大象传媒

This week, The Essay marks fifty years since the publication in 1961 of What is History? by the historian E.H. Carr. Five academics consider the connection between Carr's work and their work today.

E.H. Carr was born in 1892 and died in 1982. He was a notable historian of Russia and a well-regarded writer on International Relations. But What is History? remains his most famous work.

When What is History? was published it was arguably the most influential text to examine the role of the historian for a whole generation of budding historians, asking them to scrutinize the way they shaped the past. Today, the book remains a key text for many historians who came of age in the 1960s and is still widely read by History undergraduates. But the book is also controversial and many historians find Carr's views outdated and dangerous to the practice of History.

In the second essay, Dr Elizabeth Buettner, Senior Lecturer in Modern British and Imperial History at the University of York, places What is History? in the context of decolonization and the decline of the British Empire. She sees Carr's work as an historical document of this transformative time.

Buettner looks at Carr's work from the standpoint of someone who entered academia long after Carr had died in 1982, in a time when subjects like race, class, and gender history were the norm. She therefore brings a perspective on the practice of History that is rather different to that of Carr. Nonetheless she finds relevance in What is History? to her modern historical practices and finds Carr's work to be refreshingly progressive.