J. C. D. Clark
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Jonathan Charles Douglas Clark (born 28 February 1951) is a British historian of both British and
American history The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Numerous indigenous cultures formed, and many saw transformations in the 16th century away from more densely ...
. He received his undergraduate degree at
Downing College, Cambridge Downing College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge and currently has around 650 students. Founded in 1800, it was the only college to be added to Cambridge University between 1596 and 1869, and is often described as the olde ...
. Having previously held posts at
Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time graduate students and 54 fellows. It is quite ...
and
All Souls College, Oxford All Souls College (official name: College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full members of t ...
into 1996, he has since held the Joyce C. and Elizabeth Ann Hall Distinguished Professorship of British History at the
University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...
.


Writings

Clark began as a leading revisionist historian of 17th- and 18th- century British history. He is known for arguing against both the
Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
and
Whiggish Whig history (or Whig historiography) is an approach to historiography that presents history as a journey from an oppressive and benighted past to a "glorious present". The present described is generally one with modern forms of liberal democracy ...
interpretations of the late 17th and 18th centuries. Instead, Clark emphasises the unities and coherences of the period between 1660 and 1832. It was he who dubbed it the "long eighteenth century", a periodisation that is now widely accepted in historical academia. Clark maintains the period was one of
Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
- aristocratic hegemony, marked by popular acceptance of the monarchy and the
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
as symbols of national unity. This edifice was characterised by the dominance of an aristocratic-
gentry Gentry (from Old French ''genterie'', from ''gentil'', "high-born, noble") are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past. Word similar to gentle imple and decentfamilies ''Gentry'', in its widest ...
oligarchy Oligarchy (; ) is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, r ...
and a sense of national identity (preceding 19th-century nationalism), which was firmly underpinned by a shared history and religious allegiance. In Clark's model, Britons embraced the official entrenchment of these parameters, which was challenged primarily by religious dissent. In his first work, ''The Dynamics of Change'', Clark attempted to explain how the two-party system of Queen Anne's reign, described by Geoffrey Holmes in ''British Politics in the Age of Anne'', was transformed into the more fluid system of George III's reign that was uncovered by Lewis Namier in '' The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III''.W. A. Speck, 'Review: The Dynamics of Change: The Crisis of the 1750s and English Party Systems by J. C. D. Clark', ''The Historical Journal'', Vol. 26, No. 3 (Sep., 1983), p. 769. Clark argued that the Tory and Whig parties survived Anne's death in 1714 until the political crisis of March 1754 – June 1757 caused the realignment of British politics, which produced the political groupings that George III inherited in 1760. Clark's ''Revolution and Rebellion'', published in 1986, is a study of the historiography of 17th- and 18th- century English history. He categorised historians into "Old Hat" (Whig–Liberal), "Old Guard" (Marxist), and "Class of '68" (modern radical) schools, all of whom he criticised as mistaken. Clark reiterated his belief in the central position of religion in the conflicts of these centuries: he argued that it was those who cared most about religion who had caused Parliament to play a more active role in the years before the Civil War.John Money, 'Review: Popular Politics and the American Revolution in England by James E. Bradley; Revolution and Rebellion: State and Society in England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries by J. C. D. Clark', ''Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies'', Vol. 19, No. 4 (Winter, 1987), p. 617. Jacobitism, in Clark's view, was important in the 18th century because it was the only realistic (because it was non-secular) alternative to Hanoverian rule. The disappearance of the Jacobite alternative during the Seven Years' War, Clark maintained, led to the consolidation of the Anglican and monarchic confessional state. In his 1993 work, ''The Language of Liberty, 1660–1832'', Clark reinterpreted the
American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
as America's first civil war and the West's last war of religion. The Revolution, Clark asserted, was triggered by the denominational conflicts still endemic at that time within the English-speaking North Atlantic world. Clark has frequently maintained that too often the 18th century has been interpreted teleologically in the light of the 19th century; he sees his mission as an historian to explain the long 18th century in its own terms. Clark criticised Marxists such as Christopher Hill,
Eric Hobsbawm Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm (; 9 June 1917 – 1 October 2012) was a British historian of the rise of industrial capitalism, socialism and nationalism. A life-long Marxist, his socio-political convictions influenced the character of his work. H ...
, and
E.P. Thompson Edward Palmer Thompson (3 February 1924 – 28 August 1993) was an English historian, writer, socialist and peace campaigner. He is best known today for his historical work on the radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in ...
for advancing what he argued was an incorrect interpretation. Styled by
Ronald Hutton Ronald Edmund Hutton (born 19 December 1953) is an English historian who specialises in Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and Contemporary Paganism. He is a professor at the University of Bristol, has written 14 bo ...
as a "political and religious reactionary", Clark criticised Hill, Hobsbawm, and Thompson for advancing what he derided as an incorrect interpretation. In 1985, Clark called Hill, Hobsbawm, and Thompson "that cohort of scholars whose minds were formed in the matrix of inter-war Marxism". Clark became known for his attacks in the 1980s on Sir
John H. Plumb Sir John (Jack) Harold Plumb (20 August 1911 – 21 October 2001) was a British historian, known for his books on British 18th-century history. He wrote over thirty books. Biography Plumb was born in Leicester on 20 August 1911. He was educat ...
, which made him certainly conspicuous and according to Hutton "probably the most hated living historian".Hutton, "Revisionism in Britain," p. 387-88. A letter defending Plumb was published and signed by every history professor at Cambridge except for Sir Geoffrey Elton.Hutton, "Revisionism in Britain", p. 387-88. Portions of Clark's work, however, were accepted by his colleagues (though perhaps as exaggerated) and several of them felt compelled to concede that he "had performed a valuable service in drawing attention to important features of eighteenth-century society, particularly the religious element, which had hitherto been neglected". In 1994, Clark published ''Samuel Johnson: Literature, Religion, and English Cultural Politics from the Restoration to Romanticism'', in which he argued that Johnson was not only a
Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. Th ...
but also a Jacobite and a nonjuror (one who declined or avoided loyalty oaths to the Hanoverians). The thesis proved controversial. Clark and the Cambridge-based literary scholar
Howard Erskine-Hill Howard Henry Erskine-Hill, (19 June 1936 – 26 February 2014) was an English literary scholar most notable for his work on the eighteenth century poet Alexander Pope.''The Daily Telegraph'',Professor Howard Erskine-Hill - obituary (13 May 2014), ...
debated American literary scholars, chiefly
Donald Greene Donald Johnson Greene (November 21, 1914 – May 13, 1997) was a literary critic, English professor, and scholar of British literature, particularly the eighteenth-century period. Known especially for his work on Samuel Johnson, he also wrote o ...
and Howard Weinbrot, in two successive volumes of ''The Age of Johnson'' (Volumes 7 and 8) and an issue of ''Studies in English Literature.'' Clark and Erskine-Hill produced an edited volume on Johnson's political views in 2002 and two additional volumes on the subject in 2012.


Works

*''The Dynamics of Change: the Crisis of the 1750s and English Party Systems'' (Cambridge University Press, 1982). . *''English Society, 1688–1832: Ideology, Social Structure, and Political Practice During the Ancien Regime'' (Cambridge University Press, 1985). ; 2nd (revised) ed. ''English Society 1660–1832: Religion, Ideology and Politics During the Ancien Regime'' (Cambridge University Press, 2000). . *''Revolution and Rebellion: State and Society in England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries'' (Cambridge University Press, 1986). . *Editor, ''The Memoirs and Speeches of James, 2nd Earl Waldegrave, 1742–1763'' (Cambridge University Press, 1988). . *Editor, ''Ideas and Politics in Modern Britain'' (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990). . *''The Language of Liberty, 1660–1832: Political Discourse and Social Dynamics in the Anglo-American World'' (Cambridge University Press, 1994). . *''Samuel Johnson: Literature, Religion, and English Cultural Politics from the Restoration to Romanticism'' (Cambridge University Press, 1994). . * "British America: What If There Had Been No American Revolution?," in ''Virtual History'', ed. Niall Ferguson (New York: Basic Books, 1997;1999), pp. 125–74. . *Co-editor, ''Samuel Johnson in Historical Context'', co-editor: Howard Erskine-Hill (New York: Palgrave, 2002). . * Editor, ''Edmund Burke: Reflections on the Revolution in France: a Critical Edition'' (Stanford University Press, 2001). . *''Our Shadowed Present: Modernism, Postmodernism and History'' (London: Atlantic Books, 2003). . *''The Politics of Samuel Johnson'', co-editor: Howard Erskine-Hill (New York: Palgrave, 2012). *''The Interpretation of Samuel Johnson'', co-editor: Howard Erskine-Hill (New York: Palgrave, 2012). *''From Restoration to Reform: The British Isles 1660-1832'' (London: Vintage, 2014). *''Thomas Paine: Britain, America, and France in the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution'' (Oxford University Press, 2018).


Notes


Further reading

*Innes, Joanna. "Jonathan .C.D.Clark, Social History and England's 'Ancien Regime'," ''Past and Present'' no.115(May 1987), 165–200. (Reviewed work: ''English Society, 1688–1832''.) *Pocock, J.G.A. "1660 and All That: Whig-Hunting, Ideology and Historiography in the Work of Jonathan Clark," ''Cambridge Review'' 108,2(Oct. 1987), 125–128. *Black, Jeremy. "On Second Thoughts: England's 'Ancien Regime'?" ''History Today'' 38,3(March 1988), 43–51. *Sharpe, K.M., Kishlansky, Mark A., Dickinson, H.T. "Symposium: Revolution and Revisionism," ''Parliamentary History'' 7,2(1988), pp. 328–338.


External links


J.C.D. Clark


* ttp://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/reapp/frank.html Reappraisals in History: ''English Society 1688–1832: Ideology, Social Structure and Political Practice During the Ancien Régime''
Review of ''Our Shadowed Present: Modernism, Postmodernism and History''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clark, J. C. D. 1951 births Living people British historians Alumni of Downing College, Cambridge Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford University of Kansas faculty Fellows of Peterhouse, Cambridge