Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Note on manuscript sources
- Introduction
- PART I PRIVATE INTELLECTUAL 1900–1945
- PART II CONTOURS OF AN ORIGINAL MIND
- PART III PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL 1945–1979
- 10 Height of his powers
- 11 From history to historiography
- 12 From diplomatic history to international relations
- 13 From autumn to winter
- Further reading
- Index
13 - From autumn to winter
from PART III - PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL 1945–1979
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Note on manuscript sources
- Introduction
- PART I PRIVATE INTELLECTUAL 1900–1945
- PART II CONTOURS OF AN ORIGINAL MIND
- PART III PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL 1945–1979
- 10 Height of his powers
- 11 From history to historiography
- 12 From diplomatic history to international relations
- 13 From autumn to winter
- Further reading
- Index
Summary
How does one write for a world and a civilisation that is sinking? Can a man write for the future, hoping that someday a searcher will pick out the scraps from the rubbish-heap? … But [a man] can't have that last remaining arrière-pensée – just the conjectural reassurance that what his contemporaries have rejected or misunderstood will be more carefully considered or at least envisaged from a new angle.
Undated pencilled note with the Journal for 1968Having escaped from the burdens of a Vice-Chancellor in 1961, Butterfield could look forward in principle to a decade of further productive work since he would not be required to retire from the Regius Chair until 1968 and he could retain the Mastership of Peterhouse until the Easter term of 1971. He might reasonably have expected not only to fill those ten years with scholarly achievement but to go on with his projects deep into retirement as so many of his contemporaries and acquaintances were to do. His perpetual smoking and lack of exercise hardly promised the longevity of a Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005), who held his chair at Chicago until the age of seventy-nine, or the astonishing Hans Gadamer (1900–2002), who continued working as his ninth decade edged towards his tenth. These driven intellectuals, seemingly indestructible, provided no model for one whose life moved in very different channels.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Life and Thought of Herbert ButterfieldHistory, Science and God, pp. 345 - 370Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011