The historian, then, may be thought of as scrutinizing the actions and
activity of political theory, and asking questions about what it has been and
done, answers to which will necessarily take the form of narratives of actions
performed and their consequences. The historian’s activity is clearly not
identical with that of the political theorist. Before we go on to set these two
activities in confrontation and interaction, it is desirable to ask whether
‘‘histories of political theory’’ have been or may be constructed, and what
character they may possess. Here the focus of our enquiry shifts. A ‘‘history of
political theory’’ would clearly move beyond the scrutiny of particular acts in
the construction of such theory, and would suppose ‘‘political theory’’ to be
and have been an ongoing activity, about which generalizations may be made
and which can be said to have undergone changes in its general character over
the course of time; changes which could be recounted in the form of a narrated
history. There are, however, few such histories; few, that is, which are or may
be called histories of political ‘‘theory’’ in any sense in which that term may be
distinguished from, or isolated within, the ‘‘history of political thought’’ as the
academic genre it has become. Histories of this kind are themselves indeter-
minate, in the sense that options exist and have been exercised as to what kinds
of literature may or should be included in them, and it is a consequence that
the terms ‘‘political thought’’ and ‘‘political theory’’ have often been used
interchangeably, or with no precise attention to diVerences between them. The
political theorist whose attention turns to history, therefore, is often con-
fronted with historical narratives whose content bears little relation to the
activity of ‘‘political theory’’ as it may have been deWned. It is not unreasonable
if such a theorist asks why such histories deserve attention.
3 Histories and their Purpose
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
In the last forty orWfty years, canonical histories of this kind have fallen into
disfavor (although there have recently been some signs of a revival 1 ). The
best-known alternative in English, associated with the work of Quentin
1 For example, Coleman ( 2000 ); she might not accept the adjective ‘‘canonical.’’theory in history: problems of context and narrative 167