President Obama is using Whig history to shape the narrative arc of his economic achievements. In 1931, Herbert Butterfield, an Oxford University don, wrote a short book entitled The Whig Interpretation of History. It’s not on today’s NYT’s Best Seller list, but it does describe President Obama’s efforts to frame the economic policies of his tenure as POTUS in a favorable light. Back in the 30’s, Butterfield argued that historians who addressed English history from the 17th Century forward often did so with a bias for Protestants and Whigs, and against Catholics and Tories. Butterfield labeled the product of Whig historians as “abridgements” that reflected the impact of current politics on past events. In other words, Whig historians, he argued, were prone to bend the “narrative arc” (one of POTUS candidate Obama’s favorite phrases) to fit their political template. We’ve heard several renditions of Whig...(Read Full Post)