_INTRODUCTORY NOTE_
_Edward Augustus Freeman (1823-92), one of the most distinguished of
recent English historians, was born at Harborne, in Staffordshire, and
educated at Oxford, where he was a Fellow of Trinity College, and later
Regius Professor of Modern History. His earlier writings show great
interest in architecture, and it was one of his distinctions to be the
first historian to make extensive use in his subject of the evidences
and illustrations supplied by the study of that art. His most famous
and most elaborate work was his "History of the Norman Conquest"
(1867-79), a monument which is likely long to remain the great
authority on its period._
_Freeman believed in the unity of the study of history, and in the wide
range of his own writings he went far toward realising the universality
he preached. Outside of the field just mentioned he wrote on ancient
Greece, on Sicily, on the Ottoman Empire, on the United States, on the
methods of historical study, and on many other subjects. His interests
were primarily political, and he took an active part in the politics of
his own day, writing for many years for the "Saturday Review." As a
teacher he influenced profoundly the scientific study of history in
England._
_Of few terms in general use has the average man a less exact or less
accurate comprehension than of the word "race." The speculative
philologists of last century, with their attempts to classify the
peoples of the earth according to linguistic evidences, succeeded, as
far as the layman is concerned, chiefly in adding to the confusion by
popularising prematurely facts whose signification was improperly
understood. The anthropologists of a more recent time, with their
study of skull-shapes and complexions, have sought to correct
misapprehensions; but the popular mind is still in a mist about the
whole matter. In the following essay Freeman brings his knowledge of
modern scientific results and his enormous historical information to
the rescue of the bewildered student, and does much to clear up the
perplexing relations of race with language, custom, and blood._