“Indestructible Superiority Complex”?: The Uses and Pitfalls of Official History

A product of war and subject to competing demands of officialdom and expectations of academia, ‘official history’ in Great Britain has a conflicted past. The tension between these two was often more apparent than real. If anything, as this survey of the Official History Programme and related scholarly endeavours from c. 1906 until the 1970s shows, Whitehall shared an interest in ‘competent and honest history’. Relations between officialdom and academic historians were complex and multifaceted, but both sides benefited from official history as an exercise in policy advice. History, and especially diplomatic history, is an ‘impure’ type of scholarship in that it has practical insights to impart; and in this way official historians helped officials and their superiors to seek new, and perhaps better, perspectives and understanding of present-day problems. Equally, official history has always been a form of public engagement. It is in the public sphere that policy decisions are debated – whether in the here and now or in the future – and ultimately legitimised. And here, too, historical perspectives can be of use.