Book Description

Excerpt from A History of England and the British Empire, Vol. 1 of 4 Many are the histories of England, or of the British Empire and the kingdoms out of whose union that Empire grew, from the earliest times to the present day.' Latterly, almost every such history for which a single author has been responsible is of a compass compatible with its publication in a single volume. Whenever, during some forty years past, a work on a larger scale has been projected, the principle of co-operative production by scholars who have each, made a special study of a particular era or of a particular aspect of the whole subject has displaced the principle of unity in outlook and method. For anything which exceeds the limits of a study or a summary we have learnt to seek always the guidance of a specialist; and no one can pretend to be a specialist on the whole of British history from Gildas to the latest Blue-book. No one man can be expected to combine in his own person the erudition of the respective staffs of Dr. Hunt, the late H. D. Traill, or Professor Oman, in the histories of England issued under their editorship. The advantages of the principle are obvious: only the specialist can be directly in touch at every point with firsthand authorities. But it also has its drawbacks : it must be accompanied by diversities of outlook, a want of unity in idea, and an inequality of treatment which can only be evaded at the expense of each writer's individuality-a process which would inevitably kill the author's interest in his own work, and with it that of the reader. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.