VII

The Eighteenth Century (1714 -

Also nn. 24, 41-6, 59-62, 71, 1025, IO28, 1062, 1068-71,
1073-6, 1135-52, 1190-7? 1125-30, 1242.

(A) GENERAL

\Vhile the historiography of the seventeenth century has not
yet really succeeded in absorbing and employing the new in-
sights produced by basic research, that of the eighteenth at
times gives the impression of a mildly desperate search for
controversies. The main issues, around which debate tends to
gather, are two revolutions: that which Namier produced in
the history of party politics, and that which took place in the
economic life of the time. Unfortunately, both issues are too
readily treated as though they were moral ones. Namier's
interpretation, disagreeable to many in its lack of sentimen-
tality, provokes the charge that 'he removed the mind from
history', while the questions of industrialization are slanted
towards an argument about the possible social damage done;
and in the outcome, a good deal that one reads seems to be
dominated more by moral indignation than by scholarly
concern and rigour. However, in both respects there are signs
that a phase of controversy is drawing to a close, and that more
real issues are moving to the centre of the stage.

The fact that much of the noise is a trifle artificial may be
inferred from the few general accounts which have appeared
in the last few years but could, in the main, have been written
as readily by the previous generation of historians. Plumb's
brief introduction stresses social history and material pro-
gress.470 Marshall, with a good deal more space at her disposal,
includes more politics in a lucid and straightforward survey.471

470 John H. Plumb, England in the Eighteenth Century. Harmondsworth:
Penguin Books: 1950. Pp. 224.

471 Dorothy Marshall, Eighteenth Cenhuy England, L: Longmans: 1962.
Pp. xvi, 537. - Sea also n. 625.

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