author
Herbert Butterfield
1900–1979
Best known for challenging easy, triumphant stories about the past, this influential British historian wrote with clarity, moral seriousness, and a sharp eye for how history gets misread. His work still speaks to readers interested in politics, faith, ideas, and the craft of history itself.
1 Audiobook
The historical novel : An essay
by Herbert Butterfield
About the author
Born in Oxenhope, Yorkshire, in 1900, Herbert Butterfield became one of the best-known British historians of the 20th century. He studied at Peterhouse, Cambridge, spent most of his career at the University of Cambridge, and later served as Regius Professor of Modern History and Vice-Chancellor.
He is especially remembered for The Whig Interpretation of History (1931), a short but lasting book that argued against reading the past as a simple march toward the present. Butterfield also wrote on Christianity, diplomacy, the 18th century, and the history of science, bringing together wide learning with a strong interest in how historians judge human actions.
Butterfield died in 1979. Readers often return to him not just for historical detail, but for his warning that history becomes distorted when it is turned into a story of winners, progress, or hindsight.