The Idea of History

1946 Edition

By: R.G. Collingwood

Narrated by: Dennis Rowley

The Idea of History (1946) is a book of philosophy that explores the nature of history and the historian's interpretation of it. Written by English historian, archaeologist, and philosopher R.G. Collingwood, the work encourages students of history to go beyond events into the motivations of the actors themselves.

R.G. Collingwood (b. 1889, d. 1943) was the son of an artist/archaeologist father and artist/pianist mother. Showing an aptitude for the classics and history from an early age, he was recognized at school in Classic Moderations (representing fluency in Greek and Latin) as well as ancient history and philosophy.

He soon entered academia and spent his entire professional life at Oxford. In fact, he was elected a fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford before he even graduated from University College. Later, he became the Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at the Magdalen College, Oxford.

While his teaching work focused on philosophy, he was also a well-known archaeologist, spending his school vacations on dig sites like Hadrian's Wall and writing scholarly articles and books. These works include The Archaeology of Roman Britain (1930) and Roman Britain and the English Settlements, the first volume of the Oxford History of England (1936). Collingwood was considered the leading authority on Roman Britain during his lifetime.

The book is split into five parts, spanning views of history from Herodotus in the Greco-Roman times through the advent and ascendency of Christianity, the Enlightenment, and the 19th Century. Collingwood considered history a science of human affairs mingled with psychology. He argues that to understand the past, the historian must use their "historical imagination" to recreate the thought process of the actors. By reliving the past in their own mind, the historian can discover the significant patterns and dynamics of previous civilizations.

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Really awful awful awful narration

First I should say, this book in itself, written by the great yet somewhat forgotten philosopher R. G. Collingwood (he was born in the same year as Wittgenstein and Heidegger!), is a brilliant achievement and should be read by everyone who has a serious interest not only in philosophy of history, but also in philosophy or even humanities in general.

However, the narration by this guy "Dennis Rowley" (maybe he is a bot as his tone of narration is very unnatural? but on the other hand he also makes apparently man-made mistakes frequently, so I honestly don't know if he is a man or a machine) is plainly terrible. The narrator frequently omits words, or mistakes a word for another word that looks similar. Especially, the narrator's pronunciation of the names of many important historical figures mentioned in the book is totally wrong. For example, the names of Thucydides, Polybius, Descartes, and many others are pronounced in a so "creative" way, which almost ruins the entire experience of listening to and enjoying the book... The narrator's performance is just awful. Period.