Britain vs Europe

It's a great joy to read Richard J. Evans's Cosmopolitan islanders : British historians and the European continent (CUP, 2009), which grew from his Inaugural Lecture as Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge in 2009, his literary skill being one of the major factors. Looking at the bar charts he provides on historians working on domestic or foreign topics (from Medieval to Early Modern and Modern), and non-domestic historians working on European or extra-European topics, across the UK, the USA, France, Germany, and Italy, however restricted to his methodology, I found it very engaging and stimulating and it certainly deserves the explanation and observation given from Evans exquisite pen and, to be fair, defense from the Continental European countries in question.

Evans shows that 44% of British historians work on non-British history, while only 23% of French historians, 15% of German historians and 12% of Italian historians work outside the history of their own country. Evans argues that 'British historians are almost twice or even more than twice as cosmopolitan as historians of other major Western European countries' (p. 12)

One might add that, as a reviewer (Robert Gildea, History Workshop Journal, Issue 70, Autumn 2010, p. 239-45) said, in France a historian of Britain would be employed in a languages department rather than a history department. In his review on Evans's book, Robert Gildea lamented that in France leading academics control high-profile series for publishing houses and when one of his books was turned down for translation by a French publisher the only feedback he received was 'Pierre Nora dit non.' French historians are not only academics; they consider themselves to be the high priests of the Republic whose calling is to defend its principles. Their work often privileges a Jacobin-centralist, gender-neutral citizen approach which marginalizes approaches that may subvert that model.

the historiography and themes debated by scholars of Continental history were far more open and less focused on a narrow set of political questions than it seemed to be in the little British history I did...It was not only insular but seemed to argue about the same political topics with all the paths already charted. There seemed little room for branching out and making new paths. (the Cambridge medievalist, Rosamond McKitterick, p. 167)

In Britain, Leif Jerram, who teaches German History at Manchester, "'the world out there' has expectations of historians that go far, far beyond the formation of the nation. In France, Spain, China, Italy, 'the world out there' does not have these expectations." (p. 7)

Very few non-British historians have made any notable contribution to the study of British history in the medieval period, and few, apart from Americans, to its study in the early modern and modern eras. (p. 10) Andreas Gestrich, Director of German Historical Institutes in London, remarks that "the problem is that present German research on British history is not as strong as British research on Germany." (p. 11) Christopher Duggan, Professor of Italian History at Reading, thinks that "the tradition of studying non-British countries does seem one of the remarkable strengths of British historiography (very few Italian historians, to my knowledge, work on modern non-Italian history)". (p. 5-6)

The French have seldom seen any need to translate history books from English into their own language, since in their view, and with relatively few exceptions, they cover their own history perfectly well themselves. (p. 39) Openness of any kind to foreign contributions to their own history has long been much less common amongst French historians. (p. 36) Robert Gildea, Professor of Modern History at Oxford, comments that there are "a sort of closed-shop of French historian (who also control history series in the publishing houses), who do not want to know what non-French historians think, or think that only French historians understand French history." (p. 39) Robert Tombs, who teaches Modern French History at Cambridge, feels that French culture is not very open to outside influences, at least no compared to British. (p. 38) Peter Jones, who worked in France for many years, notes, "I am struck, even today, by how reluctant the French are to travel and uproot themselves even within their own country." (p. 206)

The frequency of translation of British historical works into European languages is all the more remarkable since it is undertaken on an entirely commercial basis. The German government had for a long time provided subsidies through the Inter Nationes organization for translating German books into other languages, the French government has done the same thing through the Office du Livre, and the Italian government provides a similar service too. (p. 22)