• 1 See e.g. Dominick LaCapra, Rethinking Intellectual History : Texts, Contexts, Language, Ithaca, Cor (...)

1To delve into the historian’s toolkit exposes us to the risk of providing either patronising or hackneyed advice whose actual effect on the ways research is conducted proves negligible. This being said, it is undeniable that intellectual history represents a valuable instance of how dialogue on methodological and historiographical issues can be constructively pursued, generating important outcomes and fruitful debates1.

• 2 Oxford English Dictionary, “ism, n.” (the author consulted both the hardback version and the online (...)
• 3 As for what follows, see OED, “ism, suffix”.

3The Oxford English Dictionary primarily defines an ism as “[a] form of doctrine, theory, or practice having, or claiming to have, a distinctive character or relation.” Less neutrally, it points out that an ism is “chiefly used disparagingly2.” Above all, from the OED we learn that isms refer to the following units of meaning3 :

• 5 The references that follow are mainly taken from the OED.
• 6 See T. J. Hogg, The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, London, E. Moxon, 1858 ; 4 vols, i, p. 373.
• 7 See OED, “ism, n.” for examples of this belief. In 1867-8 Matthew Arnold – much hostile towards ism (...)
• 8 Marcel Proust, “Sodome et Gomorrhe”, in À la Recherche du Temps Perdu, Paris, Gallimard, 1954, Bibl (...)
• 9 Phillipe Sollers, Femmes, Paris, Gallimard, 1983, p. 151.

4This dry taxonomy comes to life when we look at some chiefly negative historical examples of how isms and their users have been regarded since the eighteenth century5. A telling sample of various social mindsets and literary conventions comes from a letter dated 4 November 1789 where Horace Walpole reproached his interlocutor for his tendency to “squabble about Socianism, or some of these isms.” Twenty two years later, in a display of filial disaffection Percy Bysshe Shelley contemptuously proclaimed : “He [his own father] is nothing – no ‘ist’, professes no ‘ism’, but superbism and irrationalism6.” More cheerfully, in October 1820 in A Letter to M. Allen Thomas Carlyle stated : “I expect much pleasure from talking over old bygone things, from discussing Spürzheimism [Spürzheim was the founder of phrenology], Whiggism, Church of Englandism, and all other imaginable ‘isms.’” On a harsher note, the issue of Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country (June 1840, xxi, 702) referring to women and their place in society as well as to socialism and Owenism unsympathetically declared that “[a]ll the untidy isms of the day shall be dissipated.” In general, in nineteenth-century Britain it was believed that the plague of isms had spread from France as a result of the French Revolution7. As for French views of isms, in 1921-2 Marcel Proust sarcastically dismissed the famous French diplomat Talleyrand as “one of the inventors of dilettantism [“dilettantisme”], of I couldn’t-care-lessism [“je m’enfichisme”], of many words in ‘ism’ now in fashion with our little snobs [“nos snobinettes”]8.” Another star of the French literary pantheon, Philippe Sollers, had one of his fictional characters mull over “[a]narchism, cubism, surrealism, communism” and scathingly remark that “‘isms’ after all give the impression of having been fabricated in order to hide the dawn of new names9.”

• 10 It is generally accepted that the suffix “ismatic” pertained to the ism-category, indicating adhere (...)
• 11 See Nicholas Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists : the Rise of English Arminianism c.1590-1640, Oxford, OUP, 19 (...)
• 12 See below.

5Despite this apparent post-1789 flourishing of isms, in the early modern period the adjectival forms “ist” and “ian” and their derivative nouns “ists” and “ians” were more commonly employed than isms10. The latter were applied as convenient short-hands like in the case of “Arminianism” in seventeenth-century English political and religious discourse11 or when describing the thought and/or activities of one person from whom a movement or group of ideas took their origins (“Hobbism”)12. In fact, it is often assumed that all isms, which abound not only in political discourse but also in sociological, juridical and journalistic language, constitute technical words which the specialist is supposed to decode for us. Implied in this view is the distinction between common language as it is employed by people in their daily interaction with the world and a more intellectually subtle and evolving conceptual use.

• 13 As for the second kind, see further down in this paper.
• 14 Cited in M. B. Ferrari, “Incontri sul Grande Fiume 5. Ma cosa fai Guareschi in bicicletta ? Nel pae (...)
• 15 However, it can be said with reasonable confidence that positive (or, at least, neutral) connotatio (...)
• 16 Cited in Richard Newbury, “Graham Greene : Spiare, vizietto di famiglia”, La Stampa, 31 December 20 (...)

6Searching for examples of the first kind, that is of how isms are present in everyday parlance13, we find that on 9 August 2010 in an article published in the Italian daily La Stampa, Alberto Guareschi, son of the famous Italian journalist, cartoonist and humorist Giovannino Guareschi (best-known for his literary creation of the priest Don Camillo) said that his father “was against all ‘isms’, fascism, communism […] and he made use of the pen as a weapon, writing and drawing. He never took himself too seriously and his self-mockery made him closer to his readers14.” This brief statement is significant in that it reveals a die-hard conviction that isms are not only the opposite of irony, but that they encapsulate the ideological poison whose lethal effects caused the tragic events which occurred in the twentieth century15. To confirm this view stands none other than Joseph Goebbels who referred to communism, fascism, Catholicism and liberalism as “lies big enough to be believed16.”

• 17 We are aware that our choice of isms is arbitrary and that examples could be multiplied almost ad i (...)
• 18 Edmund Husserl, “The Vienna Lecture. Appendix 1 : Philosophy and the Crisis of European Humanity”, (...)
• 19 See David Carr, “Translator’s Introduction”, in Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences, p. xv-xli (...)

7Other isms might be perceived as less dangerous, but they are still capable of arousing vehement reactions17. Amongst these is intellectualism, which is identified with the practice of turning simple things into complicated and overly unclear matters. As an attitude towards life, intellectualism is despised as the opposite of a good and matter-of-fact (hence healthy) conduct. Confirming this diagnosis is the case of the philosopher Edmund Husserl who in 1935 predicted that he would be accused of rescuing “an intellectualism which loses itself in theories alienated from the world, with its necessary evil consequences of a superficial lust for erudition and an intellectualistic snobbism18.” Husserl’s defence was all the more vital when one considers that the Nazis had at that time made of “antirationalism” and “anti-intellectualism” two explicit touchstones of their propaganda19.

• 20 In The Moral Basis of a Backward Society (1958) – dedicated to the study and observation of the inh (...)
• 21 See e.g. Giulio Bollati, L’Italiano. Il carattere nazionale come storia e come invenzione, Turin, E (...)

8Some isms are thought to be useful to capture individual and/or collective behaviour in society. In these cases, it is often the moral sphere to receive the greatest attention. An insightful instance of this is familism, which describes the historically enduring custom of Italian public life to make of the family the primary societal unit in the country. “Amoral familism”20 – as it was very perceptively captured by Federico de Roberto’s (1861-1927) novel I Viceré (1894) – can be employed as an effective key to access Italian history since the Unity (1861). This is to say that, thanks to this concept, one understands a phenomenon whereby the family is the springboard on which a great deal of affective, professional and political relationships centre and which has led the country to high levels of corruption, public inefficiency and constant opposition to the processes of modernity and modernization21.

• 22 See Edward W. Said, Orientalism : Western Conceptions of the Orient, London, Routledge, 1978. Said (...)
• 23 Kant referred to a condition where mankind would be deprived of freedom and dignity, and where peop (...)
• 24 Whereas Francophobia can be found in the OED and is used currently, anti-Frenchism is not recorded (...)

9To be a source of heated disputes does not prevent isms from being successful : Orientalism – rocketed to academic stardom thanks to the highly influential as well as deeply divisive book on Western attitudes to the East written by Edward W. Said (1978)22 – and barbarism – to be found in Immanuel Kant’s What is Enlightenment ? (1784)23 – are only two examples amongst a plethora of terms frequently used by the literati. It is also important to consider that there are isms which are marked by the anti prefix. In this regard, the central question is whether it is plausible to adopt a polemical term such as, for instance, anti-Americanism (curiously, we do not have anti-Frenchism24 or anti-Italianism) in a scholarly context. Obviously, this type of ism has derogatory connotations which might be seen as the attempt to exclude a critical analysis of a phenomenon or set of ideas, and thus to prevent debate. However, at other times the category can be legitimately used by the scholar in the study of a certain time’s mindset, views or policies (e.g. anti-Americanism in the context of the Cold War could be an uncontroversial instance of this).

• 25 This idea relies on the work of Reinhart Koselleck and of conceptual historians (see e.g. Javier Fe (...)

10The various typologies of isms hitherto illustrated – taken from historically and culturally different contexts – enter manifold fields of discourse (political, moral, intellectual, geographical, temporal etc.) and convey multiple meanings which are often the result of the pursuit and/or the defence of power. Isms are constantly alterable and expanding categories ready to include new ideas within their definitions. They are an attempt to seize an ever-changing reality and, consequently, they are used, understood and judged in different ways according to intellectual trends, social realities and political interests. In other words, they are not only “indicators” of change but also “factors” of it25. Isms reveal much about our ways of interpreting the world as well as of modifying it or conditioning it.

• 26 Michael Quinion gathers an impressive quantity of categories but limits his analysis to the descrip (...)
• 27 A. London Fell, Origins of Legislative Sovereignty and the Legislative State : Volume 5, Modern Ori (...)
• 28 London Fell, Origins of Legislative Sovereignty. Volume 5, Book II, p. ix.
• 29 Ibid., p. x.
• 30 Ibid., p. xi, p. 1, p. 2-3. See also A. London Fell, Origins of Legislative Sovereignty and the Leg (...)
• 31 London Fell, Origins of Legislative Sovereignty. Volume 5, Book II, p. 3.
• 32 Glenn Burgess reviewed London Fell’s discussion of these isms in The Sixteenth Century Journal, 29 (...)
• 33 London Fell, Origins of Legislative Sovereignty. Volume 5, Book II, p. 335 (his italics). In partic (...)

11Despite being a recurrent feature of discourse both in common parlance and in a good range of intellectual fields, there are very few studies dedicated to isms26. One exception is A. London Fell’s work on the major isms of early modernity and modernity27. Interestingly, London Fell pointed to the numerous “forms of ideology expressed as ‘isms’” thriving in the American public press during the heated political debates of the 1990s between Republicans and Democrats. The then President Bill Clinton accused his opponent Newt Gingrich of unduly inciting “rivalry” between conservatism and liberalism28. For London Fell such a public interest in isms showed that what in the nineteenth century had been “endemic” had by then become “epidemic29.” Myriad terms ending in ism could be found not just in the larger arena of public discourse and media, but also in a wide spectrum of academic fields from the history of art to philosophy and legal-political thought. In this respect, according to London Fell, the misuse of isms on the part of historians had led to sundry anachronistic interpretations of the past. For this reason, he adopted a – loosely conceived – deconstructionist approach to these “problematical ‘constructs’”, so as “to exploit” and “to explode” them30. Behind his anti-“modernistic” deconstructionist project lay what London Fell called an attempt at ‘“de-Hegelianizing’” the welter of “anachronisms [sic] and ideological ‘isms’” that have dominated scholarship on the modern state in the last two centuries31. Viewing them as “artificial academic devices” disconnected from the historical texts they purported to analyze, he astringently declared that “to apply the suffix ‘ism’” – he took the three antithetical couples of absolutism-constitutionalism, rationalism-empiricism and liberalism-conservatism32 – implies a large degree of scholarly blindness in that it obfuscates one’s “perception of a problem.” In consequence, this process “needs to be dispelled33.”

• 34 See London Fell, Origins of Legislative Sovereignty. Volume 5, Book II, p. 11.
• 35 On this perspective see John W. Burrow, “Duncan Forbes and the History of Ideas : an Introduction t (...)
• 36 London Fell openly stated that he believed in the importance of being “value-neutral, as well as ‘s (...)

12In summary, if it is right to underscore that studying history through isms is open to pitfalls, it is also true that to use isms does not always correspond to invoking a quasi-Hegelian mystique of development34. Rather, it means to advance a more fragmented reading of ideas in a given historical context with the platitudinous but fundamental goal of communicating knowledge to modern readers and of making sense of what went on before us. It also means to accept that the historian is inevitably caught in the whirlwind of his/her time’s intellectual activity, scholarly fashions and cultural interests, which shape the direction of his/her research35. If warning against anachronisms superimposed on historical sources and presentist interpretations of them is fruitfully pursued by people like London Fell, it has nonetheless to be observed that this type of approach presupposes that original texts and meanings exist and that as such they can be recovered thanks to the oracular voice of the historian36.

• 37 Angelo d’Orsi (ed.), Gli ismi della politica. 52 voci per ascoltare il presente, Rome, Viella, 2010
• 38 d’Orsi, “Presentazione”, in Angelo d’Orsi (ed.), Gli ismi della politica, p. vii-xi, p. viii. As a (...)

13More recently, the Italian historian Angelo d’Orsi issued a series of short-entries dedicated to various political isms37. Surprisingly though, the volume says nothing about the methodological use and philosophical role of isms in historical research. It is as if the editor and the contributors to the volume took for granted the legitimacy of using them. Aiming to dispel the “‘confusionism’” in which current European political debates are enmeshed, d’Orsi simply maintained that “[e]ach ism constitutes an idea, a movement, [which can be] theoretical or practical, not only political”, and whose purpose is “to communicate and spread one or more principles : art and philosophy, religions and literature, even sport and fashion, have their own isms38.”

• 39 Harro Höpfl, “Isms”, British Journal of Political Science, 13 (1983), p. 1-17, here p. 1-2.
• 40 They then passed on to Latin from which, in turn, developed the French isme and the English ism, wh (...)
• 41 Ibid., p. 9.
• 42 Isms went from meaning “abusive” to “technical” (ibid., p. 5-6).

14Harro Höpfl can be considered the only theorist who systematically engaged with the practice of using isms in historical and philosophical scholarship, and with the ensuing methodological problems39. Focusing on etymology, Höpfl argued that ism-formations did not express the content of a doctrine or body of ideas. In their original Greek form “ismòs”40, isms served as derogatory and abusive terms with which to define heretical, unorthodox or false beliefs held by one’s adversaries, and to characterize their conduct as much as their way of being. Subsequently, isms played a role in “the construction of developmental histories” to define “forces and agencies” behind social progress and change as well as to explain such histories in a more accessible fashion within a polemical context. They thus came to represent more than simple labels for people’s creeds : they expressed “agents and causes41.” In light of this evolutionary trend42, Höpfl provided a series of “genealogical” units with which to classify isms :

• 44 Ibid., p. 1.
• 45 Ibid., p. 13-14.
• 46 Ibid., p. 15.
• 47 Ibid., p. 15-16.

15Most importantly, Höpfl asserted that isms serve to create “a subject-matter for oneself44.” Their popularity stems from the fact that a precise definition of what they mean is not required. Instead of being seen as a problem of synthesis, they should lead their users to “a pause of reflection” in order to specify what one is referring to by them45. This way of proceeding is easier to pursue, according to Höpfl, when the referent is a set of doctrines instead of a phenomenon (such as “fascism, communism, colonialism, leftism, pacifism, individualism, collectivism, etc.”)46. This is allegedly so because in the former case the category entails a process of self-identification on the part of the actors involved, whilst in the latter instance one has to confront the impossibility to grasp historical phenomena by dint of a simple ism. To remedy this last problem, Höpfl (perhaps a little too reductively) concluded, it is not sufficient for scholars to declare what it is they mean by their ism since this is tantamount to highlighting one aspect to the detriment of a larger spectrum of components pertaining to the occurrence or circumstances under scrutiny47.

• 48 Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being. A Study of the History of an Idea, Cambridge, Mass., H (...)
• 49 Nicholas Henshall, “Early Modern Absolutism 1550-1700 : Political Reality or Propaganda ?”, in Rona (...)
• 50 Ibid., p. 51.

16Much more trenchantly, the founding father of the history of ideas Arthur O. Lovejoy had warned that isms are “trouble-breeding and usually thought-obscuring terms, which one sometimes wishes to see expunged from the vocabulary of the philosopher and the historian altogether48.” By the same token, Nicholas Henshall proclaimed that to study early modern political history implies the need to dispense with “a series of early nineteenth-century ‘isms’, which still obscure the differences between early modern consciousness and our own49.” According to Henshall, terms like “‘liberalism’, ‘socialism’, ‘communism’, ‘nationalism’ and ‘absolutism’ met the needs of political and social polemic in the 1820s and 1830s”, but they do not help historical recovery of the past. Henshall disparagingly argued that “[t]he beauty of ‘isms’ is that everything can be made to fit them” : they are generalizations which are used as historical tools50.

• 51 Höpfl, “Isms”, p. 14.

17Pace Lovejoy and Henshall (and to some extent Höpfl too), we nonetheless believe that many abhorred isms are endowed with sound explanatory power and, therefore, can be used to describe portions of political thinking, social life and economic trends expressed in various mediums in the past across the world. In this respect, Höpfl’s approach whereby there are “three sorts of -isms which, at least in the hands of careful users, occasion no particular difficulty” - that is isms accepted by those grouped under a category ; isms referring to stances in a specific debate ; and isms created “ad hoc” to speak of “some determinate doctrine already identified independently of -isms” - is more incisive and deserves our attention51.

• 52 This is the approach taken by scholars like Conal Condren and Jonathan Clark (exponents of a “lingu (...)
• 53 Davis, “Afterword”, p. 367.

18As for the first point, we think that the criterion of self-identification (on the part of a group of presumed adherents) as determinant in establishing the legitimacy and validity of an ism can hinder the work of the historian in that it assumes that, to use an interpretative category to describe something in the past, that same category had to exist then52. In practice, this view - as will be elaborated below - restrains the creative element informing all history-writing. In fact, if applied with due caution and awareness of their conventionality, isms can serve as interpretative torches with which to throw light on a more or less coherent plurality of ideas formulated at a given time in a specific historical milieu within a more or less wide array of texts. Thus, for instance, one can reasonably adopt “radicalism” to refer to “radical moments of actions devoid of a programmatic radicalism, that is the development of radically pragmatic responses under the sheer pressure of events and circumstances”53, to describe the situation in which many early seventeenth-century English Puritans thought and acted.

• 54 The two historical junctures at which “European thought appears to have been particularly productiv (...)

19With regard to Höpfl’s second remark on isms to be found in intellectual debates as objects of dispute or weapons with which to attack one’s adversaries, we deem it necessary to consider some historical examples detailing the first appearances of some of the categories most frequently mentioned in the scholarship. This way of proceeding will provide a unique illustration of how isms played a decisive role in early modern polemics. It will also show that they established the meanings of concepts or currents of thought which were to rise to prominence in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Thus, searching for early instances of isms (notably, in the English context) we find that Machiavellism, Hobbism, Jesuitism, fanaticism and a few others were fairly common both as ideological markers in political and religious controversies, and as labels with which to identify sets of ideas, principles and patterns of behaviour54.

• 55 Thomas Nash, Christs Teares ouer Ierusalem [...], London, 1593, p. 80b.
• 56 A. E. Baldini, “Machiavellismo e machiavellismi : progetto di ricerca e messa a punto di un concett (...)
• 57 Baldini, “Machiavellismo e machiavellismi”, p. 38.
• 58 Ibid., p. 39-41.

20During the Elizabethan and Stuart eras, “Machiavellism” appeared as an abusive epithet in the works of authors such as Thomas Nash (1593, where an attack was launched on “veneriall machauielisme”)55, George Downame (1603), Thomas Morton (1606), Andrew Willet (1607), Robert Bolton (1631) and William Burghley (1675). This might not come as a surprise, given the troubled pedigree of the Florentine’s doctrines and their impact on European political theory and practice. And yet knowledge of this is a far cry from providing a thorough account of its fortunes. In fact, as Enzo Baldini underlined56, Machiavellism is an “ambiguous and difficult-to-seize” term. By and large, it indicates “theoretical arguments and political conducts” which throughout the centuries have directly referred to the Florentine’s works. However, it has also been identified with all kinds of unscrupulous behaviour and has often been equated to the paradigm of “reason of State57.” As a result, we can say that, whilst “Machiavellian” has to do with the theories elaborated by Machiavelli himself, “Machiavellism” denotes a re-elaboration of his theories in another historical context (e.g. the wars of religion in France or in relation to republican thinking). This process includes translations and interpretations of his writings pursued in a more or less faithful way. In addition to this distinction, we have the terms “Machiavellic” (machiavellico) and “Machiavellist” (machiavellista) : the former is employed in common parlance to refer to cunning and untrustworthy conduct (with an emphasis on plotting and dissimulation) ; the latter points to a disciple of Machiavelli, that is one who puts into practice his teachings without any moral caution or scruple but with the exclusive aim of achieving personal gain. Finally, from the usage of the Florentine’s works and ideas it has been possible to define Machiavellism as a “‘political principle’”, whereby for a state (or for those in power) it is licit to act in any way which is conducive to the benefit of one’s country, especially if this is done in contrast to other states58.

• 59 John Collinges, A reasonable account why some pious, nonconforming ministers in England judge it si (...)
• 60 This can be verified by searching the database Early English Books Online (EEBO).

21Equally controversial albeit less enduring than Machiavellism was “Hobbism.” If John Collinges (1679) argued that “the world were drunk with Hobbism & Parkerism”59, decrying what he saw as nefarious political models, sundry thinkers associated Hobbism primarily with “Atheism60.” It appeared in this vein in the works of, amongst others, Anne Conway (late 1670s), Zachary Cawdrey (1681), Edward Stillingfleet (1681), William Sherlock (1687), Jeremy Collier (1689) and Richard Baxter (1689 : “Peccadillo as Atheism, Sadduceism, Bestiality, Hobbism, Popery, Man-slaughter, Adultery, Drunkenness, Swearing”).

• 61 Owen (d.1623) was the author of Herod and Pilate Reconciled (1610) in which the last chapter is tit (...)
• 62 “Iesuitisme” appeared soon after (Georg Sohn, 1592 ; Christopher Bagshaw, 1601 ; Antoine Arnauld, 1 (...)
• 63 See EEBO.

22Making people who were normally at odds with one another agree, the bogeyman of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English public polemics “Jesuitismus” was used by Laurence Humphrey as early as 1582, and then in the tracts of Francis Hastings (1600), David Owen (1610)61 and William Prynne (1655)62. It was vehemently and univocally attacked as the embodiment of scheming politics, ideological danger and reprehensible moral conduct. Equally endowed with negative connotations and thrown around as a term of insult to describe doctrinally extreme positions typical of zealous and enthusiastic people was “fanaticism”, which can be found in the works of John Gaule (1657), Samuel Fisher (1660, spelt “Fanaticisme”), John Corbet (1661) and Jeremy Taylor (1663)63.

• 64 Around the same time, it was maintained “that love of despotism [...] is imbied with the name of ki (...)
• 65 See e.g. Conal Condren, Argument and Authority in Early Modern England. The Presupposition of Oaths (...)
• 66 Henry More, Some cursory reflexions impartially made upon Mr. Richard Baxter [...], London, 1685, p (...)
• 67 See EEBO.

23Besides these fairly straightforward categories, one can point to others where flexibility of meaning and contextual changes engendered opposite definitions of the very same term. This was certainly the case of “patriotism”, an instance of which featured in Thomas Urquhart’s Logopandecteision (1653)64. In fact, whereas in the Tudor era the appeal to patriotism indicated support for the monarch, in the 1620s claiming to be on the patriotic side meant to manifest one’s loyalty to the nation in contrast to the king. Patriotism served opposite political projects and theoretical discourses65. As for “republicanism” (a source of heated historiographical dispute for the past twenty years), Henry More (1685) left his readers in no doubt about his stance on what it stood for when he declared that “Monarchy is secured against Republicanism, Blood, […] and Rebellion66.” Meanwhile, in other texts from the late seventeenth century (e.g. those of Denis Grenville and Luke Milbourne) republicanism was equated with popularity67.

• 68 Ecclesia anglicana appeared well before Anglican (1635) : see Julian Davies, The Caroline Captivity (...)
• 69 Michael P. Winship, “Freeborn (Puritan) Englishmen and Slavish Subjection : Popish Tyranny and Puri (...)
• 70 William Bradshaw, English Puritanisme, London, 1605. Like the labels “Arminianism” and “papism”, “P (...)
• 71 See e.g. Reginald Pole, The seditious and blasphemous oration of Cardinal Pole [...], London, 1560, (...)

24Another significant instance of a scholarly contentious ism is “Anglicanism.” Whilst it was not employed before the 1830s and 1840s, “Anglianisme” had already been used in 1616 in Thomas Hanab’s Tessaradelphus68. Earlier still, attacking the jailed separatist lawyer Henry Barrow, the Episcopal archenemy of Puritans Richard Bancroft had complained about the “new frenzy of Barrowisme” (1593)69. In 1605 the prolific nonconformist pamphleteer William Bradshaw had issued the laconically titled English Puritanisme, providing evidence that this other historiographically disputed ism existed in the Jacobean period70. Going back in time we discover that “Lutheranysme” and “Lutheranisme” as well as “Caluinisme” were also part and parcel of early modern religious parlance, especially to indicate two forms of “schism71.”

• 72 Höpfl, “Isms”, p. 14.

25Having so far addressed two of the three points raised by Harro Höpfl, it is now time to turn to the last and most relevant one : this has to do with isms created “ad hoc” to speak of “some determinate doctrine already identified independently of –isms.” To analyze this complex issue entails two things. Firstly, to attempt an inevitably limited but hopefully insightful classification of legitimate – to paraphrase Höpfl’s words72 – ism-categories which might help us to spot opinions, to speak of ideas and to identify moods present in a given context. Secondly, to examine what kinds of tools we use in our activity as interpreters of the past and, more specifically, to reflect on the practice of history-writing and its meaning from the methodological perspective of intellectual history. The next and final paragraphs deal with these two concerns.

• 73 Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, p. 6.

26If Lovejoy’s claim (reported above) that the historian’s toolkit should be purged of isms is exceedingly harsh, his observation that isms “are names of complexes, not of simples” serves one of the cornerstones of the present essay73. We are aware of the intricate network of theoretical avenues crossing history and of the difficult task of undoing them. But it is nonetheless necessary to sketch a variegated multiplicity of language-patterns to be found on the canvas of this very history where they have been woven in different ways by men and women. This means that, as neologisms signal a change in the perception of the world on the part of a community, so the invention of new isms by the historian helps to shed light on phenomena hitherto left unearthed and to excavate novel ideas deposited in the past.

• 74 Alexander Schmidt, “Irenic Patriotism in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century German Political Discou (...)
• 75 Ibid., p. 245.
• 76 See ibid., esp. p. 265-268.
• 77 Ibid., p. 248, p. 249.
• 78 See ibid., p. 250-253.
• 79 Ibid., p. 258.
• 80 Ibid., p. 260.
• 81 Ibid., p. 268-269.

27This is precisely the case of a recent article by Alexander Schmidt where the category of “‘irenic patriotism’” is employed to analyze “different phases of irenic debate in the Empire” in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries74. Aiming to achieve religious peace through “both utilitarian politique and more principled arguments”75, “irenic patriotism” for Schmidt was more than Hugo Grotius’ irenicism in that it promoted the idea of the church’s complete submission to the authority of the magistrate and to the patria76. Generally seen as binary opposites so that “anyone who changed religion was a traitor to his country”, patriotism and irenicism became to be associated when the former was used as an antidote to religious conflict and sectarian confessionalism “in late sixteenth-century Germany, France and the Netherlands77.” In the post-1555 German context of religious strife, amor patriae served the peace cause and fostered unity to the detriment of private interests78. Most importantly, this rhetoric of toleration based on patriotic claims – Schmidt argued – was not the fruit of the efforts of “isolated” humanists, but it resulted from “a much broader debate79.” The latter was animated by a flurry of different texts focused on the interplay of “religious concessions, tolerance, and the defence of the fatherland80.” From this Schmidt inferred that those who set out such ideas were exponents of an “irenic patriotism” that had a “greater practical impact” than traditional irenic narratives of Christian reunion. In interweaving the irenic and the patriotic motifs, they tempered the potentially aggressive features of “a narrow patriotism” and highlighted the successful potential of a peace-driven love of fatherland against all confessional war81.

• 82 This expression is taken from Said, “Orientalism Reconsidered”, p. 211.
• 83 This view is supported by neo-Historicism, with its nominalist approach to all types of scholarly c (...)

28In carving out “irenic patriotism” as distinct from “reason of State” or “politique” patriotism, Schmidt’s research prompts important methodological questions on how to address paradigms of thought in a given historical context and on how to unfold features of past-discourses which have not been previously taken into account. His piece shows how isms display new objects of study, foster “new projects of knowledge”82 and unmask hermeneutical deception. Against arguments that they inevitably produce essentialist universalism83, Schmidt’s article confirms the (didactically useful) potential carried by isms in uncovering and expounding intellectual complexity. It also encourages us to break the unitary epistemological and interpretative model whereby the past is made of polar opposites (often expressed via misconceived and reductive isms).

• 84 To the possible question of what difference does it make whether a term which denotes some ideology (...)

29Thus, on the basis of what has been outlined in the foregoing paragraphs, we will now formulate a different (less evolutionary than Höpfl’s) proposal on isms, their mode d’emploi and their value. Six non-mutually-exclusive categories emerge84 :

• 86 See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, transl. E. Anscombe, Oxford, Blackwell, 1963 (...)

30This way of proceeding is inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s idea of discourse as social practice and language in action. It applies to the issue of isms a sort of Wittgensteinian-linguistic cartography, an anthropology of language-usage86. This is not some kind of Borgesian utopia/dystopia whose ambition is to catalogue every application of isms. Rather, it is an attempt to provide a picture of some central ism-uses. Despite being a work ad infinitum, this strategy enables us to recognize some cardinal points on our intellectual horizon and on that of the men and women studied. As a geographical map does not exactly correspond to the surface of the earth, so a schematic grid of ism-applications does not exhaust the entirety of all possible uses, but makes us more aware of the territory on which we move as investigators of the past. Exploring the ways in which isms might be adopted as well as how they fit with past terminology can be illuminating for the historian at pains to understand different theories, convictions and prejudices.

• 87 If we choose, instead, to follow an equally large number of scholars, philosophers, sociologists an (...)
• 88 See John G. A. Pocock, “The Concept of a Language and the Métier d’Historien : Some Considerations (...)

32If we take heed of several voices heard in this piece, we are told we should get rid of isms87. This is due to the reductionist and constraining configuration of the past they are supposed to seize and give account of. And yet the problem remains : what do we replace many of the isms with ? What are the alternatives, and if we identify them, why are they in any lasting sense less problematic terms to become part and parcel of our scholarly vocabulary and methodological toolbox ? To attempt to give an answer to these questions implies setting forth a few considerations on the métier d’historien88. Practitioners of different disciplines within the larger framework of history-writing disagree about the right thing to do with regard to method and often dismiss ways of proceeding which are not in tune with theirs as unfounded and sloppy. Instead of perpetuating this less than sympathetic trend and prescribe recipes for the good scholar, we rather think it more valuable to explore the field of research in which we pursue our work. In brief, the issue of whether isms should or should not be used might depend on how we look at our practice.

• 89 Although it is not our concern in this paper, it would be worth carrying out a critical analysis of (...)

33More specifically, it might have to do with what we think of the conventional devices which we deploy in our effort to provide new readings of history. As terms like “early modern”, “modern” and “post-modern” help us divide into smaller units of time the chronological vastness opened before us89, so the employment of isms help us grasp portions of the theoretical panorama of the past. Equally, classifications of past-traces according to whether they are written or oral, documents or texts, public/official or private, intellectual or popular, in a foreign language or our own, translated and, if so, by whom and under what circumstances, constitute indispensable lenses through which to bring into focus historical experience(s). All of these instruments – isms included – are the fruit of conventions which can facilitate the study of history and strengthen our inevitably limited approach to it.

• 90 Quentin Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism, Cambridge, CUP, 1998, p. 110-112. See also Robert Lamb, (...)

34To address the complex issue of isms is also an attempt to rethink the conditions of knowledge available to the intellectual historian. In this sense, it is of chief importance to ask whether the (intellectual) historian is an antiquarian or a rescuer of the past or, rather, a shaper of its cultural codes for consumption in the here and now. Is studying the past in its multifarious manifestations a reproductive effort or does it imply a creative endeavour ? Should historical research be guided by the unachievable goal of telling what really happened ? Or, more humbly, should it consist in a search for understanding through the fallible instruments at our disposal, the meanings of textual traces left behind on that distant – or not so distant – horizon ? If the task of the intellectual historian is to become aware of concepts and ideas employed nowadays in an unconscious and even uncomprehending manner, then to examine our way of employing isms is not only justified but necessary90. As an archaeologist excavating the past and bringing to life remnants of it, the type of historian whose work we admire should not refrain from using language, categories and models which, whilst respectful of the rhetoric of past authors, are also capable of conveying to modern readers a sense of what it might have been like.

• 91 Brian Young, “The Tyranny of the Definite Article : Some Thoughts on the Art of Intellectual Histor (...)
• 92 Young, “The Tyranny of the Definite Article”, p. 105, p. 107.
• 93 Blair Worden, Roundhead Reputations : The English Civil Wars and the Passions of Posterity, Harmond (...)

35To achieve this entails an inventive effort on the part of the historian. It presupposes a practitioner willing to adopt a different pose before past-fragments left in texts, documents, paintings etc. : one that applies imagination and irony to the art of unveiling and narrating what went on in both the foreground and the background of historical experience. Moved by the aim of giving form to new ideas, images or concepts so as to better capture events and actions, words and theories scattered on that often alien canvas we name history, the intellectual historian pursues his/her activity more like an artist than like a scientist. As Brian Young - following Duncan Forbes - put it, he/she is active and persistent “in cultivating the artist’s penetrating eye91.” Shaped by “the idea of history as literature, and literature as history”, intellectual historians are “uniquely sensitive masters of rhetoric (and entrepreneurs of the rhetorical repertoire rather than philosophers)92.” This profile strongly suggests that “historians, like novelists, are makers of order93.” It also reminds us that to use isms is integral to this enterprise of translating past utterances for twenty-first-century readers. After all, history-writing is a narrative art.

• 94 Partly drawing on the ideas of the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, imagination is here taken a (...)
• 95 Brian Young referred to Hugh Trevor-Roper as an eminent instance of this kind of history-practition (...)
• 96 John W. Burrow, “Intellectual History in English Academic Life : Reflections on a Revolution”, in W (...)
• 97 Richard Cobb, prolific historian of modern France and eccentric cosmopolitan Oxford don, pertinentl (...)

36Thus, our historian is at work to stage the aesthetically and intellectually rich encounter between texts and contexts. Instead of cutting a presumptuously - if not tyrannically - oracular figure, this historian is a stylist whose trained imagination94 has the liberating power of bringing together the familiar and the unfamiliar, the known and the unknown95. In so doing, he/she accounts for the important variations which informed the meanings of concepts such as “absolute”, “homeland”, “radical” and “liberty”, and clarifies how these affect scholarly definitions of “absolutism”, “patriotism”, “radicalism” and “liberalism.” As intellectual categories of the former helped societies to reflect on their organization and life, so scholarly conventions belonging to the latter invite scholars to examine their own assumptions. In this regard, we can say with John W. Burrow that “[i]ntellectual history is not parody” : rather, it is a negotiation between us and the past in the form of “eavesdropping” and indeed “translation96.” Since to translate entails not just the operation of translating from but also that of translating into a language, it is legitimate to assert that chronologically heterogeneous concepts can be employed to interpret discourse formulated in the past. In other words, to convey the past to an audience implies transmitting images in an intelligible way, and this is precisely what isms do by helping the reader to see connections – in the Wittgensteinian sense – that might otherwise have remained obscure. The job-description we hereby propose requires two main skills : observer and creator97.