NP RE: Unrelated Lothrops

[Doug Millison]

Motley, John Lothrop

 
born April 15, 1814, Boston, Mass., U.S.
died May 29, 1877, Dorchester, Dorset, Eng.


American diplomat and historian best remembered for The Rise of the Dutch
Republic, a remarkable work of amateur scholarship that familiarized readers
with the dramatic events of the Dutch revolt against Spanish rule in the
16th century. 

Motley graduated from Harvard in 1831 and then studied law in Germany,
returning to Boston in 1835. He was appointed secretary to the U.S. legation
in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1841, and he later served as minister to
Austria (1861-67) and Great Britain (1869-70). He published The Rise of the
Dutch Republic in 1856. Motley viewed the Dutch revolt as a conflict between
a democratic, tolerant, and rational Protestantism and the persecuting
absolutism of Roman Catholic Spain. This work was a classic of popular
history in the 19th century, though later scholarship modified Motley's
concept of the religious basis of the revolt to include constitutional and
economic factors. 

Motley planned to carry his history down to 1648, but he died before he
could complete his work. By then he had published, in four volumes, The
History of the United Netherlands, 1584-1609 (1860-67) and, in two volumes,
The Life and Death of John of Barneveld (1874).


"Motley, John Lothrop" Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 
<http://www.members.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=55326&sctn=1> 
[Accessed 25 July 2001]. 


American literature

New England reformers and historians


A worldwide movement for change that exploded in the revolutionsof 1848
naturally attracted numerous Americans. Reform was in the air, particularly
in New England. At times even Brahmins and Transcendentalists took part.
William Lloyd Garrison, ascetic and fanatical, was a moving spirit in the
fight against slavery;his weekly newspaper, The Liberator (1831-65), despite
a small circulation, was its most influential organ. A contributorto the
newspaper--probably the greatest writer associatedwith the movement--was
John Greenleaf Whittier.His simple but emotional poems on behalf of
abolition were collected in such volumes as Poems Written During the
Progress of the Abolition Question . . . (1837), Voices of Freedom
(1846),and Songs of Labor, and Other Poems (1850). The outstanding novelist
of the movement--so far as effect was concerned--was Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Her Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) combined the elements of contemporary humour
and sentimental fiction to dramatize the plight of the Negro. 


One other group of writers--and a great novelist--contributed to the
literature of New England in this period of its greatest glory.The group
consisted of several historians who combined scholarly methods learned
abroad with vivid and dramatic narration. These included George Bancroft,
author of History of the United States (completed in 12 volumes in 1882),
and John Lothrop Motley,who traced the history of the Dutch Republic and the
United Netherlands in nine fascinating volumes (1856-74). The leading member
of the group was Francis Parkman, who, in a series of books (1851-92), wrote
as a historian of the fierce contests between France and England that marked
the advance of the American frontier and vividly recorded his own Western
travels in The Oregon Trail (1849).

To cite this page: 
"American literature" Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 
<http://www.members.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=108646&sctn=5> 
[Accessed 25 July 2001].