Whig history

Abstract

Whig history (or Whig historiography) is an approach to historiography that presents the past as an inevitable progression towards ever greater liberty and enlightenment, culminating in modern forms of liberal democracy and constitutional monarchy. In general, Whig historians emphasize the rise of constitutional government, personal freedoms and scientific progress. The term is often applied generally (and pejoratively) to histories that present the past as the inexorable march of progress towards enlightenment. The term is also used extensively in the history of science to refer to historiography that focuses on the successful chains of theories and experiments that led to present-day theories while ignoring failed theories and dead ends.Whig history is rooted in European Enlightenment thinking that gave rise to European liberalism and Marxist theory of history, which itself is influenced by Christianity's teleological assumption that mankind must progress towards a certain goal. Liberalism puts its faith in the power of human reason to reshape society, disregarding contexts of history. It proposes the inevitable, universal progress of humankind. The Marxist theory of history, meanwhile, presupposes that humanity is moving through historical stages to the classless, stateless, moneyless and egalitarian society to which communism aspires. Whig history laid the groundwork for modernization theory and the resulting deployment of development aid around the world after World War II, which has sometimes been criticized as destructive to its recipients.