Books in the Sources of History series

The purpose of this book is to put before the student of politics and the general reader an overall conspectus of the sources from which political ideas took their origin. The author, who is an acknowledged international authority on the subject and who over many years of intensive research has acquired an intimate familiarity with the material, makes his specialised knowledge available to the non-specialist. The book traverses ground that is virtually uncultivated, and it does so in an exciting way - by taking the reader into the chanceries of governments, of public organs and functionaries, and into the lecture halls of the great scholars in the universities. It shows upon what presuppositions publicists, litterateurs, government advisers, scholars and learned writers have proceeded to arrive at their political views. This variegated mass of material is here comprehensively presented.

This book deals with the main sources of Irish history between c. 400 and c. 1170, and has nine chapters.

Contemporary history poses its own particular and very difficult problems.

In the year 1200, the English Government initiated regular series of record-archives; in 1640, the fall of Charles I's personal government led to the abolition of several central offices and their archives. These events, which both profoundly altered the state of the evidence for the historian, therefore set the limits of this book.

The modern diplomatic system, originating in Italy, spread rapidly over the rest of Europe around 1500. For 'history' this had a two-fold result: an enormous amount of historical documentation produced by the new diplomatic machinery, and a vastly important new area for historical study - the relations of modern states with each other.

The Tudor revival of government and administration in Ireland dramatically increased the quantity of written sources concerning Ireland. This book attempts to survey this documentary material. It also includes an account of the civil and ecclesiastical administration of early modern Ireland.

This book offers a detailed and comprehensive guide to contemporary sources for research into the history of individual nineteenth-century U.S. communities, large and small. The book is arranged topically and thus will be of great use to those investigating particular historical themes at national, state, or regional level.

Probably no period in the history of any country has been studied so thoroughly as the United States. Amidst the vast number of books and articles it is easy to lose sight of the source material on which they depend. This book examines the nature of the principal sources, the kind of information they yield and the limitations to their use.