Lord Clarendon's history of the British Civil War

[SigniferOne]

I'm curious if anyone here has read Lord Clarendon's history. I'm personally strongly averse to the idea of reading only the latest book on a subject; in fact it often turns out to be the case that the earliest one is the best. (For instance it is hard to find a better book about the Romans, in all 2,200 years of the subsequent history, than by Polybius). Now I've been able to trace down the histories of the Civil War, from modern (horrible) to Victorian (adequate) all the way down to Lord Clarendon's work itself, the earliest of them all. He couldn't get any closer to the war -- he apparently possessed an inimitable style and lived through the years of the War itself, being a contemporary of it and writing down its events. If someone's read this history, I'd be interested in hear your thoughts about it.

[SAF_Biffa]

to Victorian (adequate)

I'm suprised that anybody who has read so much on history would ever call any Victorian account adequate? The Victorian's are about as accurate as Hollywood when it comes to historical facts.

I haven't read the book you mention and strangley unlike every other period in history that I've become interested in there is no one English Civil War book which has inspired me to take an interest. I tend to find that the more localised/specific books are the best and then you stand back and take the sum of their parts.

The best accounts I've read are usually the little publications focusing on local/regional history which you can buy usually when you visit the towns and cities themselves. One example is that the garrison commander of my town was out 'whoring' in Trowbridge when the place was stormed and taken by parliament. Amazingly when it was retaken he was reinstated, information like that is priceless and it would be hard to find a big publication that would bother with the little but real details like that.

Everyday I drive past bullet holes in the walls of my local buildings from the Civil War, no amount of books can make it feel closer than that.

I'm at the opposite spectrum tbh and have found myself recently becoming a bit of a historical revisionist when it comes to choosing what I read, those modern horrible histories aside.

[SigniferOne]

I'm suprised that anybody who has read so much on history would ever call any Victorian account adequate? The Victorian's are about as accurate as Hollywood when it comes to historical facts.

It depends on which Victorian books you take as your standard. If you go with the later ones during the decadence of the Victorian age, with the horrible emphasis on race and ethnicity or the only slightly less horrible Marxist revisionism (of the "proletarian Parliament"), I agree with you completely. But if you start with something early-to-mid century you're guaranteed to find something that's more objective, written with a weighty style, aimed towards towards interesting the reader and impressing upon him the grandeur of the events the book describes; this goes for the other better books of the period, e.g. Burckhardt on the Renaissance, Weber on Protestantism, etc.

I contrast this period of writing mainly with the modern times which are abysmal to the infinite degree; and even then I call it only adequate (rather than superlative), for reasons on which I'm sure you and I will agree on. I find that Enlightenment literature has been the best of its kind; and I also have a firm conviction that the earliest primary sources convey the spirit of their age infinitely more than something written today even if it were written with skill (which it rarely is). To have found the Enlightenment standard and a primary source mixed together in Clarendon's History was quite welcome. The only question is how far he lived up to the standards of his age, which supposedly he did well, hence this thread asking about it.

[Odovacar]

Whats so horrible about modern books?
I love modern historian works. (except those which begin with Gender, X, Y in this age in this country")

[Condottiere SOG]

Whats so horrible about modern books?
I love modern historian works. (except those which begin with Gender, X, Y in this age in this country")

We have now the opportunity to learn more through reason, codification and physics to know the truth about a great many things now. Very often factoids can be found in literature as much as on the ancient battlefield. The best part is confirming an anecdote with physics from a particular site

[familyguy1]

We have now the opportunity to learn more through reason, codification and physics to know the truth about a great many things now. Very often factoids can be found in literature as much as on the ancient battlefield. The best part is confirming an anecdote with physics from a particular site

True. As like I like to read lets say a book about WW1 or the Battle of the Somme. I like to read those books by authors that are not British(no offense meant at all), because generally those books seem to be very biased as demonizing the Germans( to this day in some cases)... If I read a history of the battle of the Somme for example I like to read from a french(suprisingly the ones Ive read are rarely biased since their part was little but quite succesful) point of view or an American point of view. The bad thing with sources from back then is that the writer may be totally biased(my case if for multi-country war books. Never noticed it in CW type books).

TOPIC:
I have heard of it yet never read it before.

[aduellist]

I'd disagree slightly about modern histories being uniformly horrible. As more primary sources become more widely available, there have been some histories done recently that have gone back and relied heavily on those primary sources rather than simply relying on the research of previous historians (now those I view with a jaundiced eye).

I also agree with SAF_Biffa that the smaller books youcan find that are specific to a locality are sometimes real treasures.

I, too, however, have found it difficult to locate anything about the ECW or the Wars of the Three Kingdoms that looks compelling. That's why I opened a thread here a while ago looking for suggestions.

[SigniferOne]

But even these historians going back to primary sources - even if they're less prejudiced and more balanced - do they succeed in impressing the wind and fire of the events that they describe to the same extent that a primary source would? I doubt it. I've read a few modern histories that are fairly good, but they still uniformly fail in that one regard of making their topic relevant and immediate to the viewer.

[aduellist]

True, the hallmark of "academic gravitas" these days tends to produce histories that are about as compelling as appliance manuals.

I'm currently almost finished with C. V. Wedgwood's "The Thirty Years War" and enjoying it thoroughly, though. Not sure that counts as "modern", as it was first published in 1958.

And I fully agree that, the closer to events one gets, the greater sense of immediacy in the account.

[Odovacar]

True, the hallmark of "academic gravitas" these days tends to produce histories that are about as compelling as appliance manuals.

And I fully agree that, the closer to events one gets, the greater sense of immediacy in the account.

Modern historians view history as science not as rhetorics and literature.
They try to give you details and analyze events to the core. They also show events in contemporary context.

Modern historians have access to more sources than older historians, and they already know works about details, so they make less mistake than lets say a 19th century writer.

(To see the shortcomings of older authors its enough to read the Cambridge Companion to Scottish Enlightement, the Historiography section)

For those who take a serious interest in history modern books written by experts are very good.
Of course sources cant be equalled by anything else, they must be experienced.

[SigniferOne]

Of course sources cant be equalled by anything else, they must be experienced.

Agree or disagree about modern histories, this above is ultimately all that I was saying.

Which brings me back to my original question