The Value of Diplomatic History: A Case Study in the Historical Thought of Herbert Butterfield

This article, substantially based on archival sources, aims to rehabilitate diplomatic history as a mode of enquiry and education using the insights and reflections of Sir Herbert Butterfield, one of the leading historians of the twentieth century. Integrated with developments in theory, methodology and new areas of inquiry over the past generation, his thoughts, it will be argued, can inform the tenets of a revitalized diplomatic history—one that fulfills the promise of its founding scholars and one that reclaims its place at the forefront of historical scholarship: a corrective to some of our present academic priorities.