Lewis Namier
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Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier (; 27 June 1888 – 19 August 1960) was a British historian of
Polish-Jewish The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the lon ...
background. His best-known works were ''
The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III ''The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III'' was a book written by Lewis Namier. At the time of its first publication in 1929 it caused a historiographical revolution in understanding the 18th century by challenging the Whig view ...
'' (1929), ''England in the Age of the American Revolution'' (1930) and the ''
History of Parliament The History of Parliament is a project to write a complete history of the United Kingdom Parliament and its predecessors, the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of England. The history will principally consist of a prosopography, in w ...
'' series (begun 1940) he edited later in his life with John Brooke.


Life

Namier was born Ludwik Bernstein Niemirowski in
Wola Okrzejska Wola Okrzejska is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Krzywda, within Łuków County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It lies approximately south-west of Krzywda, south-west of Łuków, and north-west of the regional c ...
in the Russian-controlled
Congress Poland Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...
, now part of the
Lublin Voivodeship The Lublin Voivodeship, also known as the Lublin Province ( Polish: ''województwo lubelskie'' ), is a voivodeship (province) of Poland, located in southeastern part of the country. It was created on January 1, 1999, out of the former Lublin, C ...
of southeastern Poland. His family were secular-minded Polish-Jewish gentry. His father, with whom young Lewis often quarreled, idolized the
Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
. By contrast, Namier throughout his life detested it. He was educated at the
University of Lwów The University of Lviv ( uk, Львівський університет, Lvivskyi universytet; pl, Uniwersytet Lwowski; german: Universität Lemberg, briefly known as the ''Theresianum'' in the early 19th century), presently the Ivan Franko Na ...
in
Austrian Galicia The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria,, ; pl, Królestwo Galicji i Lodomerii, ; uk, Королівство Галичини та Володимирії, Korolivstvo Halychyny ta Volodymyrii; la, Rēgnum Galiciae et Lodomeriae also known as ...
(now in
Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
), the
University of Lausanne The University of Lausanne (UNIL; french: links=no, Université de Lausanne) in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second oldest in Switzer ...
, and the
London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...
. At Lausanne, Namier heard
Vilfredo Pareto Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto ( , , , ; born Wilfried Fritz Pareto; 15 July 1848 – 19 August 1923) was an Italian polymath (civil engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist, and philosopher). He made several important contribut ...
lecture, and Pareto's ideas about elites would have a great influence on his thinking. Namier emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1907, studied at
Balliol College Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...
,
Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, from 1908, and became a
British subject The term "British subject" has several different meanings depending on the time period. Before 1949, it referred to almost all subjects of the British Empire (including the United Kingdom, Dominions, and colonies, but excluding protectorates ...
in 1913, whereupon he
anglicised Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influen ...
his name. During the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, he fought as a private with the 20th Royal Fusiliers in 1914–15 but was discharged owing to poor eyesight. He then held positions with the Propaganda Department (1915–17), the Department of Information (1917–18) and finally with the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office (1918–20).


Professional career

Following the defeat of Germany in World War One, Namier joined the British delegation at the
Versailles Peace Conference The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...
of 1919. Based on his personal background, Namier maintained a firm personal interest in Russian affairs; however, he was also seen as one of the biggest enemies of the newly-independent Polish state in the British political environment. During the
Polish–Soviet War The Polish–Soviet War (Polish–Bolshevik War, Polish–Soviet War, Polish–Russian War 1919–1921) * russian: Советско-польская война (''Sovetsko-polskaya voyna'', Soviet-Polish War), Польский фронт (' ...
his relationship with the Polish delegation was highly antagonistic and his attitude towards Poland and Polish territories openly hostile. Namier was later accused of changing the British proposal – the "
Curzon Line The Curzon Line was a proposed demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union, two new states emerging after World War I. It was first proposed by George Curzon, 1st Marque ...
" – for the eastern border of Poland by leaving the city of
Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...
(in Polish, Lwów) and the Oil Basin on the eastern side when the British Foreign Office sent a cable to the Commissar for Foreign Affairs of Bolshevik Russia, . The Polish delegation had no knowledge of the existence of Line "A" whatsoever since the idea of handing Lwów over to the Bolsheviks was rejected by Prime Minister
Władysław Grabski Władysław Dominik Grabski (; 7 July 1874 – 1 March 1938) was a Polish National Democratic politician, economist and historian. He was the main author of the currency reform in the Second Polish Republic and served as Prime Minister of Poland ...
at the very beginning of talks. Lwów had never been under the rule of Moscow in its history. Professor
Piotr Eberhardt Piotr Eberhardt (December 27, 1935 – September 10, 2020) was a Polish geographer, a professor at the Polish Academy of Science and author of studies in the field of demography and population geography. His works included the ethnic problems of Ce ...
from the
Polish Academy of Sciences The Polish Academy of Sciences ( pl, Polska Akademia Nauk, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society of ...
speculates that Lloyd George could have been aware of Namier's modification; Bartłomiej Rusin refutes the claims that Namier was responsible and calls him "merely a convenient supplier of anti‑Polish arguments". The earlier-approved compromised version of the Curzon Line which was approved at the Spa Conference in Belgium was renamed by Namier as Curzon Line "B". Chicherin relayed this document to Lenin who rejected it nevertheless, assured of his victory over Poland followed by a planned annexation of its entire territory. In one of his memoranda Namier falsified the results of a national census from Eastern Galicia originating from
Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
. He single-handedly reduced the number of ethnic Poles living in the region from 2 million down to 600–700 inhabitants. Professor
Anna M. Cienciala Anna Maria Cienciala (November 8, 1929 – December 24, 2014) was a Polish-American historian and author. She specialized in modern Polish and Russian history. Graduating with a history doctorate in 1962, she taught at two Canadian universities f ...
believes that Namier was not the original initiator of this misrepresentation, but merely an unscrupulous supplier of handy arguments for the anti-Polish lobby among the Entente members. After leaving government service, Namier taught at Balliol (1920–21) before going into business for himself. Later Namier, who was a long-time
Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
, worked as political secretary for the
Jewish Agency The Jewish Agency for Israel ( he, הסוכנות היהודית לארץ ישראל, translit=HaSochnut HaYehudit L'Eretz Yisra'el) formerly known as The Jewish Agency for Palestine, is the largest Jewish non-profit organization in the world. ...
in Palestine (1929–31). For a time he was a close friend and associate of
Chaim Weizmann Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( he, חיים עזריאל ויצמן ', russian: Хаим Евзорович Вейцман, ''Khaim Evzorovich Veytsman''; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born biochemist, Zionist leader and Israe ...
, but Weizmann later severed relations with Namier when the latter converted to
Anglicanism Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the ...
to marry his second wife. Namier served as professor at the
University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...
from 1931 until his retirement in 1953, having been loudly cheered by his students at the conclusion of his last lecture there on European History. Namier remained active in various Zionist groups (in particular, lobbying the British government to allow the creation of what he called a Jewish Fighting Force in the Mandate of Palestine) and from 1933 was engaged in efforts on behalf of Jewish refugees from Germany. He was married twice and knighted in 1952 at the onset of
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
. Also in 1952, Namier was given the honour of delivering the
Romanes Lecture The Romanes Lecture is a prestigious free public lecture given annually at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, England. The lecture series was founded by, and named after, the biologist George Romanes, and has been running since 1892. Over the years, ...
, on which subject Namier chose ''Monarchy and the Party System''. Although Namier was well known for his conservative political views, his principal protégé was the left-wing historian
A. J. P. Taylor Alan John Percivale Taylor (25 March 1906 – 7 September 1990) was a British historian who specialised in 19th- and 20th-century European diplomacy. Both a journalist and a broadcaster, he became well known to millions through his televis ...
.


Personal life

He was married to the writer Julia Namier, who authored a biography of him after his death. His sister, Teodora Niemirowska, was the mother of Anna Kurska.


Political views

Namier is best known for his work on the
Parliament of Great Britain The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a new unified Kingdo ...
, in particular English politics in the 1760s.. His principal conclusion of that decade was that there was no risk of an authoritarian disposal of British parliamentarism. By way of its very detailed study of individuals, this course of study caused substantial revision to accounts based on a party system. Namier's best-known works were ''The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III'', ''England in the Age of the American Revolution'' and the ''
History of Parliament The History of Parliament is a project to write a complete history of the United Kingdom Parliament and its predecessors, the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of England. The history will principally consist of a prosopography, in w ...
'' series he edited later in his life with John Brooke. Namier used
prosopography Prosopography is an investigation of the common characteristics of a group of people, whose individual biographies may be largely untraceable. Research subjects are analysed by means of a collective study of their lives, in multiple career-line an ...
or collective biography of every Member of Parliament (MP) and peer who sat in the British Parliament in the latter 18th century to reveal that local interests, not national ones, often determined how parliamentarians voted. Namier argued very strongly that far from being tightly organised groups, both the
Tories A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. Th ...
and Whigs were collections of ever-shifting and fluid small groups whose stances altered on an issue-by-issue basis. Namier felt that prosopographical methods were the best for analysing small groups like the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
, but he was opposed to the application of prosopography to larger groups. At the time of its publication in 1929, ''The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III'' caused a historiographical revolution in understanding the 18th century. "What Namier's minutely detailed studies revealed was the fact that politics in 1760 consisted mainly in the jockeying for position and influence by individuals within the political elite" rather than ideas such as liberty or democracy, or rivalry with foreign kings, or social effects of industrial and technological change. "Spending many years himself, off and on, in psychoanalysis, amierbelieved that the "deep-seated drives and emotions" of the individual were what explained politics," wrote
Richard J. Evans Sir Richard John Evans (born 29 September 1947) is a British historian of 19th- and 20th-century Europe with a focus on Germany. He is the author of eighteen books, including his three-volume ''The Third Reich Trilogy'' (2003–2008). Evans was ...
29 Nov. 2019, reviewing ''Conservative Revolutionary: the lives of Lewis Namier'' (Manchester University Press, 2019) a new biography by D. W. Hayton (a participant in the
History of Parliament The History of Parliament is a project to write a complete history of the United Kingdom Parliament and its predecessors, the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of England. The history will principally consist of a prosopography, in w ...
project).


Controversies

Namier used sources such as wills and tax records to reveal the interests of the MPs. In his time, his methods were new and quite controversial. His obsession with collecting facts such as club membership of various MPs and then attempting to correlate them with voting patterns led his critics to accuse him of "taking ideas out of history". Namier has been described by the historian
Lawrence Stone Lawrence Stone (4 December 1919 – 16 June 1999) was an English historian of early modern Britain, after a start to his career as an art historian of English medieval art. He is noted for his work on the English Civil War and the history of marr ...
as a member of an 'elitist school' with a 'deeply pessimistic attitude toward human affairs'. His biographer John Cannon concludes: :Namier's achievements were greatly praised during his lifetime and unduly disparaged subsequently. On his chosen ground, the accession of George III, he made important and probably irreversible corrections to the traditional whiggish account....Later on Namier was not so much repudiated as outflanked, by critics who pointed to the narrowness of his concerns, and his lack of interest in anything but political history. The technique of structural analysis, with which his name was inextricably linked as 'Namierism', offered, in his view, an escape from voluminous narrative.... utits limitations are very evident. There are great swathes of history where, for lack of evidence, structural analysis can hardly be applied. Even where it can, there is no guarantee that it will, in itself, generate interesting and important questions.


Diplomatic history controversies

As a former patient of
Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...
, Namier was a believer in
psychohistory Psychohistory is an amalgam of psychology, history, and related social sciences and the humanities. Its proponents claim to examine the "why" of history, especially the difference between stated intention and actual behavior. Psychobiography, chil ...
. He also wrote on modern European history, especially
diplomatic history Diplomatic history deals with the history of international relations between states. Diplomatic history can be different from international relations in that the former can concern itself with the foreign policy of one state while the latter deals ...
and his later books ''Europe in Decay'', ''In the Nazi Era'' and ''Diplomatic Prelude'' unsparingly condemned the
Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
and
appeasement Appeasement in an international context is a diplomatic policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to an aggressive power in order to avoid conflict. The term is most often applied to the foreign policy of the UK governm ...
. In the 1930s, Namier had been active in the anti-appeasement movement and together with his protégé
A. J. P. Taylor Alan John Percivale Taylor (25 March 1906 – 7 September 1990) was a British historian who specialised in 19th- and 20th-century European diplomacy. Both a journalist and a broadcaster, he became well known to millions through his televis ...
spoke out against the
Munich Agreement The Munich Agreement ( cs, Mnichovská dohoda; sk, Mníchovská dohoda; german: Münchner Abkommen) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, Germany, the United Kingdom, French Third Republic, France, and Fa ...
at several rallies in 1938. In the early 1950s, Namier had a celebrated debate on the pages of the ''
Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...
'' with the former French foreign minister Georges Bonnet. At issue was the question whether Bonnet had, as Namier charged, snubbed an offer by the Polish foreign minister Colonel
Józef Beck Józef Beck (; 4 October 1894 – 5 June 1944) was a Poles, Polish statesman who served the Second Republic of Poland as a diplomat and military officer. A close associate of Józef Piłsudski, Beck is most famous for being Polish foreign minist ...
in May 1938 to have Poland come to the aid of
Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...
in the event of a German attack. Bonnet denied that such an offer had been made, which led Namier to accuse Bonnet of seeking to falsify the record. Namier concluded the debate in 1953 with words "The Polish offer, for what it was worth, was first torpedoed by Bonnet the statesmen, and next obliterated by Bonnet the historian". Namier's writings on German history have been criticised for being influenced by Germanophobia. His hatred of Germany was legendary; Namier himself wrote in 1942 as the war raged on: "it did not require either 1914, or 1933, or 1939 to teach me the truth about the Germans. Long before the last war I considered them a deadly menace to Europe and the civilisation." Like the work of his friend Sir
John Wheeler-Bennett Sir John Wheeler Wheeler-Bennett (13 October 1902 – 9 December 1975) was a conservative English historian of German and diplomatic history, and the official biographer of King George VI. He was well known in his lifetime, and his inter ...
, Namier's diplomatic histories are generally poorly regarded by modern historians because he was content to condemn appeasement without seeking to explain the reasons for it; and eager to dismiss political principles as rhetorical posturing.


Works

;Cold War era *''The House of Commons, 1754–1790'' (3 vols.), 1966 964 edited by John Brooke & Sir Lewis Namier. *''Crossroads of Power: Essays on Eighteenth-Century England'', 1962. *''
Charles Townshend Charles Townshend (28 August 1725 – 4 September 1767) was a British politician who held various titles in the Parliament of Great Britain. His establishment of the controversial Townshend Acts is considered one of the key causes of the Ame ...
, His Character and Career'',
Leslie Stephen Sir Leslie Stephen (28 November 1832 – 22 February 1904) was an English author, critic, historian, biographer, and mountaineer, and the father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. Life Sir Leslie Stephen came from a distinguished intellectua ...
Lecture, Cambridge University Press, 1959. *''Vanished Supremacies: Essays on European History, 1812–1918'', 1958. *''Personalities and Powers'', 1955. *''Basic Factors in Nineteenth-Century European History'', 1953. *''Monarchy and the Party System: The Romanes Lecture Delivered in the Sheldonian Theatre 15 May 1952'', 1952. *''In the Nazi Era'', 1952. *''Avenues of History'', 1952. *''Europe in Decay: A Study in Disintegration, 1936–1940'', 1950. *''Diplomatic Prelude, 1938–1939'', 1948. *''Facing East: Essays on Germany, the Balkans and Russia in the Twentieth Century'', 1947. ;World War II period *''1848: The Revolution of the Intellectuals'', 1944. *''Conflicts: Studies in Contemporary History'', 1942. *
In the Margin of History
', 1939. ;Interwar years *''Skyscrapers and other Essays'', 1931. Contains his essays on Austrian Galicia. *''England in the Age of the American Revolution'', 1930. *''The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III'', 1929
1957
Prof. Peter Thomas (June 1997)
Review of ''The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III'' by Lewis Namier
at History.ac.uk.


Notes


References

* * * * * * * *


Further reading

* Burke, Peter. "Namier, (Sir) Lewis Bernstein" page 207 from ''Great Historians of the Modern Age'' edited by Lucian Boia, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991. * Hayton, D. W. "Sir Lewis Namier, Sir John Neale and the Shaping of the History of Parliament." ''Parliamentary History'' 32#1 (2013): 187-211. * James, Clive. ''Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts'' (2007
online excerpt
* Namier, Julia. ''Lewis Namier: A biography'', London: Oxford University Press, 1971. *Pares, Richard & Taylor, A. J. P. (editors) ''Essays Presented to Sir Lewis Namier'', London: Macmillan Press, 1956. *Price, Jacob. "Party, Purpose, and Pattern: Sir Lewis Namier and His Critics" ''Journal of British Studies'', 1#1 (November 1961): 71–93. *Rose, Norman. ''Lewis Namier & Zionism'', Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980. * Smyth, James. "Lewis Namier, Herbert Butterfield and Edmund Burke." ''Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies'' 35#3 (2012): 381-389.
The Ordeal of Sir Lewis Namier
Commentary Magazine


External links



* ttps://www.amazon.com/Personal-Impressions-Isaiah-Berlin/dp/0691088586 Isaiah Berlin on Lewis Namier in his book Personal Impressionsbr>Lewis Namier: The eccentric historian who changed British postwar culture.
*
Lewis Namier papers
John Rylands Library The John Rylands Research Institute and Library is a late-Victorian neo-Gothic building on Deansgate in Manchester, England. It is part of the University of Manchester. The library, which opened to the public in 1900, was founded by Enriquet ...
,
University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Namier, Lewis Bernstein 1888 births 1960 deaths Converts to Anglicanism from Judaism Jews from Galicia (Eastern Europe) English Jews British Anglicans Jewish historians British diplomats Alumni of the London School of Economics Academics of the University of Manchester Academics of the Victoria University of Manchester Knights Bachelor Polish emigrants to the United Kingdom Royal Fusiliers soldiers Analysands of Theodor Reik British Army personnel of World War I 20th-century English historians People from Łuków County