Lewis Namier

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Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier (1915)

Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier (* June 27, 1888 as Ludwik Bernstein Niemirowski in Wola Okrzejska , Russian Empire (now Poland ); † August 19, 1960 ) was an English historian.

Life

Lewis Namier came from a non-religious Jewish family and studied at the universities in Lviv and Lausanne and at the London School of Economics . In Lausanne he attended the lectures of Vilfredo Pareto .

He emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1906 and became a British citizen in 1913. During the First World War he fought with the 20th Royal Fusiliers , but was fired in 1915 due to poor eyesight. He then worked in the Department of Propaganda and Information and in the Political Education Department of the British Foreign Office . During the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 he was a member of the British delegation. He was responsible for Polish affairs and was an opponent of Roman Dmowski , the Polish chief delegate. Namier was against the creation of a new Polish state. When the Curzon Line was drawn, he campaigned for Lviv to be separated from the future Poland.

After leaving the government service, he taught at Balliol College of Oxford University before becoming business. Namier was later active as a Zionist and worked from 1929 to 1931 for the Jewish Agency in Palestine . During this time he was a close friend and colleague of Chaim Weizmann . The latter broke off his relations with Namier when he converted to Anglicanism in order to marry his second wife Marry.

From 1931 Namier worked as a professor at the University of Manchester until his retirement in 1953, where his topics revolved around European history from the 18th to the 20th century. His work The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III , published as early as 1929 , which analyzes the relations of power in the age of Hanoverian England , is groundbreaking and still has an academic impact on English historiography . In contrast to the previously dominant history of the "great men" and the history of political ideas, he propagated a new understanding of history. An epoch can only be understood if the thinking and feeling of a large number of “simple” people are included in every detail, similar to the histoire totale or microhistory . He also emphasizes the importance of psychology and the unconscious for understanding historical processes and decisions. a. influenced by the theories of Sigmund Freud . His work Diplomatic prelude, 1938–1939 (German 1949 as Diplomatic Prelude 1938–1939 ) about the outbreak of World War II , which was published in 1948, attributed an “intentionalist” policy to Hitler, which was also seen in public discourse until the 1960s. Namier was one of the earliest warners of National Socialism and critics of the appeasement policy; he was generally known for a pronounced Germanophobia in his political views. In 1944 he was elected to the British Academy and in 1960 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Fonts

  • The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III. 1929.
  • England in the Age of the American Revolution. 1930.
  • Skyscrapers and other essays. 1931 (also contains Namier's essays on Habsburg Galicia ).
  • In the Margin of History. 1939.
  • Conflicts: Studies in Contemporary History. 1942.
  • 1848: The Revolution of the Intellectuals. 1944.
  • Facing East: Essays on Germany, the Balkans and Russia in the Twentieth Century. 1947.
  • Diplomatic Prelude, 1938-1939. 1948 (German diplomatic prelude 1938–1939. 1949).
  • Europe in Decay: A Study in Disintegration, 1936–40. 1950.
  • Avenues of History. 1952.
  • In the Nazi Era. 1952.
  • Basic Factors in Nineteenth-Century European History. 1953.
  • Monarchy and the Party System: The Romanes Lecture delivered in the Sheldonian Theater, May 15, 1952. 1952.
  • Personalities and Powers. 1955.
  • Vanished Supremacies: Essays on European History, 1812-1918. 1958.
  • Crossroads of Power: Essays on Eighteenth-century England. 1962.
  • with John Brooke : The House of Commons, 1754–1790. 1964.

literature

  • Amy Ng: Nationalism and political liberty. Redlich, Namier, and the crisis of empire. Oxford: Clarendon, 2004 ISBN 978-0-19-170631-8
  • David Hayton: Conservative Revolutionary. The Lives of Lewis Namier , Manchester: Manchester University Press 2019, ISBN 9780719086038 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Norman Davies: Lloyd George and Poland, 1919-20. In: Journal of Contemporary History 6, 1971, No. 3, pp. 132-154 ( online ).
  2. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed July 10, 2020 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Namier, Lewis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Namier, Lewis Bernstein (full name); Niemirowski, Ludwik (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English historian
DATE OF BIRTH June 27, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Wola Okrzejska , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH August 19, 1960