The Great Tradition: Constitutional History and National Identity in Britain and the United States, 1870-1960The Great Tradition traces the way in which English constitutional history became a major factor in the development of a national identity that took for granted the superiority of the English as a governing race. In the United States, constitutional history also became an aspect of the United States's self-definition as a nation governed by law. The book's importance lies in the way constitutional history interpreted the past to create a favorable self-image for each country. It deals with constitutional history as a justification for empire, a model for the emergent academic history of the 1870s, a surrogate for political argument in the guise of scholarship, and an element that contributed to the Anglo-American rapprochement before World War I. The book also traces the rise and decline of constitutional history as a fashionable sub-discipline within the academy. |
Contents
History as National Identity | 7 |
A ThreeStep Waltz Germany England and New England Eternally | 27 |
Constitutional History as an Academic Profession | 56 |
History as Culture Wars | 89 |
Constitutional | 113 |
Norman History Merges in That of England the British Empire | 137 |
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Common terms and phrases
A. V. Dicey academic Adams papers American Historical Review American Revolution Anglo-American Anglo-Saxon archival Bateson became Bodleian Library Britain British Empire Bryce papers Cambridge University Press Charles McLean Andrews College colonial common law culture Dicey Edward emphasis England English constitutional history English Historical Review English history English Law English-speaking Frederic William Maitland Freeman George Burton Adams German Goldwin Smith H. A. L. Fisher Harvard Haskins Helen Cam Herbert Baxter Adams historiography Holdsworth institutions issues James Bryce Jameson papers January John Franklin Jameson John Horace Round Johns Hopkins lawyers Lecky lecture legal history liberty London Manchester McLaughlin medieval modern narrative national identity Norman Conquest original past political Pollock professional race racial scholarly scholars scholarship social Society Stenton Stubbs's Teutonic tion tory Tout Trevelyan Tyne United Van Tyne Victorian volume Whig history Whig interpretation William Stubbs women historians writing wrote York