‘Full of Ghosts': H.A.L. Fisher, England and European identity

H.A.L. Fisher occupied a prominent position in British public life as a scholar and public intellectual but also as a political figure. His History of Europe was his magnum opus, in many ways the summation of a life spent grappling with Europe's conflicted past. The work can also serve as a useful prism through which to study broader attitudes towards the idea of Europe in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. This article examines the liberal internationalist tradition in British public life through Fisher’s oeuvre and his correspondence. Ultimately, even to some as sensitive to the 'haunting dream' of European unity as Fisher was, Britain – or rather to him England – was not wholly of Europe. To him England’s character and identity were separate from the rest of continental Europe. To that extent Fisher gave expression to beliefs and ideas about Britain and Europe, and the relations between them, that were widely held in his lifetime, and that still resonate today.