Neo-classical history and English culture
Subtitle: from Clarendon to Hume
By: Philip Hicks.
Series: Studies in modern history; Studies in modern history (St. Martin's Press)
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 289
Subjects: Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of, 1609-1674.; Hume, David, 1711-1776.; Historiography -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century.; Historiography -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century.; Classicism -- England.; England -- Civilization -- Classical influences.; England -- Civilization -- 17th century.; England -- Civilization -- 18th century.; Great Britain -- Historiography.
Description: This book shows how our idea of history was shaped by historians and their readers in eighteenth-century England. Philip Hicks reinterprets the historical writing of the early-modern era as a vibrant clash between ancient models for historical composition and a modernizing culture characterized by party politics, print, Christianity and antiquarian erudition, and traces the social, literary and political implications of neoclassical history for English culture at large.

By paying unprecedented attention to historical genres and audiences, this study overturns the orthodox view of David Hume as simply a 'philosophical historian' and portrays him instead as a celebrated peer of Livy and Tacitus.

By resuscitating neoclassical historiography, both Hume and the 1st Earl of Clarendon breathed life into their disparate political programs; by failing to come to grips with neoclassical ideals, Jonathan Swift and Lord Bolingbroke languished in the coveted role of Thucydidean historian of one's own times.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 256-272) and index.