Abstract

Despite the widely remarked indifference to philosophy of history that has characterized most British historians, important things were said from the early 19th century to the mid 20th about historical knowledge and the nature of human history. This is a study of this distinctively English, Idealist tradition. It connect Coleridge and Carlyle, whose writings have been the focus predominantly of literary scholarship, to thinkers who have been the subjects of philosophers', rather than historians', interest - John Stuart Mill, F.H. Bradley and R.G. Collingwood. It also draws parallels between Idealist thinking about history and postmodernism.