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The study of history in British universities and schools should continue to scrutinise Europe’s past as much as that of Britain itself, a leading scholar will argue next week (Monday, May 18th).

In his inaugural lecture as Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, Richard J. Evans will say that the fact that British historians should are among the most cosmopolitan in the world should be celebrated, despite suggestions from some quarters that the subject needs to focus more narrowly on “Our Island Story”.

British historians write about all parts of the globe, not just about the UK. It seems obvious why they should write about the history of the British Empire and the present-day countries that once belonged to it. But it is much more difficult to explain why so many British historians have written about the history of France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain and many other countries on the Continent.

By contrast, historians on the Continent write and teach overwhelmingly about the history of their own country, so that British historians of the UK dominate their own field, while German historians of Germany, or Italian historians of Italy, have to share it with popular British historians of their own countries.

“The British interest in, and contribution to, European History is astonishingly broad,” the lecture notes. Analysing a sample of university History Departments in a variety of countries, he shows that in the UK, some 44% of historians concern themselves exclusively with foreign history, compared with 23% of French historians, 15% in Germany and 12% in Italy.

Books by British scholars on the history of Europe are frequently best-sellers in the UK. Perhaps more significantly still, British historians’ books have frequently been translated into the languages of the countries that they cover, have sold well there, and have exerted a considerable influence on the way that those countries think about their own past.

The lecture suggests that the principal reasons for Britain’s pre-eminence in the field is the fact that British historians combine high standards of scholarship with a literary style which gives their work wide appeal, as well as enjoying a reputation for objectivity.

The lecture argues that there has been a long tradition of British engagement with the history of Continental countries, but it has only become widespread since the Second World War, when a generation of historians became engaged with it through their war experience. In addition, a large number of exiles from totalitarian regimes on the Continent settled in Britain, and many of them became influential history teachers at British universities in the 1960s and 1970s.

Many of the foreign academics and students now coming to study and teach History in the UK are now following in their footsteps, making the British historical profession more cosmopolitan still. Continental historians and the traditions of scholarship they represent have affected, and should continue to affect the manner in which historians in the UK approach both the British and wider European past, enriching existing scholarship through the new ideas and methods they bring with them.

Professor Evans argues that the continuation of the tradition of teaching and researching European History in the UK is under threat from a number of quarters, not least politicians and educationalists who attack the teaching of European History in schools and argue that the focus of history teaching should be on British history alone.

The decline of language-learning in British schools and universities is reducing the number of British postgraduates who have the necessary skills to engage with the history of Continental countries. The lecture also criticises the restrictions placed by funding bodies on the length of time allowed for the completion of a PhD, which gives students little or time to master foreign languages and cultures.

“It remains vitally important to study the history of our own country at every level, from primary school to PhD; it is an essential part of our national identity,” the lecture adds. “But our national identity coexists, as in fact it has always done, with many other kinds of identity – local, regional immigrant, European, ‘Western’ – and studying these kinds of history is important, too.”

“Britain is and will remain a multicultural society in which it makes no sense to narrow down History teaching to a patriotic recitation of ‘Our Island Story’ as some politicians have occasionally advocated,” the lecture says. “Traditional British values of tolerance, acceptance of immigrants and minorities, curiosity about other cultures, sympathy for the underdog in past and present, at home and abroad, remain vitally important and need to be cherished. European History has been an important part of this cosmopolitan national identity.” We should be proud of the acclaim the British historians of Europe have received in the countries they write about, the lecture concludes, and we should do our best to ensure that this influential tradition continues.

The inaugural lecture of Richard J. Evans, Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, will be delivered at 5pm on Monday, May 18th, 2009, in Lecture Theatre LG19 in the Law Faculty, West Road, Cambridge. The lecture is open to the public. An expanded version entitled Cosmopolitan Islanders: British historians and the European Continent, published by Cambridge University Press, will be available from June 2009.

ENDS

Notes for Editors:

To receive a review copy of the book, please contact Laura Bell, Publicity Executive, Cambridge University Press, Tel: +44 (0)1223 326274, Email: lbell@cambridge.org

Cosmopolitan Islanders |British Historians and the European Continent | Richard J. Evans | 14 May 2009 | PB 9780521137249 £12.99 | HB 9780521199988 £35 | 272 pages

1. The Regius Professorship of Modern History at the University of Cambridge was established by King George I in 1724 and is still appointed by the Crown. Richard J. Evans is the 21st individual to hold the post. Previous incumbents include Sir John Seeley, Lord Acton, GM Trevelyan, Owen Chadwick and Sir Geoffrey Elton.

2. Professor Evans is widely acknowledged as one of the country’s foremost living historians and is a leading historian of modern Germany. He is the author or editor of 24 books, among them Death in Hamburg, a classic study of epidemics and society in the 19th century, and Rituals of Retribution, dealing with capital punishment in Germany since the 16th century. More recently, he has published a three-volume history of the Third Reich. His work has been translated into 22 languages. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Historical Society.