John Burrow

Focused on the much-debated historiographical and academic status of intellectual history, this article addresses for the first time and in detail the methodological views of the British historian John Wyon Burrow (1935–2009). Making use both of his published works and of unpublished material left to the University of Sussex Library (including lectures, letters, academic projects and biographical sketches), its goal is to provide a thorough account of an original and eclectic intellectual historian and, at the same time, cast new light on the role of the discipline in the scholarly context of the last few decades in Europe and the US. More specifically, the following pages will illustrate Burrow's work and career, with particular attention being paid to his insistence on narrative, imagination, irony and style; present his writings as an original instance of the anti-methodological practice of intellectual history; and study his opinions of what it means to carry out the métier d'historien. Finally, by examining Burrow's idea of the intellectual historian as a creative ‘eavesdropper’ on the ‘conversations of the past’ and as a ‘translator’ of past dialogues, this article will both pose some central questions and advance some proposals concerning the future of intellectual history.

Intellectual history as an academic discipline is nowadays taken for granted: learned journals are devoted to it and universities in the UK and the US offer a variety of graduate and postgraduate courses in the field. However, this was not always the case. After a brief panoramic account of its historical development on both sides of the Atlantic, this article will focus on the main work carried out in intellectual history in the last few decades. Particular attention will be given to some practitioners (e.g., Quentin Skinner, John W. Burrow, Stefan Collini) and their methodological approach to the study of past ideas. By concentrating on the practice and role of the intellectual historian, the object ‘intellectual history’ will be presented not only as a vibrant scholarly activity but also as a valuable attempt at understanding our society from a plurality of perspectives. In order not to sound too optimistic about this intellectual enterprise, attention will equally be paid to the French case as an instance of a country where intellectual history is still seen with suspicion, and of an academic world where it is not that much studied nor practiced.

The aim of this paper is to reflect on the identity of intellectual history as an interdisciplinary field. It begins by taking into account the pervasiveness of interdisciplinarity in academia. As a trend embraced by many scholars and institutions, the paper argues that interdisciplinarity deserves to be thematised more specifically, since the literature swings between a wide range of definitions and fierce criticisms. Interdisciplinarity has been understood as a way to integrate specialized knowledge to better understand a topic, but this definition does not clarify how object of study determines the purposes of interdisciplinarity. As regards intellectual history, this essay offers a non-exhaustive but representative survey that throws light on the different and often contradictory ways in which intellectual history has been conceived as interdisciplinary. The paper ends by suggesting a way of fleshing out the commonplace that intellectual history is ‘inherently interdisciplinary.’ Following John Pocock and John Burrow, I take a pragmatic standpoint: to embrace interdisciplinarity whenever it helps us solve the problems that concern intellectual historians, and it help us navigate historical realities. And conversely, being aware that interdisciplinarity is not a good in itself, and it does not necessarily guarantee results that are historically accurate.
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