George Peabody Gooch

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George Peabody Gooch (1873-1968) was a British journalist, historian and politician. He is considered a significant revisionist historian of Europe of the early twentieth century[1]. A follower of Lord Acton, he never held an academic position, but knew the work of historians of continental Europe[2].

Contents

[edit] Early life

He was educated at Eton College, King's College London and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was Member of Parliament for Bath, from 1906 to 1910, where he was first a candidate in 1903. He edited Contemporary Review, from 1911 until 1960[3].

[edit] Historian

After World War I, he was an influential historian of Europe of the period, critical of British policy. He was active in the Union of Democratic Control[4].

From the mid-1920s and for a decade he was involved in the publication of the official British diplomatic history, with Harold Temperley. Both choices, Gooch and Temperley, were intended to signal that the history was independent of the Government[5]. Gooch's selection was against reservations of Headlam-Morley, and Temperley himself, that he was too committed to a pro-German position, and criticism of Sir Edward Grey[6].

[edit] Awards and honours

He became a Companion of Honour in 1939, and a member of the Order of Merit in 1963.

[edit] Works

  • The History of English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century (1898)
  • A History of Our Time 1885-1911 and later editions
  • History and Historians in the Ninteenth Century (1913)
  • The Races of Austria-Hungary (1917) UDC pamphlet
  • Germany and the French Revolution (1920)
  • History of Modern Europe, 1878-1919 (1923)
  • Germany (1926)
  • Recent Revelations of European Diplomacy (1927)
  • Origins of the War, with Harold Temperley
  • Maria Theresa and Other Studies (1951)
  • Under Six Reigns (1958)
  • Life of Lord Courtney

[edit] References

  • Felix E. Hirsch, George Peabody Gooch, The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 26, No. 3 (September 1954), pp. 260-271
  • A. O. Sarkissian, Studies in Diplomatic History and Historiography in Honour of G. P. Gooch, C. H. (1963)
  • W. N. Medlicott, G. P. Gooch, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 4, No. 1, Colonialism and Decolonization (January 1969), pp. 201-203
  • Frank Eyck (1982), G. P. Gooch: A Study in History and Politics

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ By Harry Elmer Barnes[1]
  2. ^ Donald R. Kelley, Frontiers of History: Historical Inquiry in the Twentieth Century (2006), p. 101.
  3. ^ News - Telegraph
  4. ^ Cercles-Actors And Witnesses
  5. ^ Hamilton
  6. ^ Keith M. Wilson, Forging the Collective Memory: Government and International Historians (1996), pp. 15-6.