Henry A. Kamen (born 4 October 1936 in
Rangoon) is a British historian, who has published extensively on Europe, Spain, and the Spanish Empire.
Biography
Henry Arthur Kamen was born in
Rangoon (then part of
British Burma) in 1936, the son of Maurice Joseph Kamen, an
Anglo-Burmese engineer working for Shell Oil, and his wife, Agnes Frizelle, by descent half
Anglo-Irish and half
Nepalese. Kamen was educated at
Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School, from where he won a Major Scholarship to study at the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
, earning his doctorate at
St Antony's College
St Antony's College is one of the colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1950 as the result of the gift of French merchant Sir Antonin Besse of Aden, St Antony's specialises ...
. During
National Service
National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939.
The ...
he studied Russian, and his first book was a translation of the poems of Boris Pasternak ("Boris Pasternak in the Interlude Poems 1945-1960").
Career
Between 1966 and 1992, Kamen taught early modern Spanish history at the
University of Warwick
, mottoeng = Mind moves matter
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £7.0 million (2021)
, budget = £698.2 million (2020â ...
. He has worked at various universities in Spain. In 1970, he was elected a
Fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
of the
Royal Historical Society
The Royal Historical Society, founded in 1868, is a learned society of the United Kingdom which advances scholarly studies of history.
Origins
The society was founded and received its royal charter in 1868. Until 1872 it was known as the Histori ...
. In 1984 he was appointed Herbert F. Johnson Professor at the Institute for Research in the Humanities,
University of Wisconsin - Madison
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
. He was a Professor of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (
CSIC) in
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
from 1993 until his retirement in 2002. Since then he has continued lecturing and writing, and lives currently in Spain and in the United States. He is an influential contributor to the pages of the Spanish daily newspaper ''
El Mundo''.
Work
As a historian, my task is simply to investigate the past through an intelligent use of both scholarship and imagination.
Strongly influenced by the research methods and social philosophy of the historians of the French
Annales School, he has attempted to combine
quantitative history with
sociological
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...
analysis and accessible narrative. In reaction against an earlier phase when he became immersed in statistical
economic history
Economic history is the academic learning of economies or economic events of the past. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the application of economic theory to historical situations and i ...
, he has produced a number of biographies of the rulers of Spain, whom he considers unduly neglected. He has also been one of the leading historians who have attacked the traditional "
black legend" view of the
Spanish Inquisition
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition ( es, Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición), commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition ( es, Inquisición española), was established in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand ...
. His own views have changed since he published a book about the Inquisition in the 1960s: his 1998 book provides extensive evidence that the Inquisition was not made up of fanatics who rejoiced in torture and executions and that, for example, Inquisition
gaol
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, English language in England, standard English, Australian English, Australian, and Huron Historic Gaol, historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention cen ...
s were better run and more humane than ordinary Spanish prisons.
Selected publications
*''The War of Succession in Spain 1700-15.'' Indiana: University Press (1969)
*''The Iron Century: Social Change in Europe, 1550–1660.'' London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1971); New York: Praeger Publishers (1972)
*"A Forgotten Insurrection of the Seventeenth Century: The Catalan Peasant Rising of 1688," ''The Journal of Modern History'', Vol. 49, No. 2 (June 1977), pp. 210–30.
*''Spain in the Later Seventeenth Century.'' London: Longman (1980)
*''Golden Age Spain.'' Basingstoke: Macmillan Education (1988)
*''European Society 1500–1700.'' New York; London: Routledge (1984)(1992)
evision of ''The Iron Century''*"Lo Statista" in "L'uomo barocco" (R. Villari, ed.) Laterza, Roma-Bari, Italy (1991)
*''The Phoenix and the Flame. Catalonia and the Counter-Reformation.'' London and New Haven: Yale University Press (1993)
*''Philip of Spain.'' New Haven: Yale University Press (1997)
*''The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision.'' London and New Haven: Yale University Press (1997)
*''Early Modern European Society.'' London: Routledge (2000)
* ''Philip V of Spain: The King Who Reigned Twice.'' New Haven: Yale University Press (2001).
*''Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492–1763.'' New York: HarperCollins (2003)
*''The Duke of Alba.'' London and New Haven: Yale University Press (2004)
*''The Disinherited; Exile and the Making of Spanish Culture, 1492–1975.'' New York: HarperCollins (2007)
*''Imagining Spain. Historical Myth and National Identity.'' London and New Haven: Yale University Press (2008)
*''The Escorial. Art and Power in the Renaissance.'' London and New Haven: Yale University Press (2010)
*''Spain 1469–1714: a Society of Conflict.'' London and New York: Longman (2014)
Selected reviews
* On ''Philip of Spain'', by M.N. Carlos Eire in ''
Renaissance Quarterly
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
'', vol.52, 1999, "Kamen's Philip is a stunning achievement, not only because of its revisionist outlook and its use of sources, but also because of its style and structure. This is an exemplary piece of scholarship that reads very much like a good novel".
* On ''Empire'', in ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'', "A boldly conceived project that sustains its case with a pugnacious elan that carries the reader through to the final page": and in ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', "brilliant ... lucid, scholarly and perceptive ... a revelation".
* On ''The Disinherited'', in ''The Guardian'', "Wonderfully accomplished, beautifully told": and in ''The Weekly Standard'', Washington DC, "Henry Kamen is the finest historian of Spain presently writing in any language".
* On ''Imagining Spain'', Eric Ormsby in ''The New York Sun'', "Drawing on archival sources, unpublished manuscripts, and a vast body of scholarship in several languages, he takes a fresh look at Spanish notions of nationhood, monarchy, and empire. . . . Only someone who loves Spain deeply could have written this book."
* On ''The Escorial: Art and Power in the Renaissance'', Prof Patrick Williams, in ''
Literary Review
''Literary Review'' is a British literary magazine founded in 1979 by Anne Smith, then head of the Department of English at the University of Edinburgh. Its offices are on Lexington Street in Soho. The magazine was edited for fourteen years by v ...
'' (London), June 2010: "Lively and contentious, informed by a profound understanding of the period, and, as always, elegantly written."
* On ''A Kinder, Gentler Inquisition'', Prof Richard L. Kagan, in ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' , 19 April 1998: "Kamen, anxious to counter the 19th-century conception of the Inquisition as a monster that ultimately consumed Spain, fails to get inside the belly of the beast and to assess what it actually meant to individuals living with it. (...) Nor does Kamen lead the reader through an actual trial. Had he done so, a reader might conclude that the institution he portrays as relatively benign in hindsight was also capable of inspiring fear and desperate attempts at escape, and thus more deserving of its earlier reputation. More too might have been said about the lawyers who intervened in the trials and manipulated its procedures, along with the ploys, like bribes and pleas of insanity, that defendants used to bring the inquisitorial machinery to a halt."
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kamen, Henry
British historians
British writers
1936 births
Living people
People from Yangon
Historians of Spain
Alumni of St Antony's College, Oxford
Academics of the University of Warwick
British expatriates in Spain
Burmese emigrants to the United Kingdom
Anglo-Burmese people
20th-century Anglo-Irish people
British people of Burmese descent
British people of Nepalese descent
British people of Irish descent
Academics and writers on the Spanish Inquisition