Whig history

English

Etymology

Described by English historian Herbert Butterfield in The Whig Interpretation of History (1931).

Noun

Whig history (countable and uncountable, plural Whig histories)

  1. (historiography) An approach to historiography that presents history as a journey from an oppressive and benighted past to a “glorious present”.
    • 2012 October 3, Rebekah Higgitt, “Why whiggish won't do”, in The Guardian‎[1], →ISSN:
      He [William Cronon] concisely explains that Whig histories tend to "praise revolutions [for history of science, we could read novelties, ideas or individuals][sic] provided they have been successful, emphasise certain principles of progress in the past and produce a story which is the ratification if not the glorification of the present".
    • 2019 May 19, Kim A. Wagner, “Rees-Mogg’s book is ‘sentimental jingoism and empire nostalgia’”, in The Guardian‎[2], →ISSN:
      The British, in other words, “do right” by their colonial subjects, referred to as “charges”, while the only massacres of the 19th century apparently were those committed by the Ottomans in the Balkans. This is Whig history on steroids, repackaged as a mirthless morality tale for the 21st century.

Derived terms

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Further reading

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