The great conservative historian, Gertrude Himmelfarb, who
had a special interest of the moral intellectualism of Victorian England, died
December 30 in Washington , D.C.
A Jew born in Brooklyn
in 1922, Himmelfarb was drawn to history to learn what those of the present had
forgotten, as opposed to imposing present standards upon the past, and
recognized the role of historian as a moralist.
She was the wife of neo-conservative Irving Kristol and mother of
conservative author and activist Bill Kristol.
Himmelfarb emphasized the role of
intellectuals in history and advanced the historiography of the history of
ideas. She described a paradox of
“liberalism” that threatens the foundation of individual liberty by an
overemphasis of individual liberty. Himmelfarb
had a particular interest in English statesman and historian Lord Acton. Acton ’s
identification of the rise of the power of the State over the Church was a
danger she wrote about, particularly his emphasis on religious liberty as a
communal freedom and how moralism must be expressed in public life. Himmelfarb observed how the Victorians
dignified the poor as part of society and valued responsibility and compassion
as a moral prescription for balancing individual and communal liberty within a
free society and free market. Her
insights informed conservative arguments against both liberalism and
libertarianism.
Himmelfarb authored many books from
1952 to 2017. She wrote about Lord Acton,
Edmund Burke, Charles Darwin and John Stuart Mill, and of the morals and
culture generally of the Victorians and on contemporary political topics. Himmelfarb’s The Roads to Modernity: The British, French and American Enlightenments,
published in 2004, was her most popular. She was also a contributor to Commentary from the 1940s to the 2010s, among other publications.
May Gertrude Himmelfarb’s writings
and historiographical methods continue to inform and inspire Americans and
others who love liberty.
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