Nobody's perfect : a new Whig interpretation of history / Annabel Patterson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Patterson, Annabel M.

Contributor:

Mattawa, Khaled

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Whig Party (Great Britain).

Historiography--Great Britain--History--17th century.

Historiography.

Historiography--Great Britain--History--18th century.

Political science--Great Britain--History.

Political science.

Great Britain--Historiography.

Great Britain.

Great Britain--Intellectual life--17th century.

Great Britain--Intellectual life--18th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [2002]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Is history driven more by principle or interest? Are ideas of historical progress obsolete? Is it unforgivable to change one's mind or political allegiance? Did the eighteenth century really exchange the civilizing force of commercial advantage for political conflict? In this new account of liberal thought from its roots in seventeenth-century English thinking to the end of the eighteenth century, Annabel Patterson tackles these important historiographical questions. She rescues the term "whig" from the low regard attached to it; denies the primacy of self-interest in the political struggles of Georgian England; and argues that while Whigs may have strayed from liberal principles on occasion (nobody's perfect), nevertheless many were true progressives.In a series of case studies, mainly from the reign of George III, Patterson examines or re-examines the careers of such prominent individuals as John Almon, Edmund Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Erskine, and, at the end of the century, William Wordsworth. She also addresses a host of secondary characters, reshaping our thinking about both well-known and lesser figures of the time. Tracking a coherent, sustained, and adaptable liberalism throughout the eighteenth century, Patterson overturns common assumptions of political, cultural, and art historians. The author delivers fresh insights into the careers of those who called themselves Whigs, their place in British political thought, and the crucial ramifications of this thinking in the American political arena.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Historiography and Method

1. John Almon: More Than a Bookseller

2. Reading the Letter: A (Short) Chapter of Its Own

3. Inventing Postcolonialism: Burke's and Barry's Paradise Lost and Regained

4. The Meaning of Names: Thompson's Marvell and the Whigs

5. The Two Snuffboxes: Recovering the Whig in Reynolds

6. Thomas Erskine: The Great Defender

7. Two Steps Forward, One Step Backwards: William Wordsworth's Revisionism

Notes

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780300143577

0300143575

OCLC:

1024047139