The afterlife of idealism: the impact of new idealism on British historical and political thought, 1945-1980

This book examinesthe legacy of philosophical idealism in twentieth century British historicaland political thought.

It demonstrates that the absolute idealism of thenineteenth century was radically transformed by R.G.

Collingwood, MichaelOakeshott, and Benedetto Croce. These new idealists developed a new philosophyof history with an emphasis on the study of human agency, and historicisthumanism.

This study unearths the impact of the new idealism on the thought ofa group of prominent revisionist historians in the welfare state period,focusing on E.H.

Carr, Isaiah Berlin, G.R. Elton, Peter Laslett, and GeorgeKitson Clark. It shows that these historians used the new idealism to restatethe nature of history and to revise modern English history against the backdropof the intellectual, social and political problems of the welfare state period,thus making new idealist revisionism a key tradition in early postwarhistoriography.