History, Empire, and Islam: E. A. Freeman and Victorian Public Morality

This book offers the first comprehensive treatment of the historian and public moralist E. A. Freeman since the publication of W. R. W. Stephens Life and Letters of Edward A. Freeman (1895). While Freeman is often viewed by modern scholars as a panegyrist to English progress and a proponent of Aryan racial theory, this study suggests that his world-view was more complicated than it appears. Revisiting Freemans most important historical works, this book positions Thomas Arnold as a significant influence on Freemans view of world-historical development. Conceptualising the past as cyclical rather than unilinear, and defining race in terms of culture, rather than biology, Freemans narratives were pervaded by anxieties about recapitulation. Ultimately, this study shows that Freemans scheme of universal history was based on the idea of conflict between Euro-Christendom and the Judeo-Islamic Orient, and this shaped his engagement with contemporary issues. See more