The Whig Interpretation of History

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Jamieson Reinhard September 11, 2012 History of U.S. Since 1865 Section 005 Prompt 1 In Herbert Butterfield’s The Whig Interpretation of History, Butterfield asserts his position that despite the numerous ways that various historians around the world attempt to piece together our past and relate it to our present, the only “safe piece of causation that a historian can put his hand upon” is the idea that “It is nothing less than the whole of the past, with its complexity of movement, its entanglement of issues, and its intricate interactions, which produced the whole of the complex present.” [1]Butterfield is correct in his thesis that students of history should only view the present as a direct result of the whole entire past. He proves it through his recognition of the Whigs’ fallacy that it is possible to make inferences about the present state of society by creating analogies between the present and specific moments in the far past. In addition, he explains, in his opinion, the only reasonable processes by which historians can explain the current state of the world based on its histories. Butterfield’s repetitive mention of inferences and abridgments alludes to the fact that Whig studies of history are characterized by too much summarizing and concluding. To take a section of history, shorten it, and then proceed to make inferences about it and assume you’ve made valid conclusions is almost like cheating in the world of historians. This is nearly the exact process that Butterfield discredits the Whigs for using. History is full of complexity and unlimited moving parts, and Butterfield says, “It is only by undertaking an actual piece of research and looking at some point in history through the microscope that we can really visualize the complicated movements that lie behind any historical change.”[2] History is characterized by changes that result from
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