Physical journeys have their self-limiting aspect since we cannot be in two places at once. Intellectual voyages insist on no such restriction. For a mind as curious and speculative as Butterfield's, lines of enquiry into divergent subjects could run alongside one another like trains on parallel tracks. His trajectory away from ‘straight’ history and towards the history of historiography provided a master-narrative in his development and it has been right to lend it particular stress. A second destination should also command attention, none the less, because in approaching it, and then turning away again, Butterfield made a very public commitment that enhanced his status and significantly strengthened his relationship with American intellectual culture. One element in his move towards historiography had concerned a willingness to extend the geography of his interests beyond Europe in both space and time.