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本文译自 Marnie Hughes‑Warrington 所著 Fifty Key Thinkers on History（Routledge，2014 年第三版）一书中关于 E. H. 卡尔的词条。
原书版权归作者及出版社所有。本译文为个人兴趣翻译，非官方授权版本，仅供学习、交流与研究之用，不作任何商业用途。
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E. H. 卡尔（1892–1982）

卡尔的职业生涯使他深入时事中心。¹ 从1916年到1936年，他任职于英国外交部。他作为英国代表团成员参加了巴黎和会，后来担任国际联盟事务顾问。1920年代被派往里加后，卡尔日益沉浸于俄国文化和文学，并对西方自由主义持批评态度。1931年至1937年间，他出版了关于陀思妥耶夫斯基、马克思和巴枯宁的著作。1936年，他被任命为威尔士大学阿伯里斯特威斯学院的伍德罗·威尔逊国际政治教授。在那里期间，他出版了《二十年危机，1919—1939》（1939年）、《和平的条件》（1942年）和《民族主义与以后》（1945年），这些著作极大地塑造了初生的国际关系学科。第二次世界大战期间，他还担任《伦敦泰晤士报》的助理编辑。战后，卡尔先是贝利奥尔学院的研究员，后任牛津大学三一学院的研究员。他在三一学院一直待到去世。正是在牛津，他写下了在历史学领域最为人熟知的作品：宏大的《苏维埃俄国史》（14卷，1950—1978年）和《历史是什么？》（1961年，修订版1986年）。

俄国在第二次世界大战中的坚韧，促使卡尔于1944年底决定撰写一部关于1917年十月（新历十一月）革命后在俄国形成的政治、社会和经济秩序的历史。在《苏维埃俄国史》（另见其概要性著作《俄国革命》，1979年）中，卡尔追溯了俄国从农民经济转变为现代工业强国的过程，这一强国既能与主要资本主义大国平等竞争，又能经受住1929年世界经济危机。在他看来，该时期以三次为工业发展筹集资本的不同尝试为主导。首先是1920年代初的“战时共产主义”政策。卡尔指出，这些政策的特点是将经济权力集中于大型生产单位，免费或按固定价格供应基本商品和服务，实行配给制和实物支付。但其成功因农业部门增长缓慢而受到削弱。第二次尝试是“新经济政策”（NEP），允许农民在向国家上缴固定比例的产出后，将剩余部分拿到市场上出售。同时，鼓励工业家生产农民愿意购买的商品。农业和轻工业消费部门得以起飞，但以牺牲重工业为代价。第三次尝试是斯大林“一国建成社会主义”计划的一部分，其特点是由中央决定的生产指标和随之而来的五年计划、农业强制集体化以及向重工业倾斜的政策。

对卡尔而言，1917—1929年间苏维埃俄国的转型，体现在从列宁到斯大林的过渡上。列宁视自己为一小群坚定的革命者之一，他们寻求赋予大众权力并在世界其他地方推动革命的道路。而斯大林则要求对其决策的绝对支持，无情地对待反对者，以武力自上而下推行政策，不关心世界革命，而是致力于使俄国自给自足，将共产国际的政策归结为苏联的政策，并把社会主义与俄罗斯民族主义混为一谈（另见《共产国际的黄昏》）。然而，卡尔提醒我们，正是斯大林将俄国塑造成了一个工业大国。在卡尔撰写《苏维埃俄国史》之时，苏维埃政权的政策既引发了赞誉，也招致了抨击。这种意见的两极化在卡尔著作的评论中可以清晰地看出。尽管像A. J. P. 泰勒和休·特雷弗-罗珀这样的史学家盛赞卡尔的工作为现代史的里程碑，苏联评论者也持谨慎的肯定态度，但另一些人则认为卡尔是斯大林的辩护者。卡尔本人后来指出了该书写作时政治背景的重要性：

我是在西方舆论处于冷战背景之下进行工作的（1955年至1970年间有条件的缓和释放了一些文件，并允许苏联国内对斯大林进行温和批评，但几乎未能改变西方的敌意），这必然意味着我的工作被批评者视为对苏联政治的辩护。对此我持哲学态度：如果我的作品在50年或100年后仍有人读，那时的评判将更有意思。² （“自传”，第xx页）

尽管关于卡尔对斯大林的处理仍存争议，但《苏联俄国史》总体上被认为是一部详尽、敏锐且公允的著作。

卡尔最广为人知的作品《历史是什么？》同样引发了大量争论。在回答“历史是什么？“这一问题时，卡尔声称要在两种历史观之间走一条中间道路：一种是归属于”常识“的历史观，另一种是归属于R. G. 科林伍德的历史观，换言之，即

在一种站不住脚的历史观——即历史是事实的客观汇编，事实对解释具有无条件的优先性——的斯库拉险礁，与另一种同样站不住脚的历史观——即历史是史学家头脑的主观产物，史学家确立历史事实并通过解释过程加以掌控——的卡律布狄斯漩涡之间，在一种重心在过去的历史观与一种重心在现在的历史观之间，寻求一条中间道路。 （《历史是什么？》，第29页）

事实并不像感官印象那样被确证，它们也并非“为自己说话”。它们也并非完全是史学家的创造。在卡尔看来，事实独立于史学家而存在，但只有当它们经过选择和解释而被判定具有历史意义时，才成为“历史事实”。他写道：

事实只有被史学家召唤时才开口说话：决定让哪些事实发言、以何种顺序或语境发言的，正是史学家。……是史学家出于自己的理由，认定凯撒渡过那条小溪——卢比孔河——是一个历史事实，而其他数百万人在卢比孔河上的渡河行为……则无人关注。 （同上，第11页；另见第12—13页）

历史学家依据自身的兴趣和经验来筛选、解释和呈现事实，但他们所研究的事实也可能引导他们改变自己的观点。因此，历史学家投身于卡尔所说的“过去与现在之间一场永无止境的对话”（同上，第30页）。卡尔认为，这种对话本身，与史学家所书写的那些历史现象一样值得研究。

同样，个人与社会也处于相互对话之中。语言和环境有助于塑造人们的欲望和行动，但人们也能够意识到自己和他人的观点。与黑格尔相呼应，卡尔认为，伟大的人物能够“用语言表达出[其]时代的意志”。³ 然而，他们也有能力和自由去改变和塑造（无论是有意识还是无意识地）世界以及人们的观念（同上，第55页）。因此，卡尔并不为人类在多大程度上是自由的问题而过度担忧。在他看来，卡尔·波普尔和以赛亚·伯林等学者关于自由意志的讨论，不过是冷战时期针对纳粹主义和苏维埃主义所谓决定论学说的论战性抨击。

虽然“决定论”通常被理解为这样一种信念，即历史事件受人类动机和意志之外的因素所控制，但卡尔选择了一种不那么常见的理解，将其视为这样一种信念，即一切发生的事情都有其原因或诸原因，并且除非原因或诸原因中的某些东西也有所不同，否则事情不可能以不同的方式发生。

（同上，第93页）

卡尔认为，在这种意义上理解的决定论，对于历史研究和我们的日常生活都至关重要。例如，如果你的某个朋友做出了一件出人意料的事，你会理所当然地认为其行为一定有某种原因。

卡尔认为，关于偶然性和“反事实”（即“如果……将会怎样”）在历史中的作用的讨论，是另一个“障眼法”。他声称，那些强调偶然事件在历史中作用的人，要么是因为没有把握撰写历史的目的，要么是因为他们属于“处在历史事件波谷而非波峰”的群体或民族（同上，第101页）。历史学家应当转而寻求“理性的”原因，他所谓“理性的”是指那些可以概括并应用于其他时期和地方的原因，因为它们有助于我们根据现在来拓宽对过去的理解，并根据过去来拓宽对现在的理解。任何无助于这一目的的东西，对史学家而言都是“非理性的”、“死的”和“贫瘠的”（同上，第108、166—170页）。

卡尔对史学家选择“理性的”原因的论述，表明他持有一种功能性的或约定性的客观性观念，而非怀疑论的相对主义。在他看来，说某一叙述是客观的，并不意味着它反映了关于过去的绝对真理，而是指它符合社会可接受的看待过去的方式。因此，有些对过去的叙述比其他叙述更为充分或“正确”（同上，第26页）。在卡尔看来，什么算是“社会可接受的”，就是那些能用语言表达出史学家所处时代的意志和目标的东西。如果一个社会的意志和目标发生了变化，那么被认为是客观的东西也会随之改变。因此，卡尔最好被描述为历史的（或曰“境遇性的”）基础主义者，而非绝对基础主义者或怀疑论的相对主义者。客观的叙述因此服务于社会。尽管卡尔不确定我们的社会正朝着什么目标前进，但他愿意说：

我们正在朝着某些目标前进，这些目标只有在我们向它们前进的过程中才能被界定，而它们的有效性只能在对它们的实现过程中得到验证。因此，历史不仅是过去与现在之间的对话，而且是过去、现在与逐步显现的目标之间的对话。 （同上，第119页）

在指出历史研究揭示了人类潜能的渐进发展时，卡尔展现出一种在二十世纪下半叶史学家中罕见的乐观情绪。对他同时代的大多数人而言，上半叶的灾难性事件使人们无法相信进步。即使在卡尔去世前几个月为《历史是什么？》第二版所写的序言中，他仍然准备逆当时的怀疑主义和绝望浪潮而动，“即便不是为乐观主义，至少也要为一种更清醒、更平衡的未来观而提出主张”（同上，第6页；另见“自传”，第xxi页）。

卡尔也比他的同时代人更愿意提出历史是一门科学。对于通常反对历史是科学这一主张的五种论点——即历史揭示不了通则、历史教不了任何教训、历史无法预测、历史必然是主观的，以及历史涉及宗教和道德问题——卡尔认为，没有一条经得起推敲。第一，史学家对语言的使用本身就使他们不得不进行概括（同上，第63—66页）。如果史学家希望被人理解，就必须使用共享的概念。例如，如果没有人知道“革命”这个词是什么意思，那么史学家写一场“革命”就没有意义。此外，史学家将特定历史事件作为“革命”、“战争”等的实例来处理，也并非 unheard of（同上，第63—66页）。第二，卡尔认为，史学家在进行概括时，往往（有意识地或无意识地）根据从其他事件中汲取的教训来审视事件（同上，第66—68页）。第三，尽管历史学家无法预测具体事件，但他们可以做出概括，这些概括既可以作为未来行动的指南，也可以作为我们理解事物发生方式的关键。此外，卡尔认为，科学家本身也不做预测，因为科学定律只是“趋势性陈述，即在其他条件相同或实验室条件下将会发生什么的陈述”（同上，第68—74页）。第四，卡尔认为，科学家和史学家一样，都与他们的研究对象处于一种相互关系之中（同上，第163—165页）。最后，在卡尔看来，史学家和科学家没有义务信仰神灵或绝对道德标准（同上，第74—84页）。卡尔因此得出结论，称历史为一门科学并无不妥。卡尔关于科学与历史之间关系的许多论述都颇具争议，很可能令科学家和史学家 alike 都为之侧目（即使不引起愤怒）。

卡尔对历史中价值判断的处理同样颇具争议。他声称，不存在普遍有效的标准来评判人类行为。在他看来，寻求这种标准是“非历史的，并且违背了历史的本质”。如果史学家要评判个人的行为，他们必须依据当时通行的道德规范。然而，卡尔更倾向于史学家将评判限制在事件、政策和制度上。他声称，这样可以对群体或社会做出评判，否则，如果道德谴责仅限于个人，这些群体或社会就可能获得开脱的借口。例如，他认为“俄国人、英国人和美国人很容易参与对斯大林、内维尔·张伯伦或麦卡锡的人身攻击，将他们作为集体罪行的替罪羊”（同上，第78页）。这或许可以解释为什么在《俄国革命》中他这样写到斯大林：

他复活并超过了早期沙皇最恶劣的暴行；他的记录引起了后世史学家的反感。然而，他在向西方借鉴、迫使原始的俄国建立现代文明物质基础以及赋予俄国在欧洲大国中一席之地方面的成就，迫使这些史学家不得不——无论多么不情愿——承认他的伟大。斯大林是自彼得以来俄国所经历过的最残暴的专制君主，同时也是一位伟大的西化者。 （《俄国革命》，第112页）

史学家的宗旨是告诫读者，不要以那些会助长造就此类个体的社会类型的方式行事。然而，这样做时，卡尔却又让我们不禁疑惑：个体是否在某种程度上是其社会的产物，以至于他们不可能有其他行为方式？例如，斯大林是否要对他的任何恶行承担个人责任？如上例所示，事实的选择和评价性术语的使用是史学家话语中必不可少的部分。因此，即使史学家声称不作判断，他们对特定事实的选择以及诸如“残暴”、“强迫”和“暴行”等词语的使用，也向我们透露了他们对某个人的看法。⁴

许多史学家认为，卡尔对“历史是什么？“这一问题的回答，偏向于怀疑论相对主义这一卡律布狄斯漩涡。⁵ 尽管他在事实本质和历史道德判断方面的论述似乎支持这一结论，但卡尔确实相信史学家可以在功能意义上做到客观。在他看来，客观的史学家超越了自身处境的有限视野，并用语言表达出他们时代的意志和目标。在卡尔乐观的视野中，他们由此推动社会的进步。描述这些目标是什么或应该是什么，以及它们在多大程度上确实塑造了并且应该塑造历史叙述——这项任务将永远让他们忙碌。

卡尔主要著作

《陀思妥耶夫斯基（1821—1881）：新传记》，纽约：霍顿·米夫林出版社，1931年。
《浪漫主义流亡者：十九世纪人物画廊》，伦敦：戈兰茨出版社，1933年。
《卡尔·马克思：狂热主义研究》，伦敦：登特出版社，1934年。
《二十年危机，1919—1939：国际关系研究导论》，修订版，伦敦：麦克米伦出版社，1946年，初版于1939年。
《米哈伊尔·巴枯宁》，伦敦：麦克米伦出版社，1937年。
《和平的条件》，伦敦：麦克米伦出版社，1942年。
《民族主义与以后》，伦敦：麦克米伦出版社，1945年。
《苏维埃俄国史》，14卷，第1—3卷：《布尔什维克革命》；第4卷：《过渡时期》；第5—8卷：《一国社会主义》；第9—14卷：《计划经济的基础》，第9、10卷与R. W. 戴维斯合著，伦敦：麦克米伦出版社，1950—1978年。
《俄国革命：从列宁到斯大林（1917—1929）》，伦敦：麦克米伦出版社，1979年。
《从拿破仑到斯大林及其他论文》，纽约：圣马丁出版社，1980年。
《共产国际的黄昏，1930—1935》，伦敦：麦克米伦出版社，1982年。
《历史是什么？》，修订版，R. W. 戴维斯编，哈蒙兹沃思：企鹅出版社，1986年。
“自传”，载考克斯，M.（编），《E. H. 卡尔：批判性评价》，贝辛斯托克：帕尔格雷夫·麦克米伦出版社，2000年，第xiii—xxii页。

另见：科林伍德、弗格森、詹金斯、泰勒

进一步资源

阿布拉姆斯基，C.，与威廉斯，B. J.（编），《E. H. 卡尔纪念论文集》，伦敦：麦克米伦出版社，1974年。
考克斯，M.（编），《E. H. 卡尔：批判性评价》，贝辛斯托克：帕尔格雷夫·麦克米伦出版社，2000年。
——“E. H. 卡尔与二十世纪自由主义的危机”，《千年：国际研究杂志》，2010年，第38卷（3）：523—533。
戴维斯，R. W.，“爱德华·哈利特·卡尔，1892—1982”，《英国科学院院刊》，1983年，第69卷：473—511。
——“‘扔掉玻璃工业’：与E. H. 卡尔合作”，《新左派评论》，1984年，第145期：56—70。
菲茨帕特里克，S.，“苏联史学中的修正主义”，《历史与理论》，2007年，第46卷（4）：77—91。
哈斯拉姆，J.，《正直的恶习：E. H. 卡尔，1892—1982》，伦敦：维索出版社，1999年。
詹金斯，K.，《论“历史是什么？”：从卡尔和埃尔顿到罗蒂和怀特》，伦敦：劳特利奇出版社，1995年。
拉贝兹，L.，“E. H. 卡尔：被历史超越的历史学家”，《调查》，1988年，第30卷（1—2）：94—111。
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英文原文

Carr’s work took him into the thick of current events.⁶ From 1916 to 1936 he served in the British Foreign Office. He attended the Paris Peace Conference as part of the British delegation and was later an adviser on League of Nations affairs. After being assigned to Riga in the 1920s, Carr became increasingly absorbed in Russian culture and literature, and critical of western liberalism. Between 1931 and 1937 he published works on Dostoevsky, Marx and Bakunin. In 1936 he was appointed Woodrow Wilson Professor of International Politics at the University College of Wales at Aberystwyth. During his time there he published The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939 (1939), Conditions of Peace (1942) and Nationalism and After (1945), works that gave much shape to the fledgling discipline of international relations. He was also an assistant editor of The Times of London during the second world war. After the war, Carr was a fellow of Balliol College, and then Trinity College, Oxford. He remained at Trinity College until his death. It was in Oxford that he wrote the works that he is best known for in the field of history: the monumental A History of Soviet Russia (14 vols, 1950–78) and What is History? (1961, revised edition 1986).

Russia’s tenacity during the second world war prompted Carr’s decision in late 1944 to write a history of the political, social and economic order that emerged in Russia after the October (November, new style) 1917 revolution. In A History of Soviet Russia (see also the summary work, The Russian Revolution, 1979), Carr traces the transformation of Russia from a peasant economy to a modern industrial power able both to compete with the major capitalist powers on equal terms and to withstand the 1929 world economic crisis. As he sees it, that period was dominated by three distinct attempts to raise capital for industrial development. In the first place there were the ‘war communism’ policies of the early 1920s. These policies, Carr suggests, were characterised by the concentration of economic power in large units of production, the supply of basic goods and services for free or at fixed prices, rationing and payments in kind. Their success was undermined by slow growth in the agricultural sector. The second attempt, the New Economic Policy (NEP), allowed peasants, after the delivery of a fixed proportion of their output to the state, to sell the rest on the market. At the same time, industrialists were encouraged to make things that peasants would buy. Agriculture and light consumer industry took off, but at the expense of heavy industry. The third attempt, which was part of Stalin’s plan for ‘socialism in one country’, was characterised by centrally determined production figures and then five-year plans, the forced collectivisation of agriculture and policies favourable to heavy industry.

For Carr, the transformation of Soviet Russia during the period 1917–29 is personified by the transition from Lenin to Stalin. Lenin saw himself as one of a small group of committed revolutionaries who sought ways to give power to the masses and to promote revolution elsewhere in the world. Stalin, on the other hand, required total support for his decisions, treated his opponents ruthlessly, imposed policies from above by force, cared not for world revolution but for making Russia self-sufficient, reduced the policies of the Communist International (Comintern) to those of the USSR and conflated socialism with Russian nationalism (see also The Twilight of the Comintern). Yet it was Stalin, Carr reminds us, who shaped Russia into a great industrial power. At the time that Carr wrote A History of Soviet Russia, the policies of the Soviet regime excited both acclaim and abuse. This polarisation of opinion can be clearly discerned in reviews of Carr’s work. While historians such as A. J. P. Taylor and Hugh Trevor-Roper hailed Carr’s efforts as a landmark in modern history, and Soviet reviewers were cautiously favourable, others considered Carr to be an apologist for Stalin. Carr himself later noted the importance of the political context in which the book was written:

The fact that I was working against a Cold War background of western political opinion (the qualified let-up between 1955 and 1970 released a few documents and permitted some mild criticism of Stalin in the USSR, but scarcely modified the hostility of the west) inevitably meant that my work was regarded by my critics as an apology for Soviet politics. This I took philosophically: the verdict 50 or 100 years hence, if my work is still read then, will be more interesting.⁷

Although there is still debate about Carr’s treatment of Stalin, the History is generally characterised as detailed, perceptive and even-handed.

Carr’s most popular work, What is History?, has also triggered considerable debate. In responding to the question ‘What is history?’, Carr claims to steer a middle course between views of history he attributes to ‘commonsense’ and to R. G. Collingwood, or

between the Scylla of an untenable theory of history as an objective compilation of facts, of the unqualified primacy of fact over interpretation, and of the Charybdis of an equally untenable theory of history as the subjective product of the mind of the historian who establishes the facts of history and masters them through the process of interpretation, between a view of history having the centre of gravity in the past and a view having the centre of gravity in the present. (What is History?, p. 29)

Facts are not ascertained like sense impressions and do not ‘speak for themselves’. Nor are they entirely the creation of historians. For Carr, facts exist apart from the historian, but they only become ‘historical facts’ when they are judged historically significant by selection and interpretation. He writes:

The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context. … It is the historian who has decided for his own reasons that Caesar’s crossing of that petty stream, the Rubicon, is a fact of history, whereas the crossings of the Rubicon by millions of other people … interests nobody at all. (Ibid., p. 11; see also pp. 12–13)

Historians select, interpret and present facts according to their interests and experiences, but the facts that they study may also lead them to change their views. Historians are thus engaged in what Carr calls ‘an unending dialogue between the past and the present’ (ibid., p. 30). This dialogue, Carr feels, is as worthy of study as the phenomena of which historians write about.

Similarly, the individual and society are engaged in reciprocal dialogue. Language and the environment help to shape people’s desires and actions, but they are also able to become aware of their own and other people’s views. Echoing Hegel, Carr contends that great individuals can ‘put into words the will of [their] age’.⁸ Yet they also have the power and the freedom to change and shape (both consciously and unconsciously) the world and people’s ideas (ibid., p. 55). Consequently, Carr is not unduly worried by questions about the extent to which human beings are free. For him, discussions on free will by such writers as Karl Popper and Isaiah Berlin are no more than Cold War polemics levelled against the reputedly deterministic doctrines of Nazism and Sovietism.

Though ‘determinism’ is generally understood as the belief that historical events are controlled by factors other than the motives and volition of human beings, Carr opts for a less common view of it as the belief that everything that happens has a cause or causes, and could not have happened differently unless something in the cause or causes had also been different.

(Ibid., p. 93)

Understood in this sense, Carr argues, determinism is essential both to the study of history and to our everyday lives. For example, if a friend of yours does something unexpected, you take it for granted that there must be some cause of their behaviour.

Discussions on the role of chance and ‘counterfactuals’ (what ifs) in history are for Carr another ‘red herring’. Those who emphasise the role of accidents in history, he claims, do so because they have not grasped the purpose of writing history or because they are part of a group or nation ‘which is riding in the trough, not the crest, of historical events’ (ibid., p. 101). Historians should instead look to ‘rational’ causes, by which he means those that can be generalised and applied to other periods and places, because they serve to broaden our understanding of the past in the light of the present and the present in the light of the past. Anything that fails to contribute to that purpose is to the historian ‘irrational’, ‘dead’ and ‘barren’ (ibid., pp. 108, 166–70).

Carr’s account of the historian’s selection of ‘rational’ causes suggests a functional or conventional view of objectivity, not sceptical relativism. For him, saying that an account is objective means not that it mirrors absolute truths about the past, but that it conforms to socially acceptable ways of viewing the past. Some accounts of the past are thus more adequate or ‘right’ than others (ibid., p. 26). What counts as ‘socially acceptable’ for Carr is that which puts into words the will and the goals of the historian’s age. If the will and goals of a society change, then what is considered to be objective will change also. Carr is thus best described as a historical foundationalist rather than an absolute foundationalist or sceptical relativist. The objective account thus serves society. Though Carr is not sure what goals our society is aiming for, he is prepared to say that

we are progressing towards goals which can be defined only as we advance towards them, and the validity of which can be verified only in a process of attaining them. Thus history is a dialogue not only between past and present, but past, present and progressively emerging goals. (Ibid., p. 119)

In saying that the study of history reveals the progressive development of human potentialities, Carr displays a mood of optimism rare among historians in the latter half of the twentieth century. For the majority of his contemporaries, the catastrophic events of the first half of the century made belief in progress impossible. Even in the preface for the second edition of What is History?, which Carr wrote a few months before his death, he was still prepared to go against the current wave of scepticism and despair and ‘strike out a claim, if not for an optimistic, at any rate for a saner and more balanced outlook on the future’ (ibid., p. 6; see also ‘An Autobiography’, p. xxi).

Carr was also more willing than his contemporaries to suggest that history is a science. Of the five objections generally made against the claim that history is a science – that it reveals no generalisations; that it teaches no lessons; that it is unable to predict; that it is necessarily subjective; and that it involves questions of religion and morality – Carr believes that none stand up to scrutiny. In the first case, the historian’s use of language commits them to generalisation (ibid., pp. 63–6). If historians want to be understood, they must employ shared concepts. It would make no sense for a historian to write of a ‘revolution’, for instance, if no one knows what that word means. Furthermore, it is not unheard of for historians to treat specific historical events as instances of ‘revolutions’, ‘wars’ and so on (ibid., pp. 63–6). Second, Carr believes that when historians generalise they often (consciously or unconsciously) consider events in the light of the lessons learned from other events (ibid., pp. 66–8). Third, although historians cannot predict specific events, they can make generalisations which serve as both guides to future action and keys to our understanding of how things happen. Moreover, Carr believes that scientists themselves do not make predictions, because the laws of science are only ‘statements of tendency, statements of what will happen other things being equal or in laboratory conditions’ (ibid., pp. 68–74). Fourth, Carr considers that scientists and historians alike engage in a reciprocal relationship with their subjects (ibid., pp. 163–5). Finally, for Carr, there is no obligation for historians and scientists to believe in deities or in absolute moral standards (ibid., pp. 74–84). Carr thus concludes that there is no harm in calling history a science. Much of what Carr has to say about the relationship between science and history is contentious, and is likely to raise the eyebrows (if not the hackles) of scientists and historians alike.

Carr’s treatment of value judgements in history is equally contentious. There are, he claims, no universally valid standards by which human actions may be judged. For him, the search for such standards is ‘unhistorical and contradicts the very essence of history’. If the historian is to judge the actions of an individual, they must do so according to the moral norms that prevailed at the time. Carr would prefer, however, that historians restrict their judgements to events, policies and institutions. This, he claims, allows judgements to be made about groups or societies which might otherwise be provided with alibis if moral condemnation were restricted to individuals. For example, he believes that ‘Russians, Englishmen and Americans readily join in personal attacks on Stalin, Neville Chamberlain, or McCarthy as scapegoats for their collective misdeeds’ (ibid., p. 78). This may explain why in The Russian Revolution he writes of Stalin:

He revived and outdid the worst brutalities of the earlier Tsars; and his record excited revulsion in later generations of historians. Yet his achievement in borrowing from the West, in forcing on primitive Russia the material foundations of modern civilisation, and in giving Russia a place among the European powers, obliged them to concede, however reluctantly, his title to greatness. Stalin was the most ruthless despot Russia had known since Peter, and also a great westerniser. (The Russian Revolution, p. 112)

The aim of historians is to warn their readers against acting in ways which would help create the type of society that gave rise to such individuals. In doing so, however, Carr leaves us wondering whether individuals are the product of their society in such a way that they could not have acted otherwise. Is Stalin, for instance, personally responsible for any of his misdeeds? As the above example also shows us, the selection of facts and use of evaluative terms are a necessary part of the historian’s discourse. So even though the historian claims to abstain from judgement, their selection of particular facts and use of words such as ‘ruthless’, ‘forcing’ and ‘brutalities’ tell us something about their view of an individual.⁹

Many historians think that Carr’s answer to the question ‘What is history?’ veers in the direction of the Charybdis of sceptical relativism.¹⁰ Though his pronouncements on the nature of facts and moral judgements on history would seem to support such a conclusion, Carr did believe that historians can be objective in the functional sense. For him, objective historians move beyond the limited vision of their own situation and put into words the will and goals of their age. In Carr’s optimistic view, they thereby foster the progress of society. The task of describing what those goals are, or ought to be, and to what extent they do and should shape historical accounts will always keep them busy.

Carr’s major works

Dostoevsky (1821–1881): a New Biography, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1931.
The Romantic Exiles: a Nineteenth Century Portrait Gallery, London: Gollancz, 1933.
Karl Marx: a Study in Fanaticism, London: Dent, 1934.
The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939: an Introduction to the Study of International Relations, revised edn, London: Macmillan, 1946, first published 1939.
Michael Bakunin, London: Macmillan, 1937.
Conditions of Peace, London: Macmillan, 1942.
Nationalism and After, London: Macmillan, 1945.
A History of Soviet Russia, 14 vols, vols 1–3: The Bolshevik Revolution; vol. 4: The Interregnum; vols 5–8: Socialism in One Country; vols 9–14: Foundations of a Planned Economy, vols 9 and 10 written with R. W. Davies, London: Macmillan, 1950–78.
The Russian Revolution: From Lenin to Stalin (1917–1929), London: Macmillan, 1979.
From Napoleon to Stalin and Other Essays, New York: St Martin’s Press, 1980.
The Twilight of the Comintern, 1930–1935, London: Macmillan, 1982.
What is History?, revised edition, ed. R. W. Davies, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986.
‘An Autobiography’, in Cox, M. (ed.), E. H. Carr: A Critical Appraisal, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000, pp. xiii–xxii.

See also: Collingwood, Ferguson, Jenkins, Taylor

Further resources

Abramsky, C., and Williams, B. J. (eds), Essays in Honour of E. H. Carr, London: Macmillan, 1974.
Cox, M. (ed.), E. H. Carr: A Critical Appraisal, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000.
——‘E. H. Carr and the Crisis of Twentieth-Century Liberalism’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 2010, 38(3): 523–33.
Davies, R. W., ‘Edward Hallett Carr, 1892–1982’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 1983, 69: 473–511.
——‘“Drop the Glass Industry”: Collaborating with E. H. Carr’, New Left Review, 1984, 145: 56–70.
Fitzpatrick, S., ‘Revisionism in Soviet History’, History and Theory, 2007, 46(4): 77–91.
Haslam, J., The Vices of Integrity: E. H. Carr, 1892–1982, London: Verso, 1999.
Jenkins, K., On ‘What is History?’: From Carr and Elton to Rorty and White, London: Routledge, 1995.
Labedz, L., ‘E. H. Carr: an Historian Overtaken by History’, Survey, 1988, 30(1–2): 94–111.
Nishimura, K., ‘E. H. Carr, Dosteovsky, and the Problem of Irrationality’, International Relations, 2011, 25(1): 45–64.
Prince, J. R., Review of What is History?, History and Theory, 1963, 3(1): 136–45.