Book Description
Henry Thomas Buckle (1821-1862) was one of the most colourful and controversial of British historians. Although raised by a Tory father and a strict Calvinist mother, he soon became a radical and a freethinker. His best-known work, The History of Civilisation, is remarkable both for its method and its subject matter. Where previous historians had written about monarchs, their treaties and their battles, Buckle concentrated on what we now call socail and intellectual history. As an admiring disciple of J.S. Mill, he was also convinced that empirical methods can and should be applied to the study of history,

Apart from The History of Civilisation, Buckle published little during his lifetime. These shorter published works, including his enthusiastic review of Mill's On Liberty and his important public lecture, 'The Influence of Women on the Process of Knowledge', can be found in Volume One of these Miscellaneous Works, along with a mass of unpublished fragments on a bewildering variety of subjects. Here we find Buckle's reflections on Voltaire and Rousseau, on toleration and religious persecution, on beggers and the poor laws, on the influence of women (always, for Buckle, a measure of civilisation), on the decline of superstition and the gradual improvement in manners over ages.

Volumes Two and Three contain Buckle's Commonplace Books, the immediate fruits of his voluminous reading and insatiable curiosity. They document the emergence of a new perspective on English history, with the emphasis always on the social, intellectual, religious and moral changes that characterise each period.

These three volumes thus present the reader with Buckle's unpublished reflections on a wide variety of social and historical topics. Although not always complete and polished pieces of work, they do, however, provide a valuable insight into the workings of one of the most interesting and controversial of British historians.

FROM THE PUBLISHER