Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | A | Albion

Nobody's Perfect: A New Whig Interpretation of History.

Publication: Albion
Publication Date: 22-SEP-04 		Format: Online
Delivery: Immediate Online Access
Full Article Title: Nobody's Perfect: A New Whig Interpretation of History.(Book Review)

Article Excerpt
Annabel Patterson. Nobody's Perfect: A New Whig Interpretation of History. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. 2003. Pp. viii, 288. $27.50. ISBN 0-300-09288-1.

Annabel Patterson's call, as her subtitle phrases it, for "A New Whig Interpretation of History," is provocative, impassioned and at the same time enormously erudite. Nobody's Perfect is a valuable work of literary and political history, but its primary concern is historiographical. With a candor that is refreshing Patterson engages the interpretative traditions she seeks to challenge; her targets are Butterfield and Namier and the revisionist traditions they initiated. Against the Butterfield type of excoriation of Whig history Patterson proposes a new appreciation of progress. She seeks to redefine progress as distinct from simple presentism, as a complex, "erratic" and "semicomic" process that involves slippage backwards as well as movement forwards. Against a Namierite focus on interest Patterson contends that...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!



More articles from Albion
The Education of the Eye: Painting, Landscape, and Architecture in Eig..., September 22, 2004
John Jebb and the Enlightenment Origins of British Radicalism.(Book Re..., September 22, 2004
Vernon Lee: Aesthetics, History, and the Victorian Female Intellectual..., September 22, 2004
Britain's China Policy and the Opium Crisis: Balancing Drugs, Violence..., September 22, 2004
Hannah More: The First Victorian.(Book Review), September 22, 2004

Looking for additional articles?
Search our database of over 3 million articles.

Looking for more in-depth information on this industry?
Search our complete database of Industry & Market reports by text, subject, publication name or publication date.

About Goliath
Whether you're looking for sales prospects, competitive information, company analysis or best practices in managing your organization, Goliath can help you meet your business needs.

Our extensive business information databases empower business professionals with both the breadth and depth of credible, authoritative information they need to support their business goals. Whether it be strategic planning, sales prospecting, company research or defining management best practices - Goliath is your leading source for accurate information.