only alter graduating, when I spent a year at Harvard, that I realized I had become a member of a distinctive tribe. ‘At Cambeidge Massachuserts I took a course on ‘Enlight- enment Folitical Theory’ with the incomparable Judith Shika, ‘In the classes Shklar encouraged graduate students to connect the texts of the historical authors being studied with contem- poray political questions. The key was to work out what scand the author would have taken had chey been faced with the controversies of today. In consequence, one of the issues discussed at length was ‘whether Montesquieu would have burned the flag [of the United States), I found such discus- sions odd because there did not seem'to be any point in trying ‘to work out an answer to sueh a question, which it appeared to me asthe time, aad still does, added neither to one knowl: edge of Montesquieu naz t6 our kaowledge of the nature of political ideas, historic or contemporary, I had been taught that the point-of reading the work of historical authors was to find ont what chey thought about the issues that mattered “> +20 them. There might well be a connection to present politics, but this would. be complicated and indirect. By contrast, Shklar wanted those in her seminar co discuss the arguments they found in the texts they were reading, to evaluate them ‘and co measure them against contemporary argument. Shklar, ‘was an inspirational teacher, ever-questioning and pushing her students to work things out for themselves, Unlike tutors Thad had in Cambridge UK, she refused to give her own view of the subject in question, orto turn the seminars into an exercise in conveying information about how people thought in the past, I fele frustrated becanse T knew shat Shklar had a better grasp of eighteenth-century politics than I would ever faave, and wanted her to do the instructing, Making this poine will mark out my approach to intel- lecrual history, Some readers may think it declares member ship of @ group frequently identified as “The Cambridge School’ of intellectual bistory, which iy often associated with the assersion that intellectual history is identical to the history Preface Ix of political thought. This was never the case. For Cambridge authors and for intellectual historians elsewhere, there was always mote to the history of ideas than politics, and pofities in any case might be approached through economics, anthro- pology, natural philosopty or a host of other disciplinary ateas. One of the aims of this book is to show that such a label as The Cambridge School, while useful in describing a series of path-breaking jestifications of intellecrnal history, can be abandoned today. ft no longer describes the research questions addzessed by some of the best intellectual histori- ans, many of whom are still linked in one way or another with chat university, Intellectual historians associated in the popular mind with Cambridge represent divergent approaches to intellectual history, replicated across the Anglophone world, that need to be recognized, This said, the coneribution of individuals labelled historians of political chought vo the establishment of intellectual history céstnot be overlooked; the fact that somie of them continue to set the agenda for intellectual historians is underlined hese. Many of the exant ples and illustrations of the arguments have heen drawn from the history of: political thought, especially during the long eighteenth centiry. This is the ground where I feel most secure, An anonymous reviewer of the first draft of this book, asked whether the title of the book ought t6 be. "What is the history of political thought? The intention has been to write an introduction to intellectual history, and in doing so to deal with the relationship between these still interlinked fields. One of the points made in che book, which bas also been made elsewhere, is that intellectual history is at a crossroads, What may well be the final works of several of the founders of intellectual history’ as presently constituted axe currently being published; at the same time the methods and attitudes of these leading figures are being applied to a host of new research fields and problems. Where intellectual history goes next is anybody’s guess,Acknowledgements T would like to shank colleagues and friends involved with the St Andrews Institute of Intellectual History, and at St Andrews more generally, I am indebted to my wife, Ruth ‘Woodfield, and our children, Jess, Kinz and Davy Whatmore, for agrecing to undertake our collective transfer north, Special thanks go to Manuela Albertone, Riccardo Bavaj, Rory Cox, Aileen Fyfe, Kris Grint, Kaud Haskonssen, James Harris, Jokn Hudson,: Béla Kapossy, Colin Kidd, ‘Rosario Lopez, ‘Nick Rengges, Jacqueline Rose, Philip Schofield, Michael Sonenscher, Koen Stapelbrock, Philippe Steiner, Keith Tribe, Donald Winch, and Brian Young. f amt grateful for their com- ‘ments, adviee arid support. Elliott Karstadt has been the ideal editor for this book, and he and the two anonymous referees he selected provided a mountain of helpful advice about revising the first draft. Sarah Dancy did an excellent job as copy editor and spotted a lange numberof errors. Those that remain ate my fault entirely, introduction On the eastern side of Lake Windermere in Cumbria, in the, north west of England, there was once a quarry at Feclerigg Crag, prodacing slate and stone for the remarkable buildings of the region; Active between the eighteenth and the carly venticth century, the quarry was sufficiently large to have its awn dock. Having passed into history, what remains in the grounds of the hotel now standing on the site.are five Targe slabs with detailed carvings made into the bedrock, in addition to ad hoc rocks both submerged in and out of the water. Some of the carvings are dated ‘between 1835: and 1837. One of the master craitsmen employed at the quarcy evidently took it upon himself to carve messages into the bace slate, The earvings inclnde-names of national and local significadce, including ‘Nelson’, ‘Newton’,. “Walter Scot, ‘Wordsworth’, 'Jesiner’, “Humphry Davy’, ‘Richard Watson’, as well as the owner of the site, ‘Johs: Wilson’, the friend of the Lake Poets and a well known local personage through his writing for, Blackigood’s Magazine end his being Profes- sor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh (1820-51), and "John Laudoa McAdam’, of road-repaiting fatne, in addition to the xanies of several individuals who had éndowed local schools, Oneof the largest slabs, almost five metres high, gives an indication ‘of the opinions of the niason, declaring in gigantic letters ‘National Debt L800,000,000 /-0, Save My Country,2. What is intellectual History? Heaven! / George 3, William Pitt / Money is the Sinews of War / Field Macshal Wellington ! Heroic Admiral Nelson.” ‘What can historians make of these carvings? The social historian might seek to find out information about the social status of quazry workers, their working conditions, their lives beyond the workplace, and the nature of the society in which shey lived by reference to class, gender, ritual and identity. ‘The economic historian might seek information about the comparative wages of the workers, the economic conditions of the time, and the relative pasition of quarry employment by comparison with other local trades, and against national tvends more generally. Related carving might be sought and evaluated, The culeural historian might speculate about the focal and segional and national discourses through which individuals and social groups expressed themselves, and go further and analyse the power relations between them, paint ing a picture of the relationships between specific historic individuals and broader social groups, The intellectual histo- rian has to start with the words, What was the author doing the earving seeking to convey? Why did he do so in precisely this manner? How were the arguments he was making stated elsewhere? What was their lineage and what was their reception? Such labour can be difficult, especially in @ case where the meaning is hard to discern or, as in this instance, the words are carved singly or in an epigrammatic fashion. Trackiag down the names of the individuals mentioned in the carvings is relatively easy. ‘They reveal a person with knowl edge of leading figures ia the locality, seemingly respectful of their position, and valuing charitable activity and more espe- cially the endowtnent of schools for the poor. They also underscore a respect for technological invention and for science, for poetry and literarmre, and for military prowess and for acts of heroism, Fucther than this it ia more difficult to go, except for the arguments that ure contained in the statements on the slabs, This ideatifies the condition of the country as lamentable due to the tational debt, and in need of saving ((O, Save My Country, Havent’). Antagonisoa towauda the celationship between moaey and war is evident in stating chat ‘Mones is the Sinews of War’, William Pitt is mentinned ruriee alanoside thie cisim. raising the nossihiliry anrouucuon: ampossible to confirm of reject, that the author considere Pit che warmonger ofan eal? generations aol omy 6 his own youth given the references to Nelson and to We lngton. Typically for that generation, it was possible to lau in a patriotic fashion the qualities of such yreat men whil lamenting the extent of war arid its consequences, __ More significant:is the fact that the quotation ‘O, Save M Country, Heaven!* was taken directly from Alexander Pope epitaph for Dr-Prancis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, wh died in exile at Paris in 1732, in the arms of his daughte and was held to haye uttered such a phrase. Atterbury’s ow use of the epigraph was well known, and derived in ten frot that of Father Paolo Sarpi, the geeat Venetian historian, wh on his deathbed said ‘Let her endure? (Esto perpetua), a hop that Venice would maintain itself as an independent sover eign power, The claim that “Money is the Sinews of War refuted by both Niecold Machiavelli and Francis Bacon, ca: be traced to Cicero's Fifth Philippic, and was echoed b authors as diverse as Rabelais and Tennyson. What did thes statements mean to the Ecclerigy Crag mason? They wer commonplace in eighteenth-century literature, bemoanin, the growth of luxury and commercial society, and predictin; dire consequences for all societies because of the correspond ing unleashing of the libertine passions, of war, and o increasing debt. David Hume, in his essay ‘Of public credit in his Political Discourses (1752), provides a good exampl of the literature of jeremsiad that the mason inherited, Huma ‘was increasingly desperate about the consequences of deb for the nation-states of Europe, and used the singular imag, of cadgel-playing in a china shop to describe the conse quenees for contemporary international relations, The ke fact was that the china would be smashted, and the same hel for domestic economies and eivil gocieties whose states wer heavily indebted, Feat of debt reached a peak during the war with revolutionary France and with Napoleon Bonaparte with che debt itself stariding at more than 250 per cent 0 gross domestic product, a figure that has noe been ceachet since, Pitt’s association with the debt, especially ia 179° when the government released the Bank: of England from th obligation to. conyert currency to: gold, would have beet nhiceame tes thaste livine at the time4. What is intellectual History? Fear of a war or debt-induced bankruptcy was a major reason why so many observers of national Jife in the eigh+ ‘eenth century were certaia, with Dayid Hume, that Britain ‘was declining as a state, With the benefit of hindsight we can identify the spark and smouldering of what was later termed “The Industrial Revolution’, Economie: growth, some histori- ans argue, was never greater than duting the eighteenth ventary? Equally, Basil Willey and others have described the period as having been characterized by the growth of stabil- ity, a prelude to Victorian self-confidence. For cohtempo= saties, however, eighteenth-centary Britain ‘was 4 new state in crisis, plagued by debt, war and political division, between. Jacobites and. Hanoverians, Whigs nd Tories, Anglicans, Catholics and Dissenters, and by enemies and advocates of the commetcialization of society. Few commentators believed thar the furare could be seeh in the present, except to the extent that it presaged national ruin, Great transformations were widely viewed to be on the horizon; a sense of uncer- taincy pervaded, Even authors who were famously phleg- matic or even optimistic about Brivain’s prospects, such as ‘Adam Smnith of Jean-Louis de Lolme, did not think that the status.quo was either stable or worth pieserving. Far mote commonplace was the jezemiad: predicting the collapse of Britain and its defeac in war. 5 That Britain survived the French revolutionary and Napo- leonic wars, and did so to'emerge as Europe's leading state in teems of economic and political power, was ull the more remarkable given the reservations of a legion of observers: Yet despite becoming a model. state in terms of polity and. economy for so. many other countries, intellectual life in Britain continued ta be characterized by a sense of false great- ness, of inevitable decline atid of unnamral development to a peak-of political and. commercial supremacy that would never last, With the debe levels of the eighteenth century only ‘azginally diminished by the 1830s, echoes of the old lament about British decline could still be heard, This was exactly the case-of the mason of Ecclerigg Grag. The man was a throwback to @ previous age of apocalyptic concern and anticipation of national ruin. His carvings are significant in revealing the persistence of particular ideas, and of the con: tinucd fears for the furare on the eve of the ‘age of equipoise? Introduction 5 Itself, As such, the-mason’s words mattes, in givinig us a per- apective upon the early Vigrorian era that is sometimes forgotten. Understanding the meaning of the mason's words under- fines the capacity of intellectual history to reveal what is hidden from us in past thought, che ideas and arguments that are neglected because they have begn abandoned or rejected by later generations. ‘The intellecnyal historiansceks to restore 1 lost world, zo recover petspectives and ideas fom the ruins, to pull back the veil and explain whiy the ideas resonated in the past and convinced their advocates. Ideas, and the cul- tures and practices they create, are foundational to any act of understanding. Ideas. are expressive of the actions of leading philosophers, whose conceptions of liberty, justice or equality stand in need of elucidation, of the actions of cultur ally significanc persons in any society, or indeed of the ‘expounders ‘of any. form of ‘popular culture, To take an ‘example from the second gronp, Hlency Williamson, the nat~ ralise and auchor, who came to fame after the publication of ‘Tarka the Otter in 1927, was interviewed. in 1964 for a BBC documentary on the Great War. He recalled thiat on Christ- mas Day in 1914, in the aftermath vf the bloody First Batile of Ypres; when he was in the Flandérs trenches as a private soldier in the Macline Gun Corps, he had fraternized with German troops, who had briefly coticluded a spontaneous armistice with. their British enemies that was to last for between hous and days depending on the location along the line, During this time Williamson spoke to a German soldier, who told him thar the German side was fighting for ‘the Fatherland and for Freedom’. Williamson replied that the Germans‘bad started che war, chat it was the British. who vere fighting for liberry, avd that God and Justice were indu- bitably in favour of his side, Williamson added that the war would soon be over because of the strength of the Russians on the Eastern Front, The Getmah soklier responded in turn that Getinany would soon be victorious as the Russians were about to collapse, and thac there. was ao point in arguing because neither could convince the other. This exchange of opinions changed Williamson's view-of the wat. He could not understand why the soldiers of each side wece convinced that right was with them, aid, given such a fact, fighting became6 What is intellectual History? pointless, because it translaced into a war of attrition result- ing only in the death of people and the destruction of nations. ‘Williamson's later dlirtation with fascism in the 1930s, which he believed might supply the kinds of moral certainty that ‘the Western democracies appeared to lack, was a direct product of his ideological revelation of 1914, that both sides were convinced of the absolute righteousness of their cause, Explaining such convictions, cheir origins, nature and limits, is exactly what intellectual historians seek to do, ideally without sliding into extremism. Fuzther examples can be drawn from popular culture, Tn the first film version of John Buchan’s novel The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), directed by Alfred Hitchcock and released in 1935, the Flying Scotstnan locomotive reaches Edinburgh ‘Waverley station and, from a carriage shared with the fugi- tive hero Richard Hannay, one of two English lingerie sales- -men says to the first Scorsman that he gees, selling newspapers through the wiedows of the train, ‘Do you speak the lan- guage?” Soon after in the film, when Hannay is being chased by police in che lowlands north of Edinburgh, a crofter is seen to begin beating his wife for giving away his coat to the freezing Hannay, The crofter, played by John Laurie of sub- sequent Dad's Army fame, is represented 2s mean, brutal, antisocial and false, in being willing to sell out Hannay to the police after taking money from him to keep silent, The cinematic representation in the interwar years of bigoted English, attitudes towards the Scots, and of Scottish Calyin- ism as a hypocritical, self-centred and barbaric creed, merit scrutiny of the ideas behind such national stereotypes, their provenance, prevalence and demise. A mote recent illustea- tion of the effect’ of transformed ideas derives from the film Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott in 1982, and based on Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, depicting a dystopian Los Angeles in 2019. In the film, almost every character smokes cigarettes incessantly, Neither Ridley Scott nor Philip K. Dick could ave known that soon after the turn of the century the act of smoking, rather than informing che viewer about-the status and likely attivudes of a person, precisely dated the filin as being about the postwar era rather than about an imagined fartre, Intellectual historians, whether dealing with Introduction 7 sophisticated philosophical utterances, longstanding cultural fptictices or spontansous expressions of national prejudice, feck to explain the origin and extent of such opiviod, the history of which is never steaigheforward, As Elisabeth Labrousse wrote of Pierre Bayle’s Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697): ‘The bhstary of ideas shows that, once removed from i original socio historical context, and sead as the vehicle of a universal imesmage, a work exerts its greatest influence not through the ‘mechanical epetition or the exact refktion ofits ideas, but through the ambiguities, misconceptions and anachtoaisins which find their ‘way into its interpretation ? So many representations of life and ideas are concemed ‘with anticipations of expected altered circumstances, and history typically plays cricks upon those yho claim the gift of prophecy. All of this amounts to an assertion that although it can sometimes appear possible co overlook ideas in buman ‘history, by studying trade cycles or demographic regimes or. harvest yields or some such, ideas cannot be avoided. Every ‘person thinks, People present cheir thoughts ia maay differ- ‘ent guises, These require carefal reconstruction in order to understand what people were doing, what the ideas being enunciated meant and how they related to the broader ideo logical cultures in whieh they wete formed. Working ont the meaning of ideas is only possible after historical jnterpreta- tion, Intellectual history, as such, is very much akin to the kinds of ethnographic explorations that have become, com- monplace in anthropology and related social sciences, These were best described by Clifford Geertz in his famous essay ‘Thick Description; Toward in Interpretive Theory of Culture’; Geertz began from the point that culture is semiotic, Decause ‘man is on animal suspended in webs of significance he hinaself has spun’ Geertz took the ceri ‘thick description’ from Gilbert Ryle, who famously used the example of two boys contzacting the eyelicls of their right éyes. In one case the twitch was invol- untary. In che other the movement was a message to friends intended to convey meaning. A thsd boy thea initiates a patody of the winks-and twitches, Thick description is8 What Is intellectual History? recovering, in this case, the ‘stcarified hierarchy of meaningful structures in terms of which twitches, winks, fake-winks, parodies, rehearsals of paroclies axe produced, perceived, and interpreted?’ The term ‘thick description’ is supposed to have been coined by Jeremy Bentham, although I have been unable to find the phrase in bis published or private writings. Thick description does, however, match the process that Bentham. recommended when explaining the meaning of particular ‘ideas. Bentham made the point many times, and wich some urgency when he was trying to instruct the National Conven- tion, at Paris, that it can be difficult to understand what something like justice or freedown is, just as it can be difficult 10 work out whether an eye movement is a twitch or a wink, ‘The solution is to work with as much information about the use of words as.you can muster. Without illustrations of the meaning of liberty, for example, it is easy to become disori- ented, as Bentham said that the French were becoming by confusing the establishment of liberty with the pursuit of empire. Accordingly, Bentham sought to be very precise aboue what liberty meant and entailed, and in doing so explained that it could ’so often signify ‘forced liberty’, when. ir became a tool to help the powerful exploit che weak.* Ie is only through the scrutiny of the historical record of opinion that we can work out whether the Olympic Games simply were games, amounted to a form of organized government, or were the produet of a widesjsread desire foi good healthy exercise, or whether the Dutch still-life painters of the Golden. Age, such as Ambrosius Bosschaert,: Pieter Claesz or Jan Dayidszoon de Heem were painting skulls, animals, flowers. and insects as emblems and metaphors and symbols of the right way to live ax to’dic or just tulips lizards and moths? For all this, itellecrual hiscory often gets e bad press. Ie ‘has long attracted criticism front historians, philosophers and social theorists, Lewis Namies, the advocate of prosopogra- phy.in historical analysis, the derivation of the: comaion charactetistics of. gronp on the’ basis of ‘biographical information, called the study of ideas ‘flapdoodle’ in his England in the Age of the American Revolution as. early: as 1930, ‘on the grounds that. what really motivated human- beings was self-interest. Ideas were misleading because: they rmaaked the tte source of social action, Supporters of various Introduction 9 philosophical positions have argued subsequently that ideas can only be understood by reference to what really causes social change, being dizected or witcontrolled’ economic forces, the unconscious sel, o- the unaware masses. Ideas are fit consequence second-order sources of information about the world. True research ought to-identily the privileged context such forces represent; ideas are explicable only by reference to these forces, Antonio Gramsci once accused the historian Benedetto Croce of ‘despicable Pontius Pilatisin’, ot seeing the role of the intellectual as being necessarily above and divorced from the interests of the mass of the people. Croce wis castigated for not taking a statid, for not wanting to take responsibilty for aiyching and for not engaging direcrly in public causes.’ Similar attacks have been launched against intelleceyal hiscorians in recent times, Incellectual his- torians have been called idealists, antiquarians of no rele- vance to the present, advocates of a policy of ‘books talking to books®, students of the elie and the eminene alone, and of being unable to understand sctiety, having no faith in causal factors-other thas ideas, This book will argue that none of theae criticisms holds water when ditected against intellectual history 2 thae discipline ts now:pfactised. Intellectual historians accept that ideas matter’ as first- order information about social phenomena and as directly revealing facts about our world that cannot be described except by reference to ideas. As auch, ideds are social. fortes. They may be shaped by-othet forces but they themselves, in tum, always influence the human world, Beyond this, intel- lectual histotians dé nor agreé.* Pait of the reason is that they hail from so miany-different philosophical sribes that devel- oped before or during the second half of the twentiet’ century. Some of these eribes will be described later in this bookc-Ir is ‘worth underlining the fact that one of the problems for intel- Jeotua! historians has been thet they cant be found across the arts faculties, and are thecefore forever defining themselves by reference to dominant ways of doing things in a. specific subject area. A particular difficulty has often been their recep- tion by fellow: historias, The point tised to be made. fre- quently that inteiiéerual historians felt uncomfortable in the presence of ‘proper historians who considered ideas epiphe- ‘nomenal to the forces of ‘real history", Doriald Winch once-_ 10 WineiapdmeRianin History? noted that inualingnoad hletorlans tencloc, when giving papers, :0 be playing ‘wwoy inacchos’,” Thankfully this is less usual soday. Ono of sha alana of this book is to help intellectual aistorians co fae! pact of a home teem, by defining the terri- cory that they ehars, The point has been macle, by Darrin McMahon and Samuel Moya, thar one of the problems with icrellectual aistory at present |s that we no longer Bght one another, specially cbout methods of enquieys this is held to be 2 sroblem because debate about method is seen to have accom- oanied the writing of some of the best worles of intellectual tistory in the 196¢s and 19703. The assumption is that if we top debating with one another we become complacent, and ease to produce works of distinction, ® Mark Bovis, one of hhe most important scholars of the philosophy of history in ecent decades, hes said that his book The Logic of the History of Ideas (1999) apneared at the very end of a golden 4g¢ of methodological enquiry." An altemative point of view vas enunciated by John Burrow, who wrote en essay about be poverty of methodology, arguing that chose who were bsessed with the discovery of a single method for the inter: ogatioa of the past were likely to develop a tin ean, Seeking shat Burrow called ‘methodological holism’, entailing the terragation of one's cpistemological presuposicions, was frén accompanied by disdain for the past and the failure to ppreciate the alien but perhaps justiable nature of past roughts, Istvan Hont, the Cambridge intellectual histocian, seputed fo have gone further in stating that ‘methodology for stupid people’. One point worth making is that ome of the very hest historians working today, such as anthony Grafton, eschew: methodological controvetsy. Iain. 2¢ opposed to the discussion af such issues, but nothing in tis hook will stimulate methodological debate; itis intended an introduction wo the field and nothing more, and T have athing original to say. But it does seek to encourage sagreement. " ‘The following chapters seek in general testis to describe sehistory of the study of historic ideas and the way in which ich work is carcied out and contested today. After considers & the history, method and practice of intellectual history, € claim that intelfectual-historians have made historical Introduction + research inrelevant ro present times is considered. The boo finishes with ad hoc speculation about recent development in intellectual history. Readers who expect wide-rangin examples drawn ftom the gamut of intellectual histor research being undertaken should be warned that I hav largely drawn upon the territory 1 know best; ft is wort noting that intellectual history appears to have had a limite impact upon the study of ancient ideas, in past becaus the Beld of ‘classics” has its own long-established academi departments and traditions. Equally, while providing a basi guide to the approaches to intel eceual history associated wit Reinhart Koselleck, Michel Foucault and Leo Strauss, I hav focused oa the method and practice associated with Quenti Skinner and John Pocock. The reason is that I believe th latter to be the dominant approach among English-speakin intellectual historians, and to Fave been the most influentic in shaping the work of intellectual historians in recen decades. There is, of course, overlap and similarity betwee: every approach and some of ths is discussed towards the ea of the book, The focus on ‘Cambridge’ authors may be mistalce, I was at a conference for Swedish graduate student in intellectual history in September 2014 at the University 0 Umed and it became clear very quickly thar ao student ha, heard of Pocock, that no student had studied any of Skinner’ methodological ‘essays, ard that the inspiration for thei research was altogether Fouczalt, The kinds of work th Swedish students were doing was mainly concerned wit! the history of technology in the twentieth century one © the most interesting results was that many of them wer employed to teach undergraduztes in science schools, Thing are vety diffecene elsewhere,1 The Identity of Intellectual History How caa we define intellectual history? At present, scholars who call memselves intellectual historians, or who express. 4n interest in intellectual history, can be found working on the history of identity, time and space, empire and race, sex and geades, acaclomic and popular science, the body and its functions, the history of attitudes to food, animals, the envi- . ronment and the natural world, the movements. of peoples and the transmission of ideas, the history. of publishing and the history of objects, at history and the history of the book, in addition to the subjects traditionally associated with intel” lectual history, political theory and international relations. Some might say chat it isso diverse that it cannot be defined. Others may say that itis.a mistake to try to define a field 10 which one might be said to be contributing, on the grounds that it results in the creation of erbitrary boundaries, John Pocock, the person who many would say has contributed the most t intellectual history, by writing a sevies of pathbreal- ing books, sesponded to the question “Why were you intially drawn to intelloctual history?” wisk the answer: ‘I’m not sure that I ever was, since I had never heard of it at that time, and am not gure that I believe in it now." ‘Nunnerous attempts have been made to define intellectual history. When seeking to cefine themselves, however intel- Jectual historians become like economists in their capacity fot disagreement, Following this nocm, I will reject the first The Identity of intellectual History 13 definition of intellectual history, given by Robert Darnton, who hag weitten that intellectual histary encompasses: [Jie history of ideas (the stuly of systematic thought usualy im philosopiica! formalations, intellectual history proper (ike study of informal thought, climates of opinion and literary movernenss, the sociel history of ews (he study of ideologies and idea diffusion}, and cultural hisiofy “the study of evltuce in the anthropological sense, including svosld-views and collective mentalités)* Such a definition T find 0 be amorpsons and vagues what, for examiple, is a philosophical formulation as op} to a'non-philosophical formulation? What is the difference bewveen philosophical thought and informal. thought? One of the purposes of Darnton’s defivition was to separate intel- lectnal history rom the social historr of ideas as a form of cultural history.’ In practice, intellectual historians, following scholars such as Arrialdo Momigliano and Anthony Grafton, themselves inspired by the, gteat traditions of philological research and its modern vaciant in the history of scholarship, always: undertook all the labours that Darnton envisaged, without paying lip service to spurious distinctions between the'social and cultural or the ‘intellectual. John Burrow, the first petsortt to hold a professoiship in the subject in Britain, provided a better definition of intelectual history as the process of recovering ‘what people in the past meant by the ‘things they said and what these things “meant™ to them.’ ‘Burrow warned thar it is often the case that ‘academic labels ate better thought of as flags 6f convenience than as names of essences’; but his definition is the best we have, as are the metaphors thet he employed of che intellectual historian as an éavesdtopper upon the conversations uf the past; as a translator between the cultures identifiable toxlay and those ofthe past, ard of an explorer studying worlds fall of assump- tions anid beliefs alien, to ourdwa.t. + ‘That so many sees of activities can be, included in inscel- léctual history generates uncertainty zhout what research it the field entails. In.conseqnence, some historians wauld go se far.as to say that there is no suct thing’ as a°distinotive subject, called intellectual history beeause almost all history involves ideas,-xswally in the form of the stmdy'of written texts from the: past. This-is a mistake, Historians cannot