イギリス近代史再考 : 衰退論争のゆくえ

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In the last decades of the previous century, so many historians join the debate on the British economic decline. The debate was so popular and cherished not only by the historians but by the politicians, economists and so on. Historians such as M. Wiener, W. D. Rubinstein, P. Cain and A. G. Hopkins could be the leading figures of the debate. Almost all theories of decline suggested the out-of-date Gentlemanly Capitalism as the real cause of it. With this suggestion, these theories could make considerable influence on contemporary politics. At least, politicians like Mrs. Thatcher could find an convenient excuse of her unpopular "reform". But, since around 2000, intellectual trend in Britain has drastically changed. British decline is often regarded as an unrealistic theme because there was really no such an historical fact as British 'decline'. For example, according to English and Kenny, the real problem is not the 'decline' itself, but the reason why such an unrealistic theme, 'decline' was so popular in the last decades of the previous century. In this essay, I made a brief investigation in the impacts of this changing trends on our historiography. In coclusion, the new intellectual trends depend upon the confidence in the recovery of the British economy. And the confidence of recovery, in turn, depends upon the historians' attitudes to the Gentlemanly Capitalism for Britain has never regain the status of industrial power. British historians seem to have changed their standard of judgement. And this fact might reflects that the relative decline of Britain became inplicitly a common sense among the historians in spite of their explicit discourse.

イギリス近代史再考 : 衰退論争のゆくえ

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