Lord Acton and the plan of the Cambridge Modern History

Abstract

The Cambridge Modern Historg was at once the monument of the Englishspeaking historical profession as it emerged from the nineteenth century and the shaper of its thought for the first four decades of the twentieth century.1 It defined the period of modern history, and it defined modern history as essentially the history of Europe. Its volumes shaped that history into periods determined by some leading event or theme, and its chapters traced that history largely in terms of political states and intellectual movements. The result was pretty much what Lord Acton had planned. It was not, perhaps, what the syndics of the Cambridge University Press had planned. They were not certain that such a work was practicable. Only the presence of Acton, 'the nearest approach to omniscience',2 at Cambridge as regius professor of modern history from i 895 enabled F. W. Maitland and the Greek scholar Henry Jackson to persuade them to propose it, rather tentatively, on March i i, I896. The syndics were also not certain what the work was to be: they proposed 'a History of the World', or 'Universal History', a term which continued to be used in their minutes for three years. They resolved 'that Prof. Lord Acton be asked whether he would consider the possibility of his undertaking the general direction of a History of the World in case the Syndics decide to publish such a work. ' Acton felt that his chair obliged him to undertake the work; but his chair was Modern History, not quite universal history, which in any case he was unwilling to do. By May 8 he had persuaded the syndics to cut it down to Modern History, beginning with the renaissance; and on May 2 I Acton agreed on these terms. When he