The Lessons of History

This is a collection of the major articles and lectures of Sir Michael Howard during his time as Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford between 1980 and 1989. Some reflect on contemporary events, but most are more broadly concerned with the historical process which underlies international politics, and the nature of the insights which historians should be able to bring to the study of world affairs. In particular, they deal with the evolution of "nations" and of nationalism in 19th century Europe, and the relationship of that evolution to the transformation of agrarian into industrial societies; that process of "modernization" which, beginning in western Europe in the 18th century, was by the end of the 20th to encompass the entire world, and whose effects trouble us still.