Afterlife of Idealism

Admir Skodo is a researcher at Lund University, Sweden.

“The Afterlife of Idealism is a rich history that covers a complex landscape of political theory, historical writing, and social criticism from early post-war Britain. … the book is for a wide range of readers, from intellectual historians to those interested in the history of philosophy and historiography.” (Julia Moses, European Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 26, 2018)“The Afterlife of Idealism offers another perspective on British historiography in one of its most fecund phases. In Skodo’s book Carr’s What is History? is not the starting point of post-war historical reflection; post-war historians were already caught up in historical philosophising and philosophical history. After The Afterlife of Idealism, Elton, Clark, Laslett, et al. are far harder to pigeon hole, far more plural in their predilections than may be popularly imagined.” (Jamie Melrose, Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice, October, 2017)

• Introduction.-Chapter 1. Revisionist Potential: Historical Thought from Absolute to New Idealism.- .Chapter 2. The Philosophical Moment in Postwar Historiography.-Chapter 3. Revisionist Whiggism: Revisions of the English Past from the Tudors to the Victorians.-Chapter 4.The Political Thought of Revisionism.-Conclusion.-Appendix: Short Biographies of Key New Idealists and Early Postwar British Historians.