Can historical biography still be written? Joel Hurstfield, who had planned a life of Robert Cecil, the chief minister inherited by James I from Queen Elizabeth, abandoned it in the 1960s in the belief that the genre had had its day. Geoffrey Elton, so much of whose career has been occupied with the achievements of Thomas Cromwell, has never thought biography to be the fitting means of approaching him. Biography now belongs to the margins of historical writing. The economic and sociological determinism of the 20th century has questioned the influence of great men, while its psychological determinism has undermined their dignity. To study the past through the lives of its most conspicuous individuals can seem as superficial or as frivolous an exercise as the interpretation of current affairs in terms of the clashes of political personalities. Even if we respect the study of personality we find it hard to practise it when we turn to the Early Modern period, when the evidence more often protects than exposes the private man.

LRB 11 October 1990 | PDF Download