Problems in Studying and Teaching Eighteenth-century British History

Abstract

The eighteenth century was a time of great events, developments and achievements in Britain's history, yet it tends to be neglected by both scholars and teachers compared with the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries and a number of other periods in Britain's past. The primary aim of this essay is to explain what makes the understanding and teaching of eighteenth-century British history so difficult. There will be special emphasis on the positive and negative aspects of Sir Lewis Namier's historical scholarship, which revolutionised our understanding of the period in the middle of the twentieth century but created new complications as well.