From the editors
Currently the historical thought of the eighteenth century is an important and even fashionable topic for researchers of the Enlightenment. For many years, however, the enlightened view of the past was neglected. The development of a European historical consciousness was usually understood as the result of the perceived rupture of the French revolution and was situated in the early nineteenth century. Following the critical verdict of nineteenth-century romantic historians, the historiographical writings of the philosophes were not much valued for most of the twentieth century. The eighteenth century was seen according to the romantic cliché as a forward-looking and ahistorical century.
In the last decades, however, the crucial role of the writing of history in the thought of the philosophes has been acknowledged. Also, the merits of the historical writings of the philosophes are currently much more appreciated: it is now generally understood that eighteenth century historiography was much more than just an uncomplicated narrative of universal progress. The importance of Antiquity as well as the Middle Ages as models and counterpoints for the ‘modern era’ of the eighteenth century has, for instance, been amply demonstrated in recent studies. In many ways, modern historical scholarship is foreshadowed in late eighteenth-century developments. At the same time historians emphasize the different nature of eighteenth-century historical thought from present day historical practices. The modernist and national perspective is now increasingly being brought into question by historians, as the articles in this themed issue also demonstrate.
In this themed issue on ‘the Enlightenment and the Past’, we focus mainly, but not exclusively, on the Dutch case. Dutch enlightened historiography has so far been one of the blank spots in international research on this theme. Most of the authors of this issue work at the University of Amsterdam, which has become an important centre for the study of eighteenth-century intellectual history. Especially the current Jan Romein professor of historiography and historical theory, Wyger Velema, has been influential over the last decades in stimulating research on the political and historiographical thought of the (Dutch) eighteenth century. This special issue reflects the research done in the Netherlands by junior as well as senior scholars on the problem of the past in the (late) Enlightenment.
On behalf of the editorial board, Matthijs Lok (special editor)
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