History and Politics

The Career of James Bryce

Bibliographic Data

ID10076306
AuthorsKeith Robbins (corresponding author)
Year1972
Volume7
Issue3
Pages37-52
Publication date1972-04-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Contemporary History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-0094 • E-ISSN: 1461-7250
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/002200947200700304
OpenAlexW2072439925
LanguageEN
Citations received6

James Bryce, Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, President of the Board of Trade, Chief Secretary for Ireland, British Ambassador at Washington, was a distinguished and respected late Victorian politician, not perhaps in the front rank. James Bryce, author of The Holy Roman Empire, The American Commonwealth, Studies in History and Jurisprudence and many other works, was a distinguished and respected historian and legal writer, not perhaps in the front rank. 'Too much history', Lewis Namier wrote to Winston Churchill in I934, 'is written by don-bred dons with no knowledge or understanding of the practical problems of statecraft.' 1 Other historians have bitterly complained that too much history is made by politicians with no knowledge or understanding of the pattern of history. James Bryce appears to satisfy both parties. Both historian and politician, he represents the ideal combination. Once ideal, perhaps, but hardly now. History, the school for statesmen, has lost its pristine confidence and turned in upon itself. Politicians, too, are anxious to ground whatever claims to intellectual distinction they may have in more 'relevant' disciplines. The cleavage is not complete, for men who continue to be both historians and politicians still grace the scene and prosper, at least in one of their chosen fields. Yet such are the pressures of professionalization that their dual role is as likely to breed disdain as excite admiration. Academic historians are not notably charitable towards the works of alien interlopers, particularly when the interlopers have larger sales. Equally, there is no better way to damn a politician with faint praise than to refer to him as a well-known author. 'Professionals' on both sides stand disconcerted by the evidence of many-sidedness, and that earlier concern with the interpenetration of history and politics is in danger of being lost. J. Namier, Lewis Namier (Oxford University Press I971), 230

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