Eighteenth-century England was a place of enlightenment and revolution: new ideas abounded in science, politics, transportation, commerce, religion, and the arts. But even as England propelled itself into the future, it was preoccupied with notions of its past. Jeremy Black considers the interaction of history with knowledge and culture in eighteenth-century England and shows how this engagement with the past influenced English historical writing. The past was used as a tool to illustrate the contemporary religious, social, and political debates that shaped the revolutionary advances of the era. Black reveals this "present-centered" historical writing to be so valued and influential in the eighteenth-century that its importance is greatly underappreciated in current considerations of the period. In his customarily vivid and sweeping approach, Black takes readers from print shop to church pew, courtroom to painter's studio to show how historical writing influenced the era, which in turn gave birth to the modern world.

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Jeremy Black's Charting the Past is a useful book....For someone new to the field, wishing a guide through the immense thickets of historical writing and its assorted contexts, Black has provided a good start, and fodder for investigation of some of the more obscure writers he usefully brings to light.

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Charting the Past is an enjoyable and informative read that enriches an understanding of eighteenth-century England and serves as a useful primer for further study and research.