Belloc’s historical work is divided broadly into two chief fields of interest: England and France; and within these respective areas of concentration a particular era predominates: in England it is the Reformation, down to the final exile of the Stuart Kings; in France, it is the Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire. Transcending these broad interests, there are works which deal with the wider sweep of Western History from before the Incarnation, down through the Middle Ages, up to the Reformation and even beyond World War I to the _Crisis of Our Civilization_. Biography and general history incarnate the above work. Besides all that, Belloc has produced an odd dozen specialized monographs which deal with subjects close to his heart: studies on the Roman Road, on Sussex, on cities and their river tributaries, and finally on military history. The first two attach to his general European history and illustrate his “pro-Roman” and “pro-Catholic” positions. The military monographs are grouped chiefly, although not exclusively, around England. Not including his travel books, which illustrate historical matter, one can count forty-six books written by Belloc that are historical in the full sense of the term. The story of Belloc’s going up to Oxford as an undergraduate, astounding the University with his brilliance and pugnacity, is well known. The story of his exclusion from Oxford as a tutor because of his bellicose Catholicism may be revealed some day. In any case, this rebuff added something personal to his bitterness against what he called the “official history” of the great English Universities. His work must be understood in relation to the two historical trends that he reacted against with such violence: the Whig tradition of Gibbon, Mommsen, Macaulay, Green, and their copyists and sycophants; and the implicit idealism and anti-traditionalism of German _Historismus_. Because he was engaged in a conscious and articulate controversy with these two historical schools for almost fifty years, an understanding of what he is opposing is indispensable for placing Belloc as an historian.