Élie Halévy

Élie Halévy (6 September 1870 – 21

August 1937) was a French philosopher
and historian who wrote studies of the
British utilitarians, the book of essays Era
of Tyrannies, and a history of Britain from
1815 to 1914 that influenced British
historiography.[1]
 Élie Halévy

Élie Halévy at age 19.

Born 6 September 1870

Étretat, France

Died 21 August 1937

(aged 66)
Sucy-en-Brie, France
Main interests Political philosophy,
history

Biography
Élie Halévy was born in Étretat, Seine-
Maritime, where his mother had fled as
the German army marched on Paris. His
father was the playwright Ludovic Halévy,
his brother was the historian Daniel
Halévy. His family was of Jewish
descent, but his parents were Protestant
and he was brought up as a Protestant.
Halévy grew up surrounded by musicians,
scholars, and politicians.[2] After studying
at the École Normale Supérieure, he
received his doctorate in philosophy in
1901 with the theses The Platonic Theory
of Knowledge and The Origins of
Philosophical Radicalism. The latter
formed the base of his first major study,
The Formation of English Philosophical
Radicalism (3 vols., 1901-1904).[3]

In an article of 1893, Halévy suggested

that the great moral question of modern
thought was how the abstract idea of
duty could become a concrete aim of
society. This question had first attracted
him to the utilitarians, and he found at
the core of their answer a fundamental
contradiction. Utilitarianism, he said, was
based on two principles: first, that the
science of the legislator must bring
together the naturally divergent interests
of individuals in society; and, second,
that social order comes about
spontaneously through the harmony of
individual interests. To Halévy, this
exemplified two fundamental human
attitudes toward the universe: the
contemplation of the astronomer and the
intervention of the engineer.

In 1892, Émile Boutmy invited Halévy to

lecture on English political ideas at the
newly founded School of Political
Science. After 1900, he alternated this
course with another, on the history of
socialism. At the same time he helped
found the Revue de métaphysique et de
morale, in which he retained an interest
until his death.

Halévy's teaching led him to undertake

annual trips to England, during which he
became the intimate friend of many of
the most important scholars and political
figures of the age. He thoroughly
explored the Jeremy Bentham
manuscripts at Cambridge for his work
on philosophical radicalism and over the
years developed a deep and intensive
knowledge of all the sources of 19th-
century English history. In 1901 he began
to work on the first volume of his
masterpiece, the History of the English
People in the Nineteenth Century
(published from 1913 onwards).[4] In this
first volume, he described England in
1815 and sought to explain how England
avoided violent social change.[5] "If
economic facts explain the course taken
by the human race," he wrote, "the
England of the nineteenth century was
surely, above all other countries, destined
to revolution, both politically and
religiously." Neither the British
constitution nor the Established Church
was strong enough to hold the country
together. He found the answer in
religious nonconformity: "Methodism
was the antidote to Jacobinism."[6][7]
He did not write his history in
chronological sequence, nor did he live to
complete it. The second and third
volumes of this history (1923) carried the
story up to 1841. Then Halévy, profoundly
moved by World War I, turned his
attention to the period from 1895 to
1914. The two volumes on this period
(published in 1926-1930) were written
with considerable detachment,
considering the immediacy of the
problems he discussed. Together with
Célestin Bouglé he would republish a set
of Saint-Simonian lectures of the 1830,
bundled in the 1924 work Doctrine de
Saint-Simon.
In lectures of 1929, revised in 1936
(published in 1938; The Era of Tyrannies),
Halévy argued that the world war had
increased national control over individual
activities and opened the way for de
facto socialism. In opposition to those
who saw socialism as the last step in the
French Revolution, he saw it as a new
organization of constraint replacing
those that the Revolution had destroyed.
Wallas translates:

The age of tyrannies dates

from the month of August,
1914, that is to say from the
time when the belligerent
nations first adopted a form of
social organisation which may
be defined as follows:

(1) In the economic sphere,

the nationalisation, on a vast
scale, of all the means of
production, distribution and
exchange; and at the same
time an appeal by the
Governments to the leaders
of the trade unions for
support in carrying out this
policy. State Socialism,
therefore, is combined with
 syndicalist and
"corporatism" elements.
(2) In the intellectual sphere,
the "nationalisation of ideas"
in two different forms, one
negative, that is to say the
suppression of all
expressions of opinion which
were thought to be opposed
to the national interest, and
the other positive. I shall call
the positive aspect "the
organisation of enthusiasm."

The whole of post-war

Socialism is derived from this
 war-time organisation far
more than from Marxism. The
policy which it offers to men
who have often been drawn to
it by their distaste for and
hatred of war is the
continuation of war-time
organisation in time of peace.
That is the paradox of post-
war Socialism.

In what proved to be his last work (which

he did not live to complete), Halévy
began to bridge the gap between 1841
and 1895 with a volume entitled The Age
of Peel and Cobden (1841-1852). A liberal
individualist to the last, Halévy died at
Sucy-en-Brie on 21 August 1937. His
publishers posthumously commissioned
R. B. McCallum to contribute a
supplementary essay to link this volume
with the concluding ones, the whole
appearing under the title Victorian Years
in 1961.

Publications
Évolution de la doctrine utilitaire, 1901

In French …

Most of these are online free .

(1896). La Théorie platonicienne des

sciences. Paris: Félix Alcan.
(1901-1904). La Formation du
radicalisme philosophique. Paris: Félix
Alcan.
 (1901). La Jeunesse de Bentham
1776-1789.
(1901). L'Évolution de la doctrine
utilitaire de 1789 à 1815.
(1904). Le Radicalisme
philosophique.
(1903). Thomas Hodgskin (1787-1869).
Paris: Librairie Georges Bellais.
(1913-1946). Histoire du peuple anglais
au XIXe siècle.
(1913). L'Angleterre en 1815.[8]
(1923). Du lendemain de Waterloo
à la veille du Reform Bill.
(1923). De la Crise du Reform Bill à
l'Avènement de Sir Robert Peel:
1830-1841.
 (1946). Le Milieu du siècle: 1841-
1852 (posth.)
(1926). Épilogue 1. Les impérialistes au
pouvoir: 1895-1914.
(1932). Épilogue 2. Vers la démocratie
sociale et vers la guerre: 1895-1914.
(1938). L'Ère des tyrannies, préf. de
Célestin Bouglé. (posth.)
(1948). Histoire du socialisme
européen. Paris: Gallimard (posth.)

Works in English translation …

Most of these are online free .

(1928). The Growth of Philosophic

Radicalism. New York: The Macmillan
Company [London: Faber & Faber,
1952; Clifton, N. J.: Kelley, 1972].
(1930). The World Crisis of 1914-1918:
An Interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon.
(1932, 1949–52). History of the English
People in the Nineteenth Century.
Translated by E. I. Watkin. London:
Ernest Benn, Ltd. online
(1949). England in 1815.
(1949). The Liberal Awakening
(1815-1830).
(1950). The Triumph of Reform
(1830-1841).
(1951). Victorian Years (1841-
1895).
 (1951). Imperialism and the Rise of
Labour (1895-1905).
(1952). The Rule of Democracy
(1905-1914).
(1956). Thomas Hodgskin. London:
Ernest Benn, Ltd.
(1965). The Era of Tyrannies. Essays on
Socialism and War. Translated by R. K.
Webb. Notes by Fritz Stern. New York:
Doubleday [London: Allen Lane, 1967].

Selected articles …

Halévy, Élie (1921). "Chartism," The

Quarterly Review, Vol. 236, No. 468,
pp. 62–75.
 Halévy, Élie (1922). "Where England
Stands at Present," The Living Age,
Vol. 314, No. 4078, September 2,
pp. 569–574.
Halévy, Élie (1941). "The Age of
Tyrannies". Economica. 8 (29): 77–93.
doi:10.2307/2549522 .
JSTOR 2549522 .

See also
Historiography of the United Kingdom

References
1. Chase, Myrna (1980). Elie Halévy: An
Intellectual Biography. New York:
Columbia University Press.
2. Barker, Ernest (1938). "Elie Halevy,"
English Historical Review 53, pp. 79-
87.
3. Gillispie, Charles C. (1950). "The
Work of Élie Halévy: A Critical
Appreciation," Journal of Modern
History 22, pp. 232–249.
4. Brebner, J.B. (1948). "Halévy:
Diagnostician of Modern Britain,"
Thought 23 (88), pp. 101-113.
5. Brebner, J.B. (1951). "Élie Halévy," in
Some Modern Historians of Britain:
Essays in Honor of R. L. Schuyler.
New York: The Dryden Press, pp.
235-54.
 6. Itzkin, Elissa S. (1975). "The Halévy
Thesis: A Working Hypothesis?
English Revivalism: Antidote for
Revolution and Radicalism 1789-
1815," Church History, Vol. 44, No. 1,
pp. 47-56.
7. Walsh, J. D. (1975). "Elie Halévy and
the Birth of Methodism,"
Transactions of the Royal Historical
Society, Fifth Series, Vol. 25, pp. 1-
20.
8. archive.org

Further reading
Bone, Christopher (1973). "Elie Halevy:
Philosopher as Historian," Journal of
British Studies, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 151–
168.
Boyd, Kelly, ed. Encyclopedia of
historians and historical writing. Vol. 1
(Taylor & Francis, 1999) 508-9.
Bresciani, Marco. "From 'East to West',
the «world crisis» of 1905-1920: a re-
reading of Elie Halévy." First World War
Studies 9.3 (2018): 275-295.
Chase, Myrna. Elie Halévy, an
Intellectual Biography (Columbia
University Press, 1980).
Frobert, Ludovic (2007). "Elie Halévy's
First Lectures on the History of
European Socialism," Journal of the
History of Ideas, Vol. 68, No. 2,
pp. 329–353.
Jones, Hugh Stuart (2002). "The Era of
Tyrannies: Élie Halévy and Friedrich
von Hayek on Socialism," European
Journal of Political Theory 1, pp. 53–
69.
Smith, Catherine Haugh (1942). "Élie
Halévy," in Bernadotte Everly Schmitt,
(ed.) Some Historians of Modern
Britain: Essays in Historiography.
University of Chicago Press.
Vergara, Francisco (1998). A critique of
Élie Halévy:Refutation of an important
distortion of British moral philosophy ,
Philosophy (Journal of the Royal
 Institute of Philosophy), London,
January 1998.
Vincent, K. Steven. Élie Halévy:
Republican Liberalism Confronts the
Era of Tyranny (U of Pennsylvania
Press, 2020) announcement .

External links
Works by or about Élie Halévy at
Internet Archive
Works by Élie Halévy , at JSTOR
Élie Halévy, 1870-1937
Drawing of Élie Halévy, by William
Rothenstein
Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Élie_Halévy&oldid=961406979"

Last edited 4 months ago by Rjensen

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